From Spent Grains to Wool Rugs

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At the start of this week I had the opportunity to check irrigation by myself. This lease is on a section of pasture where there used to be lush timothy grass; however, the salt grass has taken over. Now they are in the process of bale feeding and irrigating in order to help the regrowth. The water comes from a pond on the property where it is trickled into an irrigation pond closer to the field. This is where the pump is located to pump into into the pipes where the sprinklers than disperse it over the field.

During the rest of the week it was the string of normal chores, as well as getting ready to send BJ to the wool festival this weekend. The sheep were moved away from the home spot onto a new lease. This allows them access to more grass while keeping that lease maintained. New electric sheep fence came in, adding to our amount and allowing us to create a bigger holding pen for them to graze in. All of the lambs have been born now and they’re growing fast.

Throughout the summer, the brewery in town tends to brew more beer which means more spent grains for us. We went into town to pick up the new batch that had been produced; spent grains are what is leftover from the brewing process. We utilize it for feed which allows for lower feed costs. We also pick up table scraps from the soup kitchen. This minimizes food waste because it is being repurposed and utilized for the animals.

Then it was onto more work with the felted wool rugs. The week before we had felted three wool pelts into wool rugs. It is a very interesting process that honestly is less than you would think needs to occur in order to cause that to happen. This week we started the process of washing and combing them out. Just like every other animal, organic matter gets caught in their wool. This happens during the process of feeding hay or allowing them to utilize straw as bedding. In order to get as much out as possible, we used a power washer and a fine tooth dog comb. This process was repeated a couple times in order to get the wool as clean as possible. We also utilized a conditioner to try to get the wool to stay soft and wavy and not get disfigured during the combing process. It was interesting to me to see the difference in wool rugs simply based on the certain structure of the wool. They all turned out very nice, as well as being soft.

Following finishing the wool rugs, BJ started and showed me the process of preparing skulls for sale. She had several skulls that she had defleshed and then boiled in order to get them clean. They have horns, so the sheath will come off of the bone to fully clean. There is a wool festival in Kemmerer, WY, this weekend which she will have a booth at. She took the felted wool rugs, some tanned hides, and skulls. I cannot wait to hear how it went.

See Savannah’s video here, May_7_3_23_3

Submitted by: Savannah May
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team