As the early spring sun washes the night’s frost from the meadow at Shearbrooke Farm in Standish, residents of the weathered barn chatter earnestly in a hundred dissonant voices – bleats and blats, cackles and squawks.
Startled by something, or maybe nothing, a chicken hops off her straw nest of adopted duck eggs and scuttles across the floor, chased by a gleeful golden retriever named Baxter.
Somewhere, a rooster calls out his welcome to the morning while a number of sheep having a colossally bad hair day look up as their owner walks in.
Karen Smith, of Standish, smiles at her 14 fleecy “children;” greeting many of them by name as they poke their noses between the two-by-fours of the wooden pen. One of them, Honey, nuzzles her hand insistently for more petting. And a faint smile of satisfaction seems to appear on the sheep’s face as she closes her eyes and relaxes under Smith’s loving fingers.
One by one during the next few weeks, these animals will be freed from their warm and weighty dreadlocks when they receive their spring shearing. Smith usually hires a shearer to perform the arduous task but with shearers in short supply, this year, she may do the job herself.
Smith’s passion for sheep developed from her attraction to rabbits more than 20 years ago. Back then, she and her husband lived in Cape Elizabeth. On a visit to the Cumberland Fair, Smith became fascinated by a woman who sat spinning yarn directly from tufts of fur she pulled from an Angora rabbit lying peacefully on her lap.
It wasn’t long before Smith secretly housed 25 Angora rabbits of her own in her Cape Elizabeth home.
As relaxing as it was to spin her rabbits into yarn, Smith wanted to learn more about weaving. She approached an area weaver who told her to “come back when you’re serious.”
That negative comment had a positive effect on Smith. She began in earnest to pursue her desire to learn the art (with a different teacher).
“I went to seminars, talked to people, read up on it and went to the Maine Sheep Breeders,” she said.
It wasn’t long before she had persuaded her husband to move from his hometown to an 80-acre farm in Standish where she could raise sheep. And it took some persuading.
But her husband supported her interest and the two shared the endless chores necessary to run a farm.
A school teacher by degree, Smith, now retired, worked for SAD 6 as an educational technician in a special needs classroom, which left her time after school to tend to the animals and her weaving. She also began teaching (vowing never to question whether or not a perspective student was serious) and meeting with other fiber artists in her home studio.
Fifteen years ago, this group of 23 became the Saco Valley Fiber Artists. And for the past 12 years, it has offered a popular two-day summer workshop at Shearbrooke Farm, with about ten classes on everything from spinning to rug hooking to felting.
The workshop even serves a gourmet lunch, made by the instructors. And last year, they compiled their favorite recipes into a cookbook, with proceeds from its sale going to an association of Guatemalan weavers.
Smith’s life has been filled with the people and things she loves.
But sadly, last year, Smith’s husband died unexpectedly. Though his death was hard to accept, Smith says her fiber artist friends and those who raise sheep were quick to comfort and care for her.
“The people who raise sheep are the most wonderful source of help,” she said. “They’ll come in the middle of the night for a lambing. There’s no competition; they’re very supportive.”
In fact, on the day of her husband’s funeral, Smith helped a friend deliver a lamb.
A soft bleat sounds from one of the four new lambs in Smith’s barn. With a sudden realization that he’s hungry, the tiny animal, so new that he’s still clean and white, turns to his mother, then wags his tail in satisfaction as he drinks ravenously from her.
Three other baby lambs frolic nearby, sheltered from harm by their attentive mothers.
And several sheep stand waiting, silhouetted against the flood of sunlight pouring from behind them through the open barn door. They, too, will lamb in the next few weeks. Maybe before the chicken’s duck eggs hatch. Maybe with the help of some of Smith’s friends, her community, her family.
In her studio at Shearbrooke Farm, Karen Smith spins fleece into yarn. The studio is open to spinners and weavers every Wednesday and Thursday evening and is home to the Saco Valley Fiber ArtistsSend questions/comments to the editors.
