Fleece and skirting: it's not WOOL

First thing to remember: it's not WOOL. 

Alpaca fiber people get really annoyed when you call it 'wool'. I am sure I annoyed a few people my first week here, as I kept slipping up.

They refer to it as 'alpaca fiber' (or fleece). THIS however, caused much confusion when I was explaining things to a lady at the booth at the Green Festival. She seemed very very confused and kept asking odd questions. Turns out she was a dietician, and fiber for HER is something entirely different. I can only imagine what was going on in her head as she tried to figure out what fiber had to do with yarn. 

Here is a 'blanket' spread out on the skirting table. The table has rods covered in plastic pipe so the dirt can fall out to the floor. They have a table top they put on when it needs to be used as an actual table.

Another blanket. You can see the scale used for weighing to the right, and one of the looms behind the table.

Yep, it's another blanket. The spray bottle is water for your hands, in case there's too much static. You spray your hands, but they can't be too wet or the fiber sticks together.














Some of the fleeces are marked as 'show fleece'. The animals are examined before shearing time, and they decide who has potential for show fleece. The fleece has to stay intact, so it takes longer to clean. With the regular fleeces you take chunks of the fleece, pick through it for grass, straw, and icky coarse 'guard hairs'.

Day ??: Skirting a fleece (my Americorps 'Reflection)

Part of being an Americorps Member is that I have to write a 'Reflection' every two weeks. I'm sharing it here. It's not as fun as my other posts, but I've been too tired to write lately. 

Americorps Reflection #1

My main reasons for choosing to spend three months learning about alpacas and sustainable farming was to be a part of something positive, do some physical labor, and have a PURPOSE for getting up every day.  Part of my goal was to NOT think too deeply, so I have found writing this ‘reflection’ difficult. I feel like I am supposed to have some great insight, but I really don’t want to think and analyze anymore. Instead, I’ll share what I’ve learned about ‘skirting’ and how I helped streamline the ‘skirting’ room.

Shearing time was just at the beginning of May. It seems like the shearing is the biggest task, but after the alpacas are sheared the fiber must be sorted, cleaned, and sent off to processing. Each animal sheared has two bags of fiber: a ‘firsts’ bag and a ‘seconds’ bag. While the animal is being sheared, the fleece gatherer puts the best fiber (the ‘firsts’) into one bag, and the ‘seconds’ (shorter/coarser) into another. They are all in clear trash bags with papers that have the animal’s name and whether it’s ‘firsts’ or ‘seconds’.  Before the blanket is ‘skirted’ (sorted through and cleaned), it must be weighed, and the ‘seconds’ bag must be found in order to add fiber from the blanket that does not qualify as a ‘first’.

There were about 60 animals sheared, so that meant there were 120 bags. All the blankets must be weighted before and after skirting, to get an idea of how much prime fiber they really get off an animal.  I took it upon myself to weigh them as they came in, so they didn’t get overlooked.

The main room had been set up to separate the ‘skirted’ and ‘not skirted’ blankets, but all of the ‘seconds’ bags were tossed into a side room. As a librarian, and super-organize-y person this did not seem efficient to me. One rainy day my boss said he had no more chores for me and I could do ‘whatever my little heart desired’. Well, my little heart desired to organize the ‘seconds’ room.

I moved all of the  ‘seconds’ whose blankets have already been skirted to one side, and labeled them. This way, you don’t need to search through 60 clear trash bags of fiber to find the one you need. All the ‘seconds’ whose blankets had NOT been skirted, I put on the other side of the room, labeled, and organized by color. Since the blankets are organized by color, this makes it easier to find its partner ‘seconds’ bag when you start a new blanket.

Everyone seemed very pleased with this setup, and said it made it easier to locate the bags. I think it’s funny that even on a farm, my organizing skills are useful. After two years of unemployment it’s good to be in a place where I feel my skills contribute to the overall operation, and help them meet their goals.

It seems my patience and detail oriented nature is a BIG positive in skirting. I have spent almost every afternoon in the skirting room, and the full timers are VERY happy with that. My work will help get the fiber out to the processor sooner, which means they will get spun yarn back sooner. They sell the yarn to help finance the center. Also, with just a few hours of solitary skirting under my belt, I got to train the new volunteer, Julia, on how to skirt a fleece. Since having to teach someone reinforces your own learning, I found this quite useful. I still fetch the ‘fiber’ lady when I have questions on sorting, but she usually reinforces what I would have decided.

I think I am making steady progress towards both my learning objectives and hours. I’m out in the barns every morning at 8:00, feeding animals and cleaning pastures. The afternoons I spend either skirting fleece or auditing/fixing their library card catalog. I feel I am making a positive contribution to the running of the farm and the Center.

Day 14 with alpacas: no spit, accepted into Americorp, Skirting a fleece

Yes indeedy, the day before shearing and I have not been spit upon. Tomorrow will come quickly, though. 7:00 a.m. start time. They are doing the 'big girls' first, which is about 30 'breeding age' females (and crias, the babies). I'm guessing when we enclose them in the barn and whip out that shearing table the spit will be flying.

Got an email that I've been accepted into Americorps. That is a good thing, but sadly it is only as the 300 hour volunteer, which means I keep track of my hours and at the end of the internship I get $1000 applied to whichever loan I choose. There is no stipend. (alas) I am glad to at least get the $1000 toward student loans, though. Perhaps being 'accepted' here and 'accepted' into Americorps is the start of a trend. Yes? Yes.

Learned how to 'skirt' a fleece last week, and got to practice today. Basically you take the main part of the fleece (the blanket), and separate it into 'firsts' and 'seconds'. Good fleece and not so good fleece. Then you pick out all the icky tough 'guard hairs' and shake out/pick out any grass seeds, twigs, etc. I am good at picking out small things and making it clean. :)  It's like sorting seed beads, very Zen! YEAH!!

I told them I want to learn how to shop-vac an alpaca tomorrow. That needs to be on my resume: shop-vac-ing an alpaca. I'm not sure what I will do with that skill, but it needs to be on there. Perhaps in a library storytime?

And yes, they literally take a shop-vac to the alpaca before shearing. It cleans off a lot of dirt/seeds/straw.

I do not think the alpacas will like this. Perhaps this will be the spitting point, the shop-vac.