Mallows Flock of Shetland Sheep

Having owned Shetland sheep for just shy of 18 years, we have worked hard to establish a small, quality flock of very fine fleeced,  grey katmoget Shetland sheep in the South West of England and has had her fingers in a number of Shetland Sheep Society (SSS) related pies over the last decade or so.

I (Lisa) have sat on the SSS Committee twice and, as part of that, took the role of Judges and Inspectors Panel ‘buddy’ prior to being a fully-fledged J&IP member in her own right once her second Committee term had ended. In addition, I was a member of the Committee’s Risk Assessment Group and an active member of the Shetland Sheep Society Marketing Group within which I wrote a number of articles for the Shetland Breed newsletter on a whole host of breed and farming related topics. In addition to the official SSS magazine, I have written a number of published articles on Shetland sheep and smallholding and was a columnist for a local newspaper group and a regular contributor to the Somerset Smallholders press. For nearly 10 years I held the position of Somerset Area Representative for the Shetland Sheep Society and took the acting role of Devon Area Rep for a short time in addition and still organise localised social events and annual lunches for the members of the South West.

As a family, we successfully shows our sheep, our fleeces and our wool-on-the-hoof entries annually and have a number of Best in Show and Champion fleeces under our belts. Although not a gifted wool crafter myself, blaming lack of time mainly for this, I thoroughly enjoy and see the benefit of crafting with my children, especially using wool as a medium – believing that the future of wool partly relies on it being a very normal material for the children of today to be handling. When I get a moment to be still, I often look to the future when things may be quieter and more slowly paced and am excited about the prospect of having a table-top loom in order to make my own products from our own wool but I also sees the great value, financially and in terms of rebuilding wool as a valued material in the UK, in using fleece in everyday life (from high value good such as duvets and pillows, mattresses and carpets to the more mundane but affordable; from hanging basket liners to tree mulch to wool-pathways even down to using a piece of britch wool as the most excellent bucket-scrubber and views none of these activities as wasting wool but preserving the normal use of wool within a person’s mind which she hopes will preserve the need and value of wool in the future.

In recent times, our permaculture based farming has morphed further into exploring a regenerative, holistic based agricultural style, despite still being a smallholder (homesteader) rather than a farmer and looks to breed sheep with excellent conformation framed by a delectable soft and fine fleece which she sells to a local, independent wool business who sends her fleece to handspinners and in turn creates beautiful children’s clothing in Dorset County. We also sells a variety of beautiful grey skins privately and have a very successful meat box scheme whereby the waiting list for meat boxes is closed before the hogget we sell has yet to be born.