Thirteen Mile Lamb & Wool is a small sheep ranch and wool mill in Southwest Montana.
We make our own yarns.
Thirteen Mile Farm got its name from the mile post at the end of our driveway--thirteen miles North of downtown Bozeman, Montana. Our address is Belgrade, and now the mileage markers have been moved, but we're still Thirteen Mile. We've been raising sheep here since the late 80s, and in 2004 began processing our own wool in the barn. We wash, card, spin and felt wool and other natural fibers for growers all over the country as well. Although we have been raising grassfed, organic lamb here for years, we are now marketing the meat through Willowspring Ranch, a nearby ranch that purchased our original flock several years ago. So this page is for WOOL.
Our wool is certified organic and predator friendly, and mill management in the barn reflects our land management approach outside---trying to do what we can to work in keeping with natural systems. Solar thermal panels on the south-facing roof of the barn heat water for the wool-washing needs (with propane furnace backup), and photovoltaic panels on a tracker provide more than 80% of the mill's electrical needs. The citrus-based scouring agents don't add anything toxic to the wash water, so we're able to sprinkle that onto our fields or onto our compost piles, thus benefiting from the 'fertilizer' that comes from washing raw wool (poop, pee, dirt and grease).
Although yarn is our primary product, we make a range of goods from our wool, and process fiber for other growers as little or as much as they want, up to yarn. This means that everything from plain washed fiber, to handspinners' roving, to quilt batts and felt, yarn and knitted goods, emerges from the mill.
Right now we have five part-time employees who are the heart of the mill. You will likely meet them here. We all do various tasks in the mill, almost always more than one at a time. All the employees have fiber or farm experience to varying degrees, and they, along with the smorgasbord of fibers that flows through here, ensure that monotony never visits Thirteen Mile Farm. Dave and I are most likely to be in the mill at odd hours, coming and going mixing in other farm jobs.
One of our employees is a weaver (among other things) and is beginning to explore some weaving projects using Thirteen Mile wool. Stay tuned. All sorts of unexpected requests for wool keep us going as well---stuffing for saddle repair; felt mats for anything from cribs to cars, wooly dryer balls, and more...Our processing customers are fiber animal producers, big and small, who bring not only wool, but bison, alpaca, llama, dog, and goat fiber too. We've even had some yak and wolf and musk ox fiber come through. Some want products only for their own use; others take their goods to farmers' markets or wholesale outlets or even juried art shows for their felted and woven pieces. In all cases we are jointly adding value to their raw fiber, and celebrating the diversity that grows on grass.
Bottom line, this whole venture is an experiment to see if small-scale, decentralized industry, coupled to agriculture, close to home, can be viable (and enjoyable). So far it's working, and still evolving.
