Smudge was born here on the 11th of March 2013. I was very lucky to witness the straight forward birth of her and her twin sister Phlox and capture some lovely shots of Smudge’s first moments with her mum Fern. Smudge and her twin sister were born as a result of their dad Pancake hopping over the fence one night to reach the ewes. Their existence is a very happy accident. Smudge earned her name because of the black smudge on her nose. As a lamb Smudge was an amazing golden colour but as she grew up her colour faded a little. She still looks a lovely oaty beige colour now all these years later but her fleece, when washed, is actually a beautiful mix of grey tones. Like her sister Smudge was such a friendly lamb but once she reached a year old she grew quite wild and is now affectionately known as ‘Psycho Smudge’. Which may seem a bit unkind but if you had witnessed some of the crazy things Smudge has done you would see why. I remember one occasion where Smudge got separated from the rest of the flock when they were moving fields. She instantly panicked and launched herself through the stock fence and top strand of barbed wire on one of the fences and then through another fence and another where she landed in a field with some horses. She charged around like a deer. A similar thing happened again several years later when Smudge was heavily pregnant for the first time. This time she charged blindly into the barn and managed to get herself wedged down the side of a horse trailer. Unfortunately, Smudge’s one and only pregnancy did not have a happy ending as when she did finally go into labour both her lambs were stillborn. Whether her crazy antics had anything to do with this or not we will never know. I think its unlikely Smudge will have anymore lambs due to the way she is but I never say never as you just well never know with sheep. In 2019 I worked with some of Smudge’s fleeces for the first time and used them to weave a lovely long narrow rug on the peg loom. Her fleece is quite coarse and kempy but really lovely to work with and the final rug looked stunning. It was finished with some fleece tassels that were made with some of the rather lovely hairy wool from Smudge’s back legs. I was very tempted to keep this rug for myself but it was snapped up by a lady at the Conwy Feast in October 2019 where it was on display. I plan to weave another similar rug from Smudge’s fleeces and perhaps this time I will squirrel this one away for myself.
