When my eldest son was three, I was told by the local Education Authority that I would have to either move or home-educate as they were not going to help with his education if we stayed farming our island home. Our farm was our livelihood so I had no choice but to attempt to teach …
Imagine standing in your garden surrounded by 14 members of the local pipe band playing a tune named after your own island home. Sounds pretty idyllic? It is and we are lucky enough to have experienced this many times. Many years ago, on a lovely summer’s day we had a visit from a few men …
Our magnificent native seaweed-eating sheep have their favourite food washed up fresh twice-a-day. They are living a completely natural life in a beautiful place. This high quality of life results in the purest wool yarn, free from chemicals, free from stress, and completely sustainable. Auskerry has two flocks of sheep each instinctively belonging, or ‘hefted’ …
Orkney has been having some very severe weather with High winds as well as ice and snow. As a result we cannot guarantee delivery in time for Christmas if you order after December 15th. We will of course do our best to dispatch orders as quickly as possible. We wish all our customers a very …
If you are having problems with our knitting kits or with our yarn, please contact us by email or phone and we will do our best to help. There is also a knitting blog with YouTube videos to help you if you are not sure about different stitches. We have recently found that there was …
We had some strong winds over Christmas which brought a lot of seaweed to the shore for the pregnant ewes who depend on the nutritious seaweed for their food. Currently we are enjoying a mild and dry spell with little in the way of wind, which is not so good for the sheep, but luckily …
As many of our kits are bought by novice knitters we decided to put some links to videos here to help if you get stuck. To see the videos just click on the links given in bold letters. Alternatively you can always email us for help; teresa@isleofauskerry.com CASTING ON METHODS Most casting-on methods begin …
The weather may not yet be warm but at least the ground is drying up a little, so we have been digging and planting in the small areas that we use to grow flowers and vegetables around the house. In the early days the garden had to be dug with a pickaxe as no fork …
The first day of May used to be the date when lambing really got under way and we would be rushed off our feet with 13 ewes lambing a day … but this year lambing has come early; we had 16 pairs and several singles born yesterday and similar numbers born on Thursday and Wednesday last week! …
There are only three flocks of North Ronaldsay Native Orkney sheep left in Orkney. Our flock is the second largest. Our island farm is 250 acres and the sheep have access to every part of it. However, the island will only support a finite number of sheep and so we have limited amounts of fleece …
All our products are handmade and individually designed and finished. We shear our sheep by hand (link to sheep blog) with tools that have been used since Medieval times. The fleeces are washed in open sinks outside and put through a Victorian mangle before being dried naturally in the fresh air. We cure our sheepskins …
The way that our sheep are farmed and the lives that they lead as well as the way we make our products is completely the opposite of modern industrial /intensive farming and manufacturing. When you buy our products you can enjoy knowing that our sheep are not confined to fields nor made to eat only …