Blog Archives - Blue Mountain Farm and Fiber Mill

Skirting is key!

1/31/2023

We have been getting a lot of questions on skirting lately for our fiber mill and we welcome questions with open arms. Reason being, the more educated growers are about their fleeces and preparation for processing, the better we will be able to provide you with a beautiful product as a representation of your years worth of hard work raising your fiber animals! Our best advice to everyone is "the cleaner your fiber comes into the mill, the cleaner your end product will be!" & "when in doubt, throw it out." Throwing it out doesn't necessarily mean to the garbage or manure pile. There are plenty of uses for skirting as well (a topic for another day). Creating good yarns all starts in the barns/pastures and when the conditions are right, it shows in the end!

Clean fiber means a consistent, uniform yarn

Leicester Longwool Yarn spun at Blue Mountain Farms Fiber Mill

Positive Reviews...

1/23/2023

Reviews like this just make our day!! We love sharing what we do with all of you and your support is encouraging! We couldn't do what we do without all of YOU! So thank you!!

We love to hear what you have to say!! Happy customer keep us motivated to continue to provide the best products we can for you here at Blue Mountain Farms!

....Farm Show is a wrap!

1/15/2023

...And just like that, the 2023 PA State Farm Show has come to an end! The dismantling of the butter sculpture is the last task. Talk about butter fingers! All of that butter doesn't go to waste, though! It travels to Reinford Farms, where it is actually turned into renewable energy!

New Yarn Collection...

1/15/2023

New hand painted yarns that will be heading to the farm store this week!! Keep your peeled for new additions to our online farm store or pop in to see what we've been working on!

Ag Education is Important!

1/13/2023

Had the chance to share our family's story at the Farm Show today and a bit on what we do here at Blue Mountain! It's was neat to just think back on where we started and that initial spark that ignited within our family almost 18 years ago when visiting the Farm Show. Now we couldn't imagine a year without it or the Ag community!
Afterwards, we had to stop and visit the Meckley Brooms booth! If you haven't stopped by there, you should! They are such friendly people with a quality, locally made (by their family) product!

Sheep to Shawl 2023

1/11/2023

Wow wow wow... what at day at the PA Farm Shows Sheep to Shawl contest yesterday! Madi, Ben, and friends had a team called Twisted Sisters (and a dude) and their theme was ice cream! Yummy!! They all worked so well together! Tyler sheared for them and our young ewe, Piper, donated her bea-ewe-tiful fiber for the contest! Tyler was booking and was 2nd to finish shearing so the kids could start cracking away at their shawl! They worked for 2 hours and managed to cut their shawl off the loom with a little time to spare! While they might not have been awarded the Blue Ribbon, it was most certainly a blue ribbon worthy experience for the team! Just seeing the crowd gathered in the stands again compared to the past two years due to covid was heartwarming to see again!
Congrats to our buddies on the Friends Thru Fiber team on their stunning sunflower shawl and 1st place!!
Huge thanks to the buyers who come out and support ALL of these hard working teams! It takes a lot to keep these traditions going and the proceeds from these shawls help teams to come back year after year!
I realized later that we were so into the contest that we forgot to snap pictures while they were working, so here are a few after the competition and at the shawl auction.

Piper made it to the Farm Show...

1/11/2023

Our little lady Piper made it down to the Farm Show and is getting ready for her haircut at the Sheep to Shawl contest at 3:00 this afternoon!!

Blue Mountain Farms Piper at the 2023 PA Farm Show Sheep to Shawl event

2023 PA Farm Show Angorapalooza

1/10/2023

Angorapalooza 2023 was a success! There were four fabulous teams that competed last night and all created stunning scarves! We're especially proud if the all youth teams for not giving up and racing to the very end, finishing those scarves 100% on their own!! Congrats to all of the exhibitors! We truly all just do it to have a great time, gain experience, and create something beautiful in the process! Huge thank you to all of the buyers this year and to Tyler for always keeping the auction upbeat and fun!

PA Farm Show Square Dancing...

1/9/2023

For Ashley only learning how to square dance in just under 1 week and only having our square fully together for the first time just hours before the contest, I'd say the Bad News Squares (Bad News Bears reference) pulled off a pretty neat performance! Thanks Madi Shaw for all of the late night dance lessons! If you've never done it before, you should! We had the best time and had quite the support crew in the stands! Some of my favorite Blue Mountain ladies even came to watch! What a night

Farm Show begins...

1/8/2023

Farm Show 2023 has been off to a wonderful start!! Matt and I have been working together to run the showmanship and poster contests in the rabbit department and I must say having such a great group of kids participating makes it go so smoothly and enjoyable! I also have to thank my judges from today... they, along with the rest of the rabbit department, made an excellent team! Congrats to all the kiddos with their accomplishments yesterday!
I also entered a decorated wreath at the PA Tree Growers booth and was honored with 3rd place overall out of a beautiful class of wreath making pros from across the state! We even managed to snag a piece of the chocolate cake from the PA preferred chocolate cake contest when they started handing out samples!
Madi and I have been having late nights prepping for the rest of the excitement coming up later this week, but Comet isn't complaining... he loves his auntie snuggles!