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Dozens of sheep take to Petaluma streets on Saturday during annual Transhumance Festival

Phil Barber, PRESS DEMOCRAT

As livestock drives go, this one was … different.

Pushed by ranchers on a quad, and kept in line by a pair of highly concerned dogs, a flock of about 65 sheep mobbed down urban East D Street in Petaluma on Saturday morning. They scooted in front of houses, parked cars and spectators — some delighted, some perplexed — and past an out-of-session day care center, the offices of the Burdell Building and Willibee’s Wine & Spirits.

The woolly animals started inside a small pen at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds and wound up at Steamer Landing, where they joined about 600 of their brethren that were already feasting on grasses at the park.

This was the sixth annual Transhumance Festival in Petaluma — “transhumance” refers to seasonal movement of livestock between mountain and lowland pastures — but the first since Petaluma launched a citywide grazing program in partnership with Two Rock Land Management last year.

“We hope to see this implemented in the rest of our county cities,” said Sarah Keiser, who helps the city with coordination, planning and management of the grazing program. “Regional Parks and some county sites do grazing, but Petaluma is the only city. Community members love it. It’s a really great experience for everyone to see this happening, and watch how it transitions our landscape.”

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/flock-of-sheep-streets-of-petaluma-transhumance-day/

Posted on Categories Agriculture/Food System, Local Organizations, Sustainable LivingTags , , ,

CropMobster headlines chronicle life on Sonoma County farms 

Meg McConahey, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
This just in…
Rogue Chickens Sabotage Inspires Mystery Fruit Tree Sale.
Wanted: Food for Black Bacon, a Cazadero Hills Black Hog and her babies
Deal: Two Emus Available For Sale. $50.
Looking For Work: “Need some extra hands, er … paws around the farm?”
Wanted: Three Leaves Foods CSK Wants your Uglies
The headlines at CropMobster.com offer a back fence view into the weird world of Sonoma County farms, where on an given day earnest farmers put out appeals for brewers mash and organic food waste, alerts for worm workshops and try to unload everything from surplus figs to emus.
A Craigslist for the ag set, CropMobster is where the farmer fed up with an obnoxious rooster can connect with the farmer who needs a rooster to service a flock of breeding hens. It’s a place where homely fruit unfit for the farmer’s market, can find someone to love it, or at least like it enough to can it, and where a perfectly good wheel of cheese too stinky for one woman’s kitchen can find a west county nonprofit very happy at its next meeting.
The sometimes urgent headlines telegraph the disappointments and the dreams and desperation of the farm life with a solid dose of humor.
Read more at: CropMobster headlines chronicle life on Sonoma County farms | The Press Democrat

Posted on Categories Sustainable LivingTags , Leave a comment on Come out to inaugural Wool Festival in Valley Ford May 17-18

Come out to inaugural Wool Festival in Valley Ford May 17-18

Diane Peterson, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

You’ve heard of “farm to table.” But what about “farm to home,” providing locally grown wool bedding and mattresses, dryer balls and comforters?

That movement is on the rise in the hills of Valley Ford, where Ariana Strozzi and Casey Mazzucchi opened the Valley Ford Mercantile and Wool Mill last spring to showcase their wool products.“We’re really in the heart of sheep country out here,” said Strozzi, who raises 150 sheep at Skyhorse Ranch in Valley Ford. “We’re trying to bring wool back.”

To celebrate wool’s resurgence and promote its healthy benefits, Strozzi and Mazzucchi are hosting the first annual Wool Festival from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 17-18, at the store, 14390 Highway 1.The festival celebrates all things wild and woolly during the spring, which is haircut season for sheep.

via Come out to inaugural Wool Festival in Valley Ford | The Press Democrat.

Posted on Categories Agriculture/Food System, Sustainable LivingTags Leave a comment on Wool industry warming up in Sonoma County

Wool industry warming up in Sonoma County

Robert Digitale, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The used machine from North Carolina weighs 15,000 pounds and required two days to change just half its 10,000 needles.

It now sits in an old barn attached to a store on the main highway in Valley Ford, where its owners take raw wool and make wide strips of felt for artisan clothing and other uses.

“There really isn’t a textile industry in California,” said Ariana Strozzi, who with her partner Casey Mazzucchi last fall opened the Valley Ford Mercantile & Wool Mill.

The couple had to go out of state to buy the old needle loom and to purchase a wool carding machine that came from Ohio. The two pieces of equipment together cost about $85,000, Strozzi said.

Mazzucchi and Strozzi are part of fledgling efforts to make more goods locally from the wool of North Coast sheep. The participants include local ranchers and advocates who maintain that consumers should shift to natural fibers and away from more environmentally harmful synthetic fabrics.

via Wool industry warming up in Sonoma County | The Press Democrat.