Hi everyone,
Today is a day of technological errors. QuickBooks, the PHONE, grrr. Now is a great day to bury myself in the soft, lovely wool.
Shearing is around the corner. We have some wonderful growers and they grow primarily Rambouillet. This is a breed of sheep that has a funny back story. I am going to paraphrase, but here is the basic tale.
Years ago, we are talking middle ages, France had all of the textile mills and Spain had all of this lovely breed of Merino sheep. So France, in order to have top notch wool fabric they HAD to ask Spain. And Spain, realizing that they had a great thing going made it Illegal to export the Merino breed of sheep. Even punishable by death! Yes!
So the King of France decided on a plan. He was going to start an exotic animal zoo. Off went a letter requesting breeding animals of many of the exotic animals of Spain. And buried in the list was a request for....Merino sheep. Shhh.
So the King of Spain signed off and a whole menagerie of animals arrived in France, including a group of about 40 Merino, which quickly were re-named: Rambouillet after the name of the castle at which the zoo was housed. Today's Rambouillet decended from French royalty and now wander the prairie. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Wooly remittance men. Don't those horns remind you of crowns?
Cheers!
I have heard this story too--although I didn't remember the name of the sheep. I also heard that much of the vaunted italian merino is from American sheep. Hmmmmmmmmm. Globalism?
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