Maisie Goes To The Wool Mill

The washed wool gets dumped into the back hopper, gets picked up and picked out by the swinging arm thingy, then over the top...

...and falls out of this smaller hopper...

...where it's picked/fluffed some more and then onto the drums.  I think I counted 20 or 24 rollers, but now can't remember.

And the after it's brushed and brushed and brushed through all the rollers, it gets pulled off the final drum into ready to spin roving.

Here's where it gets a little dicey on who this is.  It appears to be Maisie according to my camera files, but looks too clean to be Maisie.  My tongue in cheek post about her fleece being white as snow came back to haunt me.  I hope the shotgun shells don't jam up their machines!  Maisie, Maisie, Maisie...

This I know is Blossom.  Remember the huge fleece from the festival?  Yep, still huge.

Beth sets it all in neatly and then (over and over) pushes it down into the bag in the box...

...where it springs back out, ready to have more added to it!

This is Hershey's lamb fleece, flying free around the drums.  That'd be Hershey for sure!  Luckily most of it drifts back onto the drums, but some has to be swept up off the floor and tossed back in.  Yep, classic Hershey ;-).

B. Willard.  I thought this would be an interesting shot with the contrast between the stationary curls and the whirling drum getting ready to pick them up.  However, when I look at it now, it kind of makes me feel like someone getting ready to jump off the high dive for the first time. 

Ideally I'd hoped to show the gradients from dark gray to white, but the lighting was tough and I didn't have my "big girl" camera.  (Left to right) Hershey, Boudreaux, B. Willard, Henrietta, Ford, Allie, Maisie and Blossom. 

It's sure hard to beat a car full of fresh roving!