Coffee is a purebred coloured Ryeland ewe, with a sweet timid nature when it comes to humans, but is a natural leader as far as her fellow flock mates are concerned. She's the one who decides when they should all move on after their midday nap, and the first to decide where they should all graze. She's like the 'Brown Owl' of the flock! She's a fantastic mother to her lambs, twins this year (Lucky and Lottie), allowing them to play 'king of the castle' on her back without the slightest flinch.

Coffee grows a short-stapled downland type fleece with plenty of crimp. Her wool is a light colour, pale brown at the tips and brown/grey marled underneath, which when processed has evened out to a lovely light heathered brown/grey shade. Her fleece the finest of my Ryeland ewes, it has a lovely soft hand, while maintaining the typical Ryeland crimp and bounce. It should make cosy mittens, hats or other outerwear garments, perhaps even a shawl.

Coffee was shorn in early May and her fleece sent to a small commercial mill for preparation into roving for handspinning. Our flock's fleeces were all prepared individually, so unlike many commercial tops available to handspinners, this roving maintains the character of the single sheep who grew the wool. The preparation is in true roving form, so is presented as a thin continuous strip of carded fibre. It contains a little spinning oil and some lanolin remains, making it very easy to draft and perfect for longdraw style spinning. It has been scoured gently without carbonizing agents, so you may find the occasional piece of hay or seed, this is however easy to pick out during spinning. Coffee's roving is available in very limited quantity as she tends to produce a small fleece (and a sheep can only grow one fleece a year!).