A2B—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 7,1984
BY JACK HUBLEY
ATGLEN An afternoon drive
to this place is a step back in time.
Leave the bumper-to-bumper
behind in Lancaster, head for
Strasburg, then south to
Ninepoints, a left, a right, top the
rise, coast down the hill and you’re
there.
The old two-story stone and
stucco house has been there since
the 1830’s, tucked away in a
wrinkle of southern Lancaster
County only a half-mile from the
Chester County line in Sadsbury
Township.
Like a fetching bookcover, the
outside of this house insists that
you see more. Walk across the
hardwood floors and warm your
hands by the woodstove within the
chest-high hearth of an ancient
fireplace.
A window sill as deep as your
bedroom closet catches your eye.
They don’t make walls and sills
like this anymore, so you walk over
for a closer look and happen to spy
the herd of sheep out back.
No ordinary flock of uniformly
white animals, these sheep range
in color from black to chocolate to
a silvery cream. There are a lot of
questions stirring in your head so
you shoo the snoozing cat from the
Two different fleece types to be found at Wasteland Farm
are (left), the dark, heavy Karakul, and the light, softer
Romney. Through crossbreeding, the Schoonhovens hope to
produce a softer wool while retaining the rich color variations
of the Karakul.
V
This young Katakul/Romney hybrid displayed by Caren
possesses the dark, lustrous fleece of interest to hand
spinners.
The black sheep of Wasteland Farm
stuffed chair and settle back for a
chat with Caren Ohoonhoven on
the suject of Wasteland Farm.
Born and raised in California,
Caren Glotfelty had already owned
the old stone place and it’s 20 acres
for five years before she married
Wim Schoonhoven in 1982.
Wasteland Farm? The name
•nee seems no more appropriate
>h<i.. ''ailing a continent north of
the Arctic Circle, Greenland, but
Caren explains that in years past
the area’s steep, wooded hills were
of no use to farmers, hence the
name Wasteland, which was also
applied to a church and cemetery
in the area.
And this was just the kind of
“wasteland” that appealed to
Caren and Wim, whose careers as
environmental planners brought
them great distances-she from
California, and he from the
Netherlands-to settle in Lancaster
County.
As environmental planners, the
couple’s concern over erosion
influenced their decision to convert
the surrounding cornfields to
pastureland, and to raise sheep.
It was in 1981 when Wasteland
Farm acquired its first flock of
eight Karakuls. Mrs. Schoonhoven
explains that the breed probably
reached the height of its popularity
early in the century when the
sheep were imported from Central
Asia to satisfy the demand for
Persian lamb coats.
Though today’s commercial
operators are not fond of the
Karakul’s relatively poor carcass
and black (usually applied to any
color fleece other than white)
pelage, Caren points out that
Karakul fleece is popular with
hand spinners interested in the
natural color variations and long
staple (length of the wool fibers)
characteristic of the breed.
The Karakul begins life as a
black lamb, becoming blackish
brown as a yearling, chocolate
brown as a two-year-old, and
changing to a silvery salt-and
pepper at age three. The breed’s
wool is coarse and heavy, which
led the Schoonhovens to begin
cross-breeding their ewes with
purebred Romney rams in an
effort to produce a finer fleece.
Results of the breeding program
have been gratifying, yielding
lambs with a richer, more lustrous
fleece while retaining the distinc
tive Karakul color. The couple has
taken their program one step
further by breeding these first
generation lambs with a black
Romney ram in an effort to insure
a colored fleece.
Why take pains to produce these
black sheep with the current
emphasis on meat production and
white fleece?
At the present time Caren’s
greatest concern is producing
quality fleeces for her own use, but
she also points out that a small but
healthy market does exist for the
better black fleeces, with prices
ranging from $2.50 to $9.00 a pound.
One of the keys to satisfying such
buyers lies in producing a clean
product, free of chaff and
vegetable matter. Clean wool is
important to hand spinners who
don’t want to be bothered with
repeated washings, and the
Schoonhovens have experimented
with various feeding methods in an
effort to keep food from working its
way into the fleece.
Shearing time plays an im
portant role in the cleanliness of
the finished product, as well.
As air temperatures warm, the
lanolin in wool begins to coagulate,
resulting in oily yellow deposits
that are difficult to remove.
With their second-generation
sheep rancher on the way last
spring, the couple delayed
shearing until late June, a mistake
that Caren vows not to repeat this
year.
These days Caren is no longer
alone as she tends her flock, with
nine-month-old Jake supervising
from his perch in mom’s back
pack. Arriving home from work
each evening at about 6:30, Wim
takes charge of the evening
feeding, as well as any barn or
fence-mending chores that need to
be done.
j 'Uiit vU J ctitJ ilUl
fattening lambs for market, Caren
emphasizes that good nutrition is
no less important for wool
production. The flock is fed good
quality alfalfa hay along with a
trace mineral supplement, and
Caren points out that a creep
feeding program instituted this
year has already resulted in a
noticeable improvement in the
lamb crop.
Caren reports that both Rom
neys and Karakuls lamb easily,
but recommends always being on
hand for the occasional
emergency Wasteland ewes are
bred in late July and August, with
the lambing season getting un
derway in January
Though future plans include
house renovations, and rebuilding
of the barn on the original stone
foundation that remains, for the
present the Schoonovers admit to
concentrating ail ot their spare
lime and resources "n ih<Mr sheep
Caren Schoonhoven examines one of her Romey rams as
son Jake looks on.
|k
„ *
A salt-and-pepper flock of Romney and Karakul sheep feeds
contentedly at Caren and Wim Schoonhoven’s Wasteland
Farm.
T t
Millie, the foundation ewe in the Schoonhoven’s breeding
program, shows the silvery fleece characteristic of Karakuls
when reaching three years of age.
The flock is currently made of 16 “but with prices at their current
breeding animals, including three levels there’s little incentive to
hybrid bred ewes, and 12 hybrid breed for a better product.”
lambs
With Jake’s head start in the But current prices and a scarcity
business, Caren hopes to interest of markets for their colorful wool
their son in the 4-H program, are hardly deterrents to this
whei e she hopes the family’s in- Atglen couple in their quest for the
fluence may stimulate more in- Golden Fleece, and in years to
lerest in quality wool production. come those seeking the finest wool
"The wool pools could certainly for the manufacture of rugs and
l>« i nme more organized and exert outergarments may well find their
moie influence,” she observes, f irtune in Wasteland.
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