812-Lancastef Farming, Saturday, February 22, 1992
Cindy Slatcoff Believes Wool
Business Is Ideal For Women
GAY N. BROWNLEE
Somerset Co. Correspondent
GLENCOE (Somerset Co.)
Brush Creek Wool Works, owned
by Anthony (Tony) and Cindy
Slatcoff, is operated mainly by
Cindy, but her family often helps
her with sundry tasks.
The year-around business is
headquartered at their sheltered
home in a mountainous valley; the
under-construction house (where
they have done everything “but
dig the hole”), flanked by tree
lined slopes and small adjacent
sheep pasture. Passing through the
rugged terrain, down near the
main road, and on its way to
somewhere else, flows the gurg
ling waters of the Brush Creek tri
butary.
The Slatcoffs sell breeding
stock, freezer lambs, and wool
sheared from their stock of White
Romney and Border Leicester
sheep, currently numbering some
23 animals. Cindy is an artisan
who works with wool (not usually
their own), from beginning to end.
Which means that, after all the
preparations, she demonstrates,
sells, and teaches classes from
May through November each
year.
Cindy says she is ready for the
lambing season nine pregnant
ewes are due on March 7 and
looking forward to using the new
ly-built lodging facility that Tony
has built for her in the second larg
er sheep bam. The modem panel
ed nook has bed space and a coun
ter area for conveniences such as a
coffee maker.
The ewes and lambs will have
24-hour attention from Cindy
while Tony and their sons Ja
son, 14, and Mark, 9, follow
their normal routine. They travel
together to school in Berlin where
Tony teaches biology and the boys
attend classes in the Berlin-Bro
thersvalley School District.
When she was in fourth grade,
Cindy was taught by her baby-sit
ter, Yorkshire. England, grandmo
ther, to knit. “After moving to
Somerset County (as an adult),”
says Cindy, “I thought it would be
nice to spin my own yam.” She
Son Jason Is the owner of this Jacob sheep, a rare breed
having four horns and traced back to England and Scot
land.
didn’t like the synthetic yams on
the market At the Somerset His
torical Center qualified persons
taught her how to spin and soon
she was invited to demonstrate the
craft during the Center’s annual
Mountain Craft Days.
“It was more like doing it for
friends than a business arrange
ment,” she notes, saying how a
strong bond of friendship had
been formed.
Despite their upbringing in se
parate Cambria County mining
towns where neither Tony nor
Cindy had had any agricultural ex
perience, the Slatcoffs itched to
raise sheep, because they realized
the best wool-producing sheep
breeds weren’t being raised local
ly.
“In this area, most wool is on
meat-producing sheep and the
wool is not ideal for spinning,”
says Cindy. “I did a lot of re
search,” she says. “I researched
for two years. I found what kind of
fleece I and other spinners like and
those are what 1 bought,” she says.
I decided that if I’m going to do
this, I’m going to follow the ex
ample of the experts.”
To Cindy, that meant gathering
information about wool-produc
ing sheep raised in Australia and
New Zealand. She located a four
year-old copy of National Geo
graphic that she keeps in her shop
in which the subject is featured on
its glossy, informational pages.
She told about the network of
women throughout eastern United
States who are in the same busi
ness and who are excellent re
sources.
Nevertheless, mistakes were in
evitably made. This bothered Cin
dy. “We’ve lost sheep because of
being ignorant,” she says. “I
didn’t want an animal to have to
suffer at my expense,” says the
former teacher of earth and plane
tary science, who taught classes at
two campuses of the University of
Pittsburgh.
“Raising sheep is a business
that lends itself to a woman doing
the work by herself if need be,”
she says as she recelled some
tough personal experiences.
“I can do this and make a living
doing this,” she says. “It gives me
a sense of pride and a lot of peace
of mind.”
Her uncompromising standards
arc high, based on an unshakeable
belief that bigger dividends will
reward meticulous care of the
sheep and their wool. A staunch
devotion to that philosophy paid
off in 1991 when her wool sold for
prices well above the average
prices being paid.
“Everybody laughs at my sheep
wearing coats,” she says, but I
don’t care. “My fleece is clean,
has no breaks, and they get the
breed they want. They get the
best,” she states without apology.
“They only get grease when they
wash it.”
But wearing the coats on the
sheep is only part of her strategy.
Cindy says she tells her shearer,
Bedford County’s Karl Kaufman,
when the pregnant ewes are due.
He comes to shear them days be
fore that date. While he shears he
allows Cindy to work with the
wool. Thus the fleece isn’t expos
ed to the dirt and matting that na
turally accompany the lambing
process. Coats are put on the ewes
for warmth and then changed
later.
Made in the United States of a
polypropylene material, Cindy
says the coats last at least three
years. They shed water easily, dry
fast and are machine washable, all
for about $6 each. She uses and
sells them.
Her opinion is that United
States wool dealers would make
out better if they devoted more at
tention to the wool while it is still
on the sheep.
“I’m really tied down with
shows,” she says. “Even if you are
sick, the show goes on.” She says
you just can’t back out of some
thing like this and disappoint per
sons who come each year just to
see your new designs because they
know and like your work. Summer
shows demand a lot of travel, lug
ging things, handling animals, and
always being creative,” she says.
“That’s work!”
With her carding machine
purchased in Vancouver for a
price equal to that of a good used
car—she creates original yam de
signs often using mohair, alpaca,
rayon or silk in addition to wool.
From Silk For Life, located in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cindy
buys silk fiber in an effort to help
the organization in its quest to en
courage South American people to
grow silk rather than cocaine. The
mulberry tree which is home to the
silkworm is adaptable to the same
climate.
‘The biggest drawback is get
ting people to take you seriously,”
says Cindy. “The family doesn’t
understand why you don’t attend
family gatherings.”
Growing up around coal-min
ing and the coal-shipping rail
roads, Cindy learned all about
black lung disease and cancer. So
she isn’t taking good health for
granted. She wears a face mask,
gloves and apron that are approv
ed by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA),
to do her work. Regardless of
what it is, washing, dyeing, pick
ing, carding, spinning, there are
dusts and chemicals to be reckon
ed with. So unless she is demon
strating at a show. Cindy is always
protected from these things.
Although the summer travel
The Slatcoff family standing in the snow near the sheep
barns, from left, Jason, Tony, Cindy, and Mark.
reaps educational benefits for the
boys they’ve seen Vancouver,
Oregon, Michigan and Pennsylva
nia neighbors—Cindy says, “I try
not to make this their work. If we
need help, we ask them, but they
have to find what they want to
do.” One of their current interests
is membership in the Johnstown
Figure Skating Club.
Cindy says her 1992 show sea
son starts with the Maryland
Sheep and Wool Festival near
Baltimore. Then it’s the Bedford
Parenting Teens
YORK (York Co.) Do you,
or the parents of teens that you
know, sometimes wish your teens
and pre-teens could be sent away
for a few years and then returned
to you as cooperative young
adults? Or maybe, as the parents
of teens, you and your friends just
want some direction on how to
guide adolescents through their
most troublesome years. Well,
now there’s help an innovative
video-based parent education
program designed specifically for
parents of teens and pre-teens.
Called Active Parenting of
Teens, the program is being spon
sored by Penn State Cooperative
Extension starting Tuesday,
March 3, and continues March 10,
17, 24, 31 and ends April 7th.
Active Parenting of Teens will
be taught in six, two-hour sessions
by Lois Kinzie, private parent
education consultants. The prog
ram features more than 60 video
vignettes that stir reactions like
“Yes, that’s just how I feel” or
“That’s our teenager, all right”;
and demonstrates positive ways to
resolve the conflict. After viewing
the various scenarios, parents par
ticipate in group discussion, role
plays and other activities.
Sheep and Wool Festival, Bed
ford; the Fiber Festival, Somerset;
Cooks Forest Spin-In, Allegheny
National Forest; Summerfest,
Grantsville Md.; Mountain Craft
Days, Somerset and the Springs
Foik Festival, Springs. Addition
ally, in conjunction with Fiber Fest
’92, held in Kalamazoo, Michi
gan, Cindy will teach at a textile
workshop during the spinning and
weaving conference. She has just
contracted to work as a summer
artisan in the Spruce Forst Artisan
Village near Grantsville, Md.
Active Parenting of Teens is not
psychotherapy, but rather a
common-sense approach to
parenting. There is no dwelling on
blame, only a move-ahead attitude
that shows it is never too late to
improve parent-child relation
ships.
Parents will leant encourage
ment skills, discipline skills, com
munication skills, problem sol
ving skills, problem prevention
skills and family enrichment
skills. There are also sessions on
how to prevent substance abuse
and how to openly discuss
sexuality.
To sign up for the Active
Parenting of Teens program, call
Penn State Cooperative Extension
at (717) 757-9657. The cost of the
program is $2O per participant, or
$3O per couple. A handbook is
included in this price. The first
session will be held Tuesday,
March 3, at the West York Junior
High School, Bannister Street,
York with subsequent sessions to
be held over the course of the fol
lowing five weeks. Don’t wait
until your children are teens to
take this class. It may be too late
then!