This morning shattered me. I had to say goodbye to a dear loyal friend
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2021-10-21

The shock of it all is so gut wrenching as we have such deep unconditional love for our animals. Whatever our temperament, humour or lack there of as we live our lives, they are and become a part of us, a second mind, a second thought, a warm body to hold close when all else in the world seems like its wrapped up in a tangle of madness. An honest groundedness of truth of trust with another being so wrapped up around us like a synergy that is greater than ourselves alone. So when they died a seemingly strong piece of us dies with that beloved creature that had woven itself into our life our sole our being.


Zwartbles Ireland is a small company run from a farm in County Kilkenny in Ireland. We are a regenerative farm which means restoring soils health and regenerating its natural carbon and nutrient cycle with biodiversity of pasture sward with grasses, legumes, forbs and herbs. This also means we farm with nature. Healthy soils are important for healthy environment. So we encourage all life from the microbial to dung beetles, ants, pollinators to flora biodiversity, birds, hare, hedgehogs, rabbits, fox, badger as well as our livestock. This mean we farm in a style of mob grazing and giving fields long rest times between grazings. We have seen a huge increase and return of wildlife including woodcock and snipe in winter months foraging for dung beetle larvae, red squirrel, wood peckers and pine martens. We also have the rare natter bat and previously thought extinct Tawny Mining bees.
We sell, Zwartbles sheep, Zwartbles blankets and yarn made from the sheep, and calendars featuring Inca the World's Smallest Sheepdog and her coworkers. We also sell alpaca yarn spun for our own alpaca. Our yarns are 100 percent natural, grown by our sheep which grazing our small green Irish fields. This wool is naturally sequestered carbon which you can then knit into warm environmental friendly clothing.