Sheep stubbornly refuse to leave feeding area on sunny morning
Channel: Zwartbles Ireland Suzanna Crampton
Date: 2022-11-29

I enjoy finding hints of evidence that wildlife is present. Our stonewalls are home to so many different animals. 
I left the farm in autumnal sunshine for the big smoke (Dublin town). 
I was invited to lunch by New Zealand’s ambassador Brad Burgess.
Deliciously catered by Truffle Honey. @trufflehoneyie 
I was there to meet Mel Poulton, New Zealand’s Special Agricultural Trade Envoy.
A gathering of fascinating New Zealand and Irish agricultural women.
Sinead Waters, Zoe McKay, Pippa Hackett 
The conversation was mighty.
All about farming, women farmers, environment, research & ideas.
I loved the Māori spirit woman who over saw some of our conversations.
I returned to farming reality to feed lambs & alpaca in darkness.



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.