Looking out the window as we drive down the last stretch of gravel road heading into The Innes Ranch, we're reminded of just how incredible wool is at combating all aspects of weather. Other than a few shrubs and some antelope, it's wide-open country out here in North East Wyoming.   There isn't much sight of any type of shelter from the sun, wind, rain, or the cold winters. We drive around the last big bend in the road and see the homestead with fields sprinkled with sheep.   Some were still fully cloaked in thick, dense wool looking overdressed for a spring day while others were scampering off to graze, now freshly sheared.

Pulling into the ranch, it was clear we were at the right place due to the caravan of campers and trailers. We figured this must be the shearing crew. A group of folks selected from around the world but mostly from New Zealand and Australia make up a majority of the crew. It can be good money but very hard work, and takes a talented and disciplined individual to master the art of wool shearing.

Bob Innes, a third generation sheep rancher, welcomes us and introduces the crew. Bob walks us through the shearing process as we see the sheep moving up into a chute along the side of the trailer that lines them up for the shearing crew to pull them out one by one.

They start by shearing the legs and bellies and push that wool in a separate sort pile because the bellies are shorter and of lesser quality wool.   WeatherWool doesn't want any of that in our mix so that is all sorted out in advance. They will also separate out a lot of the wool from the head because there are hairs there that won't take the fabric dye and, therefore, are also pushed aside. That wool will be sold separately to another buyer.

All the premium wool comes off with incredible precision and a formulated routine that rolls the fleece off in a contained bunch that the pickers can easily grab and load into the balers. These folks are true pros at their craft and can shear a sheep within 1 or 2 minutes.

The Innes Ranch shears in early spring, well before the ewes give birth, so there is no need to separate the ewes from the young lambs later in the spring. That, Bob explains, is why they have this massive long barn that his dad had built when they developed this early shearing schedule. Due to the early shearing, they needed to have a warm place for those sheep for a few days in case a blizzard rolled in after shearing.

Ralph, our Founder & President, didn't hesitate to get his hands in there and help load the bale bags. This is a very exciting moment for him. Last year he purchased about 20,000 lbs of wool from the Innes Ranch and has been storing it in the warehouse, hoping to get another 20,000 lbs of wool from Bob this year for his master plan.   He wants to produce garments from single ranches so we can identify a single point of origin on our garment labels. This is another crucial step in our fully traceable production mission. So Ralph was eager to get his hands on the wool to see if it was going to meet his specifications in length, strength, microns and comfort factor.  

We were very pleased to see that this wool was exactly what we were hoping for. We're very excited to roll out this collection of single source garments although we're still a long way from the tailor's cutting table. The wool itself will go through many stages before it can become WeatherWool Fabric. Our hope is to have this fabric produced into garments for sale by fall of 2025.

To learn more about our wool-making process, you can check out our "Start to Finish" Page.

It was nice to spend a couple of days with Bob and his family and learn a little bit more about the ranch's history, the struggles the wool industry faces, and discuss how we can work together to make even better wool garments in the future.

The conversation between Bob and Ralph can be viewed below.

Article and video by

-Cody Bokshowan, Creative Director, WeatherWool