My latest workout

is scouring wool. I bought lots of raw Suffolk wool from someone in Hayden, and I'm slowly processing it. Raw wool is pretty much what it sounds like. The only thing that's been done to it is cutting it off the sheep and shoving it in a sack. I must now remove it from a sack and get it clean so that I can do something with it. Just in case you didn't know, sheep are dirty. This is a chunk of fleece before it gets washed:


This is what it looks like in the wash water:


And this is what I use to wash it with:

The picture of the wool in the wash water is actually the second soapy wash. If it were the first one the water would be closer in color to tea. I tend to do one or two soapy washes and one or two rinses. This is accomplished in two plastic bins on my back patio. Wool must be scoured in hot water so as to melt the grease the sheep naturally produce. This means I must haul water from my kitchen sink out to the plastic bin (filling the plastic bin would make it way too heavy to move outside, so water must be brought to it). This is accomplished by filling my large stockpot and dumping it in the plastic bin. Five stockpots gives sufficient water for washing. If I do two washes and two rinses, that's 20 stockpots of water to carry and dump into the bins. It works arms, abs, back, legs, and glutes. It's definitely a workout.