Museum of Appalachia kicks off sheep-shearing; two Fridays still left
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Visitors watch a sheep-shearing demonstration last Friday at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris during the first of three days of the annual event. Two more days are left — this Friday and next Friday, May 3 and 10. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Karen Foust of Medford spins wool into thread during the sheep-shearing event last Friday at the Museum of Appalachia as visitors watch. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Tina Job of Oliver Springs shows visitors how fleece is washed after shearing, during the sheep-shearing event last Friday at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris. - G. Chambers Williams III
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Ryan Worden of South Knoxville, a member of the Sene- ca tribe of Native Americans, shows homemade hunting tools to visitors during last Friday’s sheep-shearing event at the Museum of Appalachia. - G. Chambers Williams III
Despite some on-and-off sprinkles of rain, the weather mostly cooperated for the first day of the annual sheep-shearing event Friday at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris.
The museum grounds were overrun with schoolkids all day long, with many crowded along the fence at the sheep pen to watch the wooly animals get their haircuts.
There were spinners and weavers on hand. And the children seemed fascinated with their demonstrations, watching the craftspeople taking wool and turning it into finished products.
For anyone who missed last Friday’s kickoff of the popular museum function, there are two more Fridays left: this week (May 3) and next week (May 10).
Each day, the event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., with at least two-dozen of the wooly beasts getting haircuts for the visiting crowds each day.
“We’ve done this for nearly 15 years,” said Will Meyer, the museum’s marketing director. “We say it’s to help welcome the warmth of spring.
“And as for the sheep, just like us they need a haircut, too,” he said. “This also gives kids an up-close, first-hand look at where their clothes and blankets might come from.
“It’s an excuse for us to welcome tons of school kids, and bring artisans and craftspeople to the museum to demonstrate their work,” Meyer said. “We’re expecting about 1,000 students each day. We even have some to come here from parts of Kentucky and Virginia.”
Because the museum doesn’t have a huge population of its own sheep, some are brought in for the event.
“This is something the sheep actually welcome,” Meyer said. “It does not hurt them, and it cools them off for the summer.”
Admission this year is $10 per person, age 6 and up. Tickets are available through a link on the Museum of Appalachia Facebook page or at museumofappalachia.org.
That price also includes tours of the museum farm and village, which contains some three-dozen historic log structures, exhibit halls filled with thousands of Appalachian artifacts, working gardens, and farm animals.
“We will have other things going on, too,” he said. “There will be live music the entire time, and sheep-herding demonstrations.
“We have a beekeeper coming, as well as a blacksmith and a potter,” Meyer said. “There will be soap carving, food vendors, and other animals to see and greet, including mini-donkeys, mini-horses and goats, and, of course, the museum’s ever-present peacocks.”