Wind Generator       The New Building

Wind Power

Though the new building is beautiful and impressive it may not be the first thing people see when approaching the spinnery. On the hill above the building is an 80-foot tower with a wind generator at its pinnacle. Most days it is spinning around and creating the power that turns all the machinery in the mill.

Originally we wanted to have our operation powered by water power as earlier wool processing was done in Maine. The availability of appropriate sites and our resources took us in other directions... so now we have a wind generator.

The reasoning behind the decision to make a large upfront investment in wind power was influenced by two major factors. The first is that we do not want to contribute to our society's dependence on resources (coal, oil, and nuclear energy) that come great distances and produce many unintended, sometimes harmful effects during their extraction, purchase and transportation to the United States. Our second reason is our hope that by using the power of the wind we will be able to create our products in the most cost effective way. Whenever a business can save money, so can the people who support the business.

Who can deny the incredible power of the wind?

The New Building

We built a new building to house our processing operation, a small retail space, and a gallery for our own work and that of local artists. It is a two story building with a loft that is nestled into the hillside by our home. We designed the structure along with the builder, Christian Andrus, of Pine Ridge Carpentry in Camden, Maine. Many aspects of fiber processing plus our concern for the environment were considered in the design.

A typical fleece passes through eight or more processes to become a skein of yarn. The first floor is home to all of the necessary equipment. The second floor has an office and a large open space for displaying our patterns and yarns and can also be a gallery space available for others to show their work. The third floor is our main storage area and it has an open space for viewing the room below or for puppet shows. It is a building with many other fun aspects such as a stone staircase, a few large old windows from a local school house and exterior barn styling.