The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Ribbon cutting event to welcome Bracken Moss Farm to Main Street
Madison Village officials just announced a ribbon-cutting ceremony to welcome its newest business — Bracken Moss Farm — to the village square.
Located at 50 W. Main Street, Bracken Moss Farm Fine and Rare Fibers is a purveyor of all things fiber: from various yarns, fleece and felt to fiber-artisan tools like needles, spinning wheels and looms.
Madison Township native and proprietor Jennifer Gunn said she also plans to host classes and other special events as well to educate folks who have never been exposed to fleece fresh off the lamb and other raw fleece and fur from the likes of baby camels and Tibetan yaks.
“I don’t actually know how to spin, knit or anything but I do have people who will be teaching,” she said in a Feb. 25 phone interview.
She said her goal is to develop a place where people can come in and learn about all these fibers, where they come from and hopefully help foster an appreciation for them and the small, independent farms that are keeping these often endangered breeds from disappearing.
“A lot of people just run to Walmart or Jo-Ann’s to get some yarn,” she said. “But I’m trying to build a connection between the fiber and the animal it came from. I mean, there’s just something special about reaching into a bag of fresh wool and feeling it. You just have to experience it.”
A farmer herself, Gunn raises Romeldale/CVM sheep on a farm a half-mile from where she grew up on Dayton Road. She said she decided on that breed after visiting the Livestock Conservancy’s website, which provides an endangered-breeds list, in which class Romeldale/CVM stock falls.
It was important to her to help perpetuate an endangered breed, she said, which is another of her goal’s for Bracken Moss Farm.
“It’s important to me to work with these small farms that are keeping these endangered breeds alive,” Gunn said. “So we’re really trying to support these farms and these rare breeds so they can keep going.”
Gunn said, although she’s trying to source as much from local farms as possible, finding some of the unusual fiber fare she stocks doesn’t just happen on a trip to Amish country — or anywhere in this country, even.
“Some of these rare breeds are hard to find,” she said, adding that a recent acquisition came while she was visiting her husband, Alex, in Kuwait where he works most of the year as a civilian contractor, using his background in the British military to help teach locals the ins and outs of airport security. It’s a batch of fleece from Awassi sheep, which are descended from the first sheep humans ever domesticated.
Gunn, who holds four graduate degrees, has seen everything from service in the U.S. Army and two, separate, post-military jobs in Afghanistan to life as a patrol officer and counter-narcotics agent with the Savannah, Ga. So this is going to be an entirely new adventure, she said.
“There’s still so much to learn,” she said. “This is just so different from what I used to do.”
She said she decided this would be her next pursuit because, as a kid, she raised sheep with her 4-H Club for about four years and really enjoyed it. However, she got into other things throughout the rest of school and beyond.
As far as Madison Village is concerned, it’s just great to welcome a new downtown business, said village councilman Ken Takacs.
“From an economic development standpoint, we certainly want new business to come here,” he said in a Feb. 24 phone interview. “Open storefronts are not good. So more occupancy is a big benefit.”
He said that, every time a new business opens up in the village, it not only is a benefit to the community and the people who come visit. It also helps existing businesses by broadening downtown’s commercial footprint, which in turn makes it more of a destination for people from outside Madison Village.
“If you have a lot of vacant storefronts, it doesn’t look so good,” he said, adding that a big part of economic development is businesses helping each other out by providing more engagement for people throughout the community and beyond.
So whether you’re in the market for some raw fiber, yarn, the tools to transform them into finished products or you’d just like to learn more about Bracken Moss Farm, come to its ribboncutting ceremony at 6 p.m. March 1 at 50 W. Main St. in Madison Village.