BY LYNN ASCRIZZI

Staff Writer

Nanney Kennedy raises 100-plus sheep on Meadowcroft Farm, set on 80-acres of rolling fields and woods nestled on top of the Damariscotta watershed in Washington.

From their fleece, she produces high-quality, sea-and-sun-dyed yarns, sweaters and blankets. She calls her enterprise Seacolors Yarn, whose fine-crafted items have put her fiber farm on the map.

On a breezy, clear spring day, Kennedy's sharp whistle cut across the boulder-strewn, lower fields. She was directing her rambunctious border collie, Ollie, to guide a large flock of her sheep to a greener, upper pasture.

Kennedy, 48, breeds her sheep so they lamb late, she said.

"I breed to lamb in May. A lot of people lamb in February or March, and it stresses the animals." After lambing time has ended, her flock will increase to 200 or more, she said.

"Look how beautiful they are, how healthy. They just glow," she said proudly of her alert, shorn flock. She shears her sheep early.

When it comes to talking about sheep, fleece and yarn, her conversation invariably turns to the sustainable fields of grass that rise beyond her owner-built house and barn.

Kennedy raises totally grass-fed Polwarth sheep -- a fine-fiber breed with small, lean bodies. She continues to develop the breed to fit naturally in a low-impact way in the Maine eco-system, she said.

Sheep breeds come in two categories, meat and fiber, she said.

"These are called 'natural-colored sheep,' she said of the white, brown, gray and black flock.

Grass-feeding her sheep eliminates the need for high-cost grain. She attributed her flock's good health to the grass "balage" or grass silage she feeds the sheep all winter.

"It's slightly fermented and high in protein -- a live food."

A healthy flock translates into long, lustrous fleece which is high yielding in the finished product, she said.

A member of the Maine Sustainable Agriculture Society and the Maine Grass Farmers Network. She will soon borrow the network's no-till seeding implement to seed alfalfa and orchard grass.

Her one-year old, grass-fed lambs are sold locally for meat, an important cash crop for the farm. "I make a good living," she said.

Kennedy runs the farm alone, but doesn't work alone. She has a network of piece workers in remote locations in rural Maine who knit or finish sweaters and weavers who weave on antique production looms. And, she contracts with other sheep farmers to grow wool for her.

"Every fleece gets evaluated and graded. I blend for color and softness, spring and integrity. I like the fibers to be long lustrous and soft," she said.

LOCAL ROOTS

Kennedy was raised in Nobleboro. Her grandfather founded Camp Kieve in Nobleboro, a summer camp for boys, now a private, nonprofit foundation.

"I've always loved it here," she said.

She graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, with a bachelor of arts degree in the sociology of art.

She bought the Washington farm in 1988, but the old home she and her former husband had been renovating burned to the ground in 1990, the day she went into town to buy insurance.

The fire obliterated all the academic work she created for her graduate studies at the University of Maine at Orono, where she majored in agriculture and resource economics.

Then, her husband walked out three years after the fire, leaving Kennedy to raise their two sons, now grown. She also set about rebuilding the house and barn and her life.

An herbalist gave her advice she never forgot:

"Everything you need to be healthy and happy is within your own backyard. You have to know how to harvest and cultivate it. Once you do that, what you need, magically comes to you," Kennedy said.

Today, she lives in a well-situated, two-story house with weathered-wood siding. Its second-floor side decks host a hot tub and long rows of south-facing cold frames sprouting peas, okra and lettuce.

The deck overlooks the barnyard and fields, where her Jerusalem donkey Daisy, and three horses roam with penned sheep. Emma, her Great Pyrenees dog, and the donkey help protect the flock from coyotes.

Meadowcroft is a working farm but also a work in progress. The dye garden is set near a small spring-fed pond and stream near the house.

In summer her lightweight, worsted yarns are solar dyed in seawater vats, an area also in need of refurbishing, she said. She received a $25,000 grant from Maine Farms for the Future to finish the six-year-old barn and turn it into a retail store and workshop for fiber classes.

Also, she has been awarded a $12,500 seed grant from Maine Technology Institute to build a solar-driven, preheated water system alongside the barn, for washing fleeces.

"Fine wool has a fine crimp. Rinsing is a big deal. You want to get the lanolin out before you dye. Greasy wool resists color," she said.

Seacolors sweaters and blankets are priced from $200 to $400; fine yarns are $25 per skein. These, and her patterns are available at Maine farmer's markets and crafts fairs.

For more information, go to: maineblanket.com/buy

Lynn Ascrizzi -- 621-5731

lascrizzi@centralmaine.com