'I quit my job to live in a freezing field with 130 sheep - it changed my life'

Every lambing season, Elizabeth Kneafsey, known arsenic the Wild Wool Shepherdess, feels happiest camping retired connected the hillsides and sleeping among her flock to support the newborn sheep from predators - nary substance however chilly it gets.

“The freezing cold is magic to me, I tin respire decently retired here, I consciousness alive,” she says. “I get anxious erstwhile I’m surrounded by concrete and shops, a location conscionable isn’t wherever I belong.”

The azygous mum who has her ain flock of implicit 130 sheep, a breed she calls ‘Shetlandics - Shetlands crossed with Icelandics - which are hardy and nutrient bully fleeces, is based successful Nottinghamshire. Every time she is retired successful the grassland astir Nottingham with her flock alongside her Siberian wolf hybrid dog, Aeyla.

“Aeyla’s my guardian, my companion, my partner”. And each twelvemonth she leaves her precious flock successful the susceptible hands of her 21-year-old lad Harry to walk 3 weeks single-handedly lambing astir 1,000 ewes successful the Yorkshire Dales.

But Elizabeth, 46, is driven by much than a emotion of animals and nature. “My intent is to practise the aged ways of however to past and thrive connected the land,” she says. “If 1 of my flock dies, I tegument and butcher it myself, utilizing each past portion – each past sinew of nutrient and offal, the bones, the fleece, the encephalon to tan the hide, candles are made from the tallow. Nothing is wasted.

“Modern beingness is each astir convenience, we’ve mislaid interaction with the earth, however to clothe and provender ourselves. There’s a cognition that the 9 to 5 is our lone option, we bargain inexpensive tat without knowing however harmful it is to our system, we’ve mislaid truthful galore of these skills and immoderate knowing of who we are.”

And being 1 of conscionable a fistful of females successful a precise male-dominated world, Elizabeth is trying to redress that imbalance. Running regular workshops for women and azygous mums to thatch them the skills she’s picked up since becoming a full-time shepherdess astir 15 years ago, she’s connected a mission. “It mightiness dependable similar hippy nonsense, but there’s contented from our ancestors which is invaluable, from speechmaking signs from birds and successful stones, to however our monthly bleed is linked to the moon’s cycle,” she says.

In her workshops – which are unfastened to anyone - she teaches everything from however to tan a fell utilizing accepted methods, however to marque ‘moon water’ (place a vessel of h2o successful moonlight overnight to springiness it energy), however to marque medicine from plants, and adjacent a ‘smudge stick’, a wad of assorted herbs burnt to cleanse a abstraction of antagonistic energy.

“After my dada died 5 years ago, I suffered from bosom atrial fibrillation due to the fact that of the accent from my grief, and doctors astatine infirmary wanted to enactment maine connected tablets, which I knew wasn’t the answer, truthful I utilized my works cognition to heal myself,” she says. “There’s virtually a works cure retired determination for each azygous ailment, but modern medicine has steered america distant from those traditional, earthy cures.”

And Elizabeth’s not unsocial successful wanting to pat into much accepted ways of living, with her loyal pursuing of 21,000 connected Instagram ( @wildwoolshepherdess ). “More and much radical are starting to get the connection and I get requests from each implicit the satellite for my handmade wool products – 80-90 percent of my income travel from the US and Canada wherever radical autumn successful emotion with my sheep and inquire for a ‘living’ wool rug, made with sheared wool, which is made without harming the carnal successful immoderate way.”

Elizabeth believes she was calved successful the incorrect time. As a child, she longed to beryllium surrounded by quality and animals distant from the chaos and bullies astatine school. And from the property of conscionable eight, she would walk each evening sitting connected a ample elevation down her house, distant from modern life.

She followed her dreams to unrecorded and enactment successful the wilderness erstwhile Harry was 2 and she’d divided up with her partner. Living successful a assembly location and doing unusual jobs to marque ends conscionable until, Elizabeth was successful her precocious 20s erstwhile she decided to spell to assemblage to survey countryside management.

During that course, portion moving with the Wildlife Trust, she was inspired by a shepherdess called Agnes, who taught her galore of the skills she has contiguous which she is truthful passionate to walk connected to the adjacent generation. She past worked arsenic a declaration shepherdess crossed assorted elevation farms passim the country, surviving nomadically successful a caravan with her young son, a clip that she says were the champion years of her life.

“It sounds huffy to astir people, but I’ve ne'er truly owned thing isolated from my sheep,” she says. “I rent my onshore and determination my flock to wherever we tin find, which is truly hard work, but arsenic a pistillate shepherdess I inactive person the doorway unopen successful my look erstwhile I effort to get immoderate onshore to telephone my own.”

But the aforesaid twelvemonth she mislaid her begetter to cancer, she besides mislaid her beloved canine and feline and Harry near location to spell to college. Feeling unsocial for the archetypal clip was “pivotal” successful her “finding solace with her flock, chaotic birds, and the susurration of trees”, she says. It was past that she travelled to Canada to larn the past teachings of the Mohawk people, wherever she became 1 of the archetypal British women to ever beryllium adopted into their fold successful implicit 400 years, and fixed the sanction Iekawehatie, which means “she paddles along”.

“Since I was a small miss I’ve had a transportation to indigenous cultures who unrecorded adjacent to the earth, and spending 3 weeks connected the Kanawake Reserve with the Mohawk was 1 of the champion experiences of my life,” she says. “I tanned a buffalo fell successful the UK to instrumentality with maine arsenic a acquisition to them arsenic a bid offering, and we shared practices, which is what this is each about. We request to enactment together, successful harmony with the earth.”

Having spent 16 years with Harry by her side, Elizabeth says they’re inactive precise adjacent – adjacent though he’s present a digital nomad travelling astir Southeast Asia moving connected societal media and websites. “We’re champion friends arsenic overmuch arsenic parent and son,” she said. “The enslaved we’ve formed implicit the 16 years I location schooled him, erstwhile we lived successful tents and caravans successful the hills with the sheep tin ne'er beryllium broken,” she says. “And I cognize he’ll beryllium backmost to assistance whenever I request him. But he’s uncovering his ain path, mixing caller and aged wisdom, which is amazing.

"I've travel from nothing, and I've worked truly hard to bash this myself. I conscionable privation to amusement radical that if they privation to bash it, they can. It volition beryllium bloody hard work, but I wouldn’t person it immoderate different way."

The Wild Wool Shepherdess: Weave the Ancient Path, Reignite Your Feminine Fire by Elizabeth Kneafsey (Hay House UK) £14.99, is retired now