Saturday's numbness did indeed give way to a nasty sinus headache, so the wool washing had to wait a day.
I started out with a bunch of rather brown wool with lots of vegetable matter (VM), a few dead bugs, and some...sheep matter, we'll say.
I really had no idea how much I was starting with. My little scale was too small for the task. The fleece was too sticky to separate into manageable chunks.
The VM was mostly straw, but there was really a lot of it. I used a window screen to sift some of it out. Not as much came out as I was expecting.
I gave it three cold-water rinses in a big metal tub in the backyard.
The water immediately turned an amber-brown color. As the fiber relaxed, I picked out more and more VM. I let it soak in between changing the water. For the third one, I left it soaking for about an hour. The purpose of that was to allow the water temperature to gradually rise so that there would not be a temperature shock when I took it inside for the hot-water wash.
I combined hot water from the tap, boiling water from the stove and 2 oz. of Unicorn Power Scour.
After letting it soak with the soap for a little while, I rinsed it twice with the same tap water - boiling water mix. Then I gave it another wash with the soap followed by three more rinses.
There was visible dirt sediment settling out after each rinse
Honey, what's for dinner?
Finally, the water ran clear and I did a final rinse with the Unicorn Fibre Rinse.
I drained it through a mesh bag before taking it back outside to dry.
I spread it out on a clean window screen.
What happens now? I don't quite know.
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