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A Fiber Life

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A Fiber Life Podcast
is hosted by Lisa Mitchell

She shares her discoveries about the connection between handcrafting, raising exotic fiber animals, and how tuning into the handmade process gets expressed in our lives and relationships.

Lisa boldly and lovingly invites you to re-examine your own relationship with fiber, fiber animals, and living.

If you want to feel more alive, more aware, more grateful, more informed, more connected, and more open to wonder and delight have a listen.

You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Stitcher or listen on our website.

Season 3

Episode 1: A Frog Family Lives in our Basement

March 2, 2024
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This season, we’ve set out to capture and celebrate ordinary moments in our lives on the farm.  Because even the little things like the basics and the mundane are important.  They can be lessons on how to live well and,  in their simplicity or maybe because of it, they can form significant touchstones in our…

Season 3 Trailer: Ordinary Moments on the Fiber Farm

February 23, 2024
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It turns out that we humans are terrible at estimating the value of the present. There is a study I…

Season 2

Episode 1: A Frog Family Lives in our Basement

March 2, 2024
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This season, we’ve set out to capture and celebrate ordinary moments in our lives on the farm.  Because even the…

Season 3 Trailer: Ordinary Moments on the Fiber Farm

February 23, 2024
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It turns out that we humans are terrible at estimating the value of the present. There is a study I…

Episode 8: This is the Way Things are Now

June 2, 2023
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This is the last episode of season 2. In this episode, I dive into the question, why do I write…

Lisa and Katie

Episode 7: Finding the Courage to Ask for Help

May 12, 2023
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Humans are no different than guanacos or sheep or any other animal that finds comfort in the presence of others.…

Episode 6: The Journey is the Reward

April 21, 2023
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Sometimes the best things in life are about the process, not the product. Working with your hands vs. working with…

Episode 5: RIP Milo: Love Doesn’t Die

April 7, 2023
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We’ve lost 6 animals in the last 3 years on our farm: five guanacos and one goat. Now, as a…

Episode 4: Where it all goes when we are gone

March 24, 2023
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Have you ever thought about what you’ll leave behind when your time on this planet is up? An amazing accomplishment…

Episode 3: How to Love Like a Goat

March 10, 2023
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The first year we brought the guanacos to our Whidbey Island farm, my husband Greg and I embraced the challenge…

Episode 2: The Stories Hidden in Our Tools

February 24, 2023
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Sometimes, when I go to work in my studio, I feel this void. Like it’s just me and the fiber.…

Episode 1: Why “fake it til you make it” doesn’t work

February 24, 2023
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It used to be that handling guanacos was scary business for us. See, guanacos are forces of nature; beasts that…

Season 2 Trailer

February 17, 2023

In our second season of A Fiber Life, “Homegrown and Handcrafted,” we are going to transport you to a life…

Season 1

Season 1 Trailer

December 17, 2021
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Our hope is that this podcast, A Fiber Life, will do for you, what it has for us…inspire you to…

Episode 1: How it Started

December 31, 2021
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In this episode of A Fiber Life, I want to take you with me to the YES moments that started off our guanaco adventure. We are going to start at the river in Sacramento, attend a fiber festival and then go back in time, 33 years ago, to one of the sweetest Yes moments ever.  I also want to challenge you listeners to tune into that nagging part of your brain that tells you to say “YES” to crazy ideas….. and how this may actually be the sanest thing you can do

Episode 2: The Darker Side of our Guanaco Adventure

December 31, 2021
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In this episode, I want to take you to the darker side of our guanaco adventure.  I’m going to tell you how we faced poor animal conditions and injury, even the tragic death of someone very important. It was hard, but we were changed by it. For the better.

Greg & Lisa feeding guanacos

Episode 3: How Manure Management Brought Us Peace

January 18, 2022
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As it turns out the key to being a successful farmer is having a crap management plan. (Yes, this episode…

feeding guanacos

Episode 4: The Great Guanaco Escape

January 31, 2022
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Trust builds connection, and over time, connection builds bonds. So, how you show up–every day, over time, matters. It’s a…

breeding guanacos

Episode 5: Guanacos in Love? (What BREEDING Taught Us)

February 11, 2022
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Breeding animals is like sowing seeds. They are both acts of hope.   And when you perform acts of hope,…

baby guanaco

Episode 6: What Guanaco Births Taught Us About Waiting

February 25, 2022
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On any given day, every one of us is waiting for something. And, I don’t know anyone who likes to wait.…

flowers

Episode 7: Farming in the face of inevitable grief and loss

March 18, 2022
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Facing death, losing loved ones, it’s a universal experience.  But it can challenge you to the core. In the gut-wrenching…

Episode 8: Learning How to Shear Guanacos (& Spin Their Fiber)

April 4, 2022
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Pride is a tricky thing for many of us. We’ve been taught to dismiss compliments to keep us from attracting…

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Our animals work year round to grow the most exquisite fibers because we’re the only commercial source of guanaco fiber in the US. Spinners, knitters, and natural fiber wearers, we can’t wait for you to touch the softness.