Tally Ho Woolcarding: Otago couple continue heartfelt business

Barb Peel does some needle felting in the Tally Ho shop near Raes Junction. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

It is rural romance at its best.

When Stuart and Barb Peel first laid virtual eyes on each other via a dating website, she was looking for a knight on a shiny tractor and he offered a dirty one.

Love prospered and it has proven to be a match made in Otago heaven as Barb has also become an integral part of the second-generation family wool business, Tally Ho Woolcarding, at Raes Junction.

The couple has continued the work of Stuart's English-born parents, Don and the late Janet, carding wool for customers throughout New Zealand and internationally.

For more than 40 years, two generations of the family have been carding wool, using two industrial-size carders, both made in Bradford, England, in 1922 and 1951 respectively.

The second generation has moved the Tally Ho wool shop from Roxburgh back to the family farm near Raes Junction, selling yarn, carded wool, knitting accessories, clothing - "anything woollen we can find," Barb said.

Don Peel worked on farms in England and emigrated to New Zealand with his wife, Janet, in their early years of marriage to pursue his dream of farming.

He started with an orchard in East Roxburgh before buying the present farm on the Raes Junction-Ettrick Highway.

He branched out into some coloured sheep to supply wool for his wife to spin. When an opportunity arose, he purchased an old carding machine from a woollen mill which he set up in its own shed.

That meant he was also able to card fleeces for other people. But that machine was very old and limited to what he could do, so the acquisition of a second machine enabled him to do a much finer job and to card merino and alpaca fibre.

Janet Peel, who died in 2012 after a short illness, was passionate about spinning and knitting and shared her knowledge with many people.

Originally, she would sell the processed wool at markets and they later got a shop in Roxburgh, initially renting and then buying premises.

Janet was running the shop, her husband was doing the carding, and their son, Stuart, was looking after the farm.

Barb moved south 20 years ago. Coming from a dairy farming background, she said she "didn't even know what a hogget was" until she met Stuart.

But she started learning how to card, quipping she had been learning and doing her apprenticeship for the past 16 years.

Barb and Stuart Peel, pictured with dog Buddy, on their farm. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

When Janet died, Don started running the shop and Barb started doing the carding. Don retired last year, aged 86, handing the reins over to Stuart and Barb, his "apprentices".

Moving the shop back to the farm made it easier as Barb Peel continued to think of ways to introduce new products.

At the moment, she was making commissioned yoga mats on her loom and then felting them.

It was all about education; people were not necessarily into using wool for the ways it used to be traditionally used; they wanted new ideas and so it was about coming up with products that could be made using wool and that would be attractive for people to use.

Research and development was needed for the wool industry to move forward, along with education and encouragement, she said.

"This is a wool shop, not a plastic shop," she said, referring to synthetic alternatives which had been responsible for the decline in the sector.

Barb was dealing in about seven tonnes of wool a year; she preferred to source the fibre direct from the grower.

Her coloured merino wool came from two local growers while she sourced Romney wool from a Southland producer. White merino was bought via the auction system.

She bought her husband's coloured wool from their 200 coloured sheep but not his white wool - he had to get in a wool buyer to purchase that.

She enjoyed handcrafts and sharing her skills and was happy to do one-on-one classes.

"I'll teach them to spin, weave, whatever they want to do."

Barb Peel deals in about seven tonnes of wool a year. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

In fact, if they wanted to go for a one-day horse trek, the horse enthusiast, who collected miniature horses - her husband collects vintage tractors - could oblige with that too.

A felting machine was set up outside, with hot water on tap through a califont, in the sheep yards. Add some dish detergent and walk away and the felting would occur.

They were typical of rural Kiwis in their ingenuity.

"There's a lot of things around here done with Number 8," Barb quipped.

Guided tours of the carding machines and process were also available by arrangement.

The overseas market had "shrivelled" at the moment. She had been sending wool to Russia for felting and while she was still dispatching wool there, it was not in the same quantities as previously.

But she was still regularly dispatching deliveries "all over the place".

"I supply a product for people to use their imagination to carry on to make a product to sell.

"We are a wholesale business really and not expensive because we're not here to fleece you. We can keep our prices low because we're producer, manufacturer and point of sale."

Besides, when it came to the balance of money and time, Barb said she would sooner have time than money and a work-life balance was something that was very important.

She still wanted to have time to be able to ride her horse and she was helped out by three part-time staff.

The couple were self-sufficient, milking their house cow, growing vegetables and producing meat.