I moved to the high desert of Central Oregon (elevation around 3,500 ft) several years ago. Here we have only two seasons: our winters are dry and freezing and the summers are dry and hot, but both are beautiful. Every winter I pull my Columbia sportswear jacket out of the closet, bemoan it’s lack of waterproofing (which the company will fix for free, I’m just too lazy to send it to them), and shiver in the wind.

Not so this year. This time I hauled out the old brown sheepskin coat my ex-husband bought second-hand for me when we lived in England. Made by hand in Oxford, UK (probably before I was born), this coat has stood up to rain, wind and snow and kept me miraculously warm. I’ve had babies barf on it, wiped away tears with it, shoveled driveways with it on, etc. and it keeps looking good. Yesterday I spilled berry juice on it, so that was a bit of a disaster, but we’re looking into ways to get it cleaned properly without sending it away for 3 weeks and paying a ton of money.

The point of this post was to rave about how happy I am to have “rediscovered” this fiber. Why oh why do we go for the new fangled fancy coats with name brand labels and so on, when there are so many other wonderful options available? For those who are opposed to fur or leather in general, I must apologize. I am a meat eater and animal lover, but I must say that our ancestors were on to something.