Shepherd's Dream Philosophy:

As cottage industry bed makers, we believe that cooperation (not competition), is a suitable foundation for creating a healthy industrial infrastructure. As leaders in the natural bedding industry, we consider ourselves innately responsible for demonstrating the proper use of materials, production techniques, and lifestyle principles - both to the industry workers and to the interested public. We see ourselves as a School of Experience for bedmakers, continually evolving all parts of what we do. We consider our work as bedmakers and artists to be our way of participating in local and global healing and community service.

Our Mission:

1. Making high quality natural wool-filled bedding — to make and distribute well designed and well made wool-filled bedding, using EcoDomestic wool to satisfy a growing domestic need for healthy and natural bedding.

2. Educating people about sleeping on natural,wool-filled bedding — to develop a strong channel of communication with a growing audience seeking healthier natural sleep environments, with a special emphasis on wool. Shepherd’s Dream educates people about how to use and take care of this ideal, natural bedding, using the examples of other world cultures who have maintained a strong connection to natural fibers. We are teaching the basic principle of airflow, an underlying principle when using natural fiber bedding.

3. Creating a strong infrastructure to revitalize a sustainable domestic wool source — to develop a complete vertical flow of communication between every point the wool travels from start to finish. Beginning with the woolgrowers and their flock, to the wool washers, to the wool carders, to the bedding makers and finally to the sleeper who enjoys the benefits of wool.

The promoter and bedding maker (Shepherd’s Dream) facilitates this communication flow which is vital to the process of creating a strong and sustainable infrastructure for the creation and distribution of these important wool bedding products. Through comprehensive and well written product descriptions, the person sleeping on a wool bed will know the whole story behind the wool-filled product. By being well informed, the buyer has the opportunity to vote for the EcoDomestic Wool Project by purchasing these products.

EcoDomestic Wool is designed to empower everyone involved in the process of creating these wool-filled products including the wool grower. The wool grower has been left with the short end of the stick since the middle of the last century. This was caused by short sighted governmental decisions to open our domestic wool market to Australia and New Zealand, instead of supporting our domestic wool sources, in turn causing an exodus of our treasured domestic woolgrowers and shepherds over the decades to follow, upto the present time, leaving the future in our collective hands.

EcoDomestic Wool is a program which seeks to reverse the trend of under-appreciating our domestic wool. We make this clear by paying the EcoDomestic wool grower a fair price for their wool and educating the public about this important domestic resource.

4. Prototyping and evolving Cottage Industry — Using the ‘cottage industry’ as an ideal production format, we are designing methods and jigs which facilitate efficient and high quality production, storing and shipping systems in a live/work environment. Shepherd’s Dream seeks to empower families and communities through the architecture of our production facilities and its appropriate relationship to the connected ‘living’ environment.

We envision a time in the near future for Shepherd’s Dream live/work environments in various geographical locations and a variety of settings, between rural, semi-rural or high-spirited urban communities. Wool fleeces would be purchased from local sources and shipped or delivered to local sleepers.