Wool, community and tradition: Decatur Island’s Annual Gather returns
Published 1:30 am Monday, May 11, 2026
Every first Saturday in May, something quietly extraordinary happens on Decatur Island. Sheep that have roamed freely across 600 acres of rugged island terrain are rounded up, shorn and celebrated — and the whole community turns out to make it happen.
The 2026 Decatur Gather brought together volunteers, shepherds, sheepdogs and one very busy professional shearer for the beloved annual event that blends agricultural necessity with small-island neighborliness.
“We manage the flock of sheep — we make sure that they have what the sheep need,” said Lyndi Taylor, one of the island’s flock managers, who coordinates the event alongside her husband Bob. The couple has shepherded both the animals and the community tradition for years, organizing volunteers who fan out across the property to guide the flock safely into the barnyard. “When the sheep come from up and down the road, we need to put them inside the barnyard,” Taylor explained. “The volunteers’ job is to make sure that when they come down, they’re not going off somewhere else.”
After the roundup comes a community lunch on the Taylors’ deck — sometimes feeding upward of 20 people. “You really get used to each other, and just really enjoy each other and talk about all these sheep things,” she said.
Community organizer Kathleen Whitson said the flock now numbers roughly 40 adult sheep, with a total of 89 or 90, including this year’s lambs. The event, known officially as the Decatur Gather, traces its roots to the late 1980s when islanders first organized to shear a flock that hadn’t been shorn in nearly a decade. “It’s kind of bootstraps — volunteer driven,” Whitson said. “People all over the island are involved.”
The wool doesn’t go to waste. Whitson explained that the fleeces are sent to Soundview Fiber Mill in Shelton to be made into wool rugs, which are sold back to community members. Lesser-quality clippings — the “skirtings,” as she called them — are pelletized and used as nitrogen-rich garden fertilizer. “None of the fiber that we take off the sheep today will go to waste,” she said.
Shepherds and their dogs arrive from Whidbey and Vashon islands on Thursday, and community volunteers help complete the roundup — a process that once took multiple days when the sheep roamed the entire island but now wraps up in just a couple of hours.
Handling the actual shearing is Kevin Dunham, a professional shearer from Whidbey Island, now in his sixth year at the Gather. Dunham shears around 2,400 sheep annually across more than 230 farms throughout Puget Sound, and sheared 42 animals at this year’s event. He came to Decatur almost by accident — his Welsh mentor mentioned feral island sheep during a road trip, and Dunham fired off a cold email. “In 2021, I got a call and they said our shearer can’t make it — can you come? It was three days before,” he laughed. He hasn’t missed one since.
Dunham described shearing as a profession that demands rare focus. “It’s a job that requires really intense focus, just because you have a live animal that usually weighs more than me,” he said. “There’s not a lot of things in life where you really have to have that kind of focus — and I think I kind of crave that.”
He praised the Decatur community’s hospitality. “Everyone here is so nice, and they put us up in a house and cook us meals. It’s kind of like a working vacation.”
For the island’s residents, the Gather is more than a chore on the calendar. It’s a day that knits neighbors together over shared work, shared wool and a shared table.
