Bah Bah. Have you any wool?

This weekend, beyond finishing my house, I made my annual double trek out to the Black Sheep Gathering. I always go once and touch the fibers and fantasize about Kromski spinning wheels and visit the animals. Then, I go back again the next day, and get down to the business of buying fiber and revisiting with my favorite animals from the day before.

For the uninitiated, black sheep is a huge fiber festival held in my hometown with three days of spinning, knitting, and other fiber arts classes, a pavillion full of wool and fiber tool vendors and, best of all, an animal show of exotic fiber sheep, goats, and usually bunnies. For fiber nerds like myself, this is like a Star Trek convention for Trekies: fill in your favorite equivilant simile.

This year, I was disappointed to find the utter lack of angora bunnies, which I really missed. It's not often that you can pet or let alone see an ewok in person. Not only that, but I thought now that we have a house, I might have convinced Blake to let me take one home... Still, the goat show was bigger, and there were breeds I hadn't seen before of sheep too. Wensleydales were new to me. They're big animals with tight curls and soft dreadlocks atop their heads.

At the same time and nearby there is usually an alpaca show as well. For some reason, I'm never as engaged with this show, and not for lack of love for alpacas. They have these beautiful big eyes and long eyelashes and they hum in a way that's quite charming. This year, I stopped by there again anyway, and one of the vendors snapped at me for holding up fiber in an open bag to examine it. The funny thing was it was the only fiber I actually would have bought. Oh well. Instead, I left feeling like a stupid child.

But onward and upward, we returned to Black Sheep and I pet some of the most charming shetland sheep. These are easily my favorites: they are personable and so soft. A lamb wagged his little tail when I pet him, and the alpaca incident ceased to have too much importance. I wish I could have taken him home.

Here are pictures from my revisit this afternoon. There were more, but as Blake commented, these animals don't know how to stand still for a camera.