What a Saturday!!
Left the apt at 8:45 to drive up and meet a spinner, C, who was selling a Babe Spinning wheel. We chatted for 15 min and she showed me the basics of the Babe which is in excellent shape. I put it in the car and headed to the Alpaca farm. Got to
Southern Oaks Alpacas by 10:03, parked in the end of their neighbor's driveway - it was a LONG drive and the place was for sale, so it appeared vacant. Sat there, window down, enjoying the breeze, the animal sounds, etc, and knitting, for about 45 minutes until everyone else arrived. The location was gorgeous, hidden under old Oak trees, covered in Spanish Moss, breeze sighing through the trees.
We had a lovely time with the alpacas. Their animals are almost ALL Suri alpaca. They had ONE Huacaya alpaca, one llama, a great pyrenees dog... They had several babies as well, most in the 2-3 month old range.
Oh, did I forget to mention the cats? There were at least two, but this one was definitely the hit. I think we took more pictures of this cat than we took of the alpaca!!
What, you can't see the cat? Ok, well, let's let that white alpaca (who happens to share my birthday!!) take a breather and maybe you'll be able to see the cat better...
Yep...cat just laid there...the entire time we were there, letting the animals eat around him.
Another favorite of ours was Suelita... She was one lovable alpaca! Here she is giving J a kiss! Incidentally, her loving behavior made one thing clear...despite recent attempts otherwise, Miss Suelita was definitely NOT in the family way. Apparently when she gets preggers she turns into a moody hormonal grump! Not that way today, that's for sure!!
In fact, she laid right down on the ground in front of us so everyone could pet her, love on her, and get this great photo op of the whole group!!
I also wanted to introduce you to Twister. Poor baby. He's a little distraught right now, as he is being weened from Mama, and so he's separated from the herd. He does have another little boy in with him, to keep him company. He's not too interested in a friend right now, he just wants his mama. Mama has been relocated to another farm for some "adult time"...so in another year or so, perhaps Twister will be getting a baby brother or sister!
Oops...there goes the guy with the food wagon! Bye, bye alpacas!
The animals were beautiful. We spent an hour or more with the animals, then went to see the owner's workshop. She showed us some of the needle felting she does (most of it is on a fabric base). She also had a beautiful display set up with yarns, roving from their animals, and raw fleece. Her prices were very generous and everyone took full advantage of the opportunity to get some amazing yarn and fiber. I ended up with something over two pounds of raw fleece in a luscious dark chocolate brown.
After the farm we went to a "greek" restaurant right down the road. It had greek, italian, cuban, and creole options... Very tasty. While we were at the Alpaca farm, V said she'd been looking online at directions for making drop spindles and I said I had all of the ingredients plus the fiber available if she wanted a kit. She jumped at it, so I got the spindle together when we went to lunch, gave a demo, etc. Turns out she lives not far from me, so I expect I'll be seeing more of her.
After lunch I headed to
Uncommon Threads in Palm Harbor. Was talking to one of the spinners there and had mentioned something about knitting at the
pioneer event in Dade City. Then mentioned that we were knitting because there was already a spinner there, but then we went by to visit the spinner and I got to spin on a great wheel... She looked at my quizically and says "What was the spinner's name? I said "G"...and she said "What is YOUR name?" So I told her. She said "There was another person with you, with a drop spindle?" I said "yeah...." She went to a guild meeting FRIDAY and was chatting with G who was telling everyone all about the beautiful yarn I spun on the Great Wheel!!! I had it in the car, so brought it in so she could see it in person. Geez, it REALLY is a small world!!
After I left there, I called D who lives in Tampa. He was out and about. He gave me his $.02 on the directions I had, etc. We talked while I headed across town. He had to hang up to get gas. I then got lost, so called him back to figure out where the heck I was. He walked me through where I was and where I needed to go (I had fixed myself mostly). Got to
Knit N Knibble, looked around for 5 min before D met me there. Picked out some needles, then asked the
guy behind the counter if they had any CTH Garment patterns... He showed me what they had, which didn't include mine, then he went looking at the books...I said "oh, no, it's not in a book yet". He said "well, maybe we could order it for you"...so I said "well, no, I was actually looking to see if you carried it...it's my pattern that I designed". Then he was intrigued and insisted on knowing more, so I went out to the car to get the pattern and yarn. He came back when he'd finished with his next customer and I showed him the pattern and the back of the sweater... which looks like this now:
He LOVED it! Said he wanted to knit it, (and had enough CTH at home to do it!!), loved that I had photographed the frog instead of doing a drawing... So, he wrote down all the info, and will talk to the owner to see if she'll carry it. They carry tons of CTH, and we both agreed, the ability to sell 10 skeins for a project is a big deal! He helped me with the needles I needed and got me checked out.
The good news is that with the needle purchase (and the stitch markers and pattern that I picked up at Uncommon Threads), I have all of the required components for my Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap! Now I just have to pick up a couple of the "optional" add-ins then it'll be on it's way!
After the yarn store, D and I dropped by the mall for a bit, then ran by Panera so I could grab a bite for dinner before heading home.
Grand totals for the day?
Mileage: ~200
Purchases:
- 2+ pounds lovely raw alpaca
- 8 oz Ashland Bay Merino in contrasting colors that will be beautiful plyed together
- Stitch markers for HSKS4
- Sock pattern for HSKS4
- DPN's for HSKS4
People enabled: One - V for spinning. She also bought two pounds of raw alpaca for spinning!
Celebrated St. Patty's Day today by making Corned Beef & Cabbage with carrots, turnips, and homemade Whole Wheat Beer Bread! YUM! D came up to share my holiday repast.
And now, it's sad to say, my weekend ends and the new week will begin.
Feeling the head and ears to see what his face looked like:
And now down the neck to the back. Opie was VERY patient and SUCH a good boy the entire time he was with Judy. Alpaca are naturally extremely skittish about having their heads and necks touched, because that is how they fight each other, by attacking the neck. So, you can imagine the astonishment while he sat perfectly still:
Judy bent down and touched his legs to see what they were like and he lifted his foot for her without any irritation or stress. Again, their legs are only touched when it's time to trim their hooves, so not a favorite place to be touched. Steve commented that he won't even do that willingly for THEM! Proceeding on, she checked out the tail end of Opie:
And back to the blanket. You notice that hand really digging in to the fleece on his back. A testament to how thick and soft his fleece was!
And back to the neck. See that look on Jane's face? That's utter shock at how amazingly good Opie was with Judy.
Ahhh...and time and again I see in my pictures, Judy kept coming back to that hand buried in Opie's blanket... and yet you can see on his face, he is completely calm and not remotely stressed.
We did visit with a second alpaca... He wasn't quite as keen on the experience as Opie was. While Judy was petting this guy, I gently reached out to touch Opie's blanket and pet him a bit. Even with that simple motion, he shied from me just a little, and seemed somewhat anxious.
After meeting her new friend, Judy came back to pet Opie again. And even though he'd shied from me in the meantime, he was as docile as can be when Judy approached him again!!!
Overall, I would say we both had a WONDERFUL time at the farm. Judy and Opie seem to be fast friends for life! We did try to go in to feed the girls, but they had a lot of attention and quite a few treats throughout the day from the various visitors, so by that time they weren't really having any part of it. So, we'll have to go back again on a day when we can see the girls too!
