Busy end of August

This is such a busy and exciting time of year. Next weekend is MFF and my first natural colored BFL's will be coming home with me. I'm really looking forward to seeing all the Shetland people at MFF and the pig roast at the Ludlam's on Saturday night.

About a week after MFF, I'll be doing a spinning demo and having my sheep on display at the Minnesota State Fair in the Baa Booth. I have lots to do to get ready for that and I need to decide which ones to put on display.

Then right after Labor Day will be the Jefferson Sheep and Wool Festival. I'm looking forward to that too. I'm not sure if I will bring sheep there now that I'm doing the MN State Fair thing.

We are about to get high speed Internet access. I'm waiting for our new modem to arrive and the worker to flip the switch on our phone box. I can't wait to dump the dial-up! This means a new email address and a new website URL, so watch for more updates.

This past weekend I met up with an old friend that I hadn't seen in about 15 years. We booked a room in a four star French hotel and went shopping at the fiber stores in St. Paul. We brought our wheels to spin at the hotel and we talked fiber/yarn and shared knitting patterns into the night. We had an excellent french breakfast, it was my first experience with Hollandaise sauce -- ymmm! It was almost my first experience tipping a bell boy (is that the correct term nowadays? It just doesn' seem politically correct.)
After breakfast I went to spin with the spinners guild at the Minnesota Zoo. That was a lot of fun. My boys came in the afternoon and we were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the Northern Trail. We had very close up encounters with the musk ox and the tigers. My boys were really jazzed. I got to see, feel, and smell the raw quivot from the musk ox, which was my big thrill.
I also got to see the small Shetland flock at the Minnesota Zoo for the first time. I wish I could add photos so you all could see some of the interesting colors they had. I think they have modified genes in that flock and possibly polled genetics. They had wethered the ram lambs, but those boys only had very tiny bumps for horns. When we've wethered Shetland ram lambs we still get a lot more horn growth. I'll follow up with photos as soon as I can.