Wool Market, Part I

On Saturday morning, my mother and mother-in-law and I all piled into the car and drove to Estes Park, home of Rocky Mountain National Park, the hotel that inspired The Shining, a lot of beautiful scenery... oh, and the Estes Park Wool Market.

It's only about an hour's drive, and the drive is full of lovely mountain scenery. And there's even shopping along the way! Yes, we had to stop and pick up a little something for all the mountain men in our lives. We arrived around noon and stopped for fairly decent burritos at Cisco's (in Stanley Village) to fortify us for the afternoon, and then we made our way to the fairgrounds...

We met many friendly sheep, llamas, alpacas, goats, and bunnies. There was an entire barn full of llamas, and separate tents for the sheep, goats, and alpacas. I think the llamas take advantage of their height to look snooty, and they do it very well so that they're just charming.

This Jacob sheep had the most impressive set of horns I've ever seen. And that fleece! So thick and fluffy!

The alpaca tent was a dangerous place to be: it was full of adorable doe-eyed alpacas, and there was plenty of fiber for sale. Raw fiber, prepared roving, yarn, all in a range of natural colors. Needless to say, I succumbed... more on that later. I had no idea when I moved here that one advantage of living in the mountain West is the large number of alpaca/llama breeders in the area.

Now, my parents have been raising goats for my entire life, and I grew up bottle-feeding the kids, so I know from cute goats. These were fine specimens. The fiber goats are mostly much smaller than the dairy varieties, and look at that curly coat! They were also, as my mother commented, MUCH quieter than the sheep; the sheep tent was deafening with all the BAAing. I suspect it's because goats are smarter than sheep (most things are smarter than sheep) and aren't constantly being surprised and alarmed by their environment.

Since this post is already long and photo-heavy, I'll post the shopping report separately. (Also, I still have to take the pictures.)