martinimade

I spent most of my childhood touring one historic site after another. This is not a bad thing. The only one that truly bored the bejeezus out of me was one involving trains. I was so unimpressed by it that I have forgotten its actual name. I only remember walking through a gravel yard filled with nothing but trains that didn't work. Woo.

The Diva's childhood will be an endless succession of fiber-bearing beasts, I suspect. Soon she'll be old enough to drag to Rhinebeck. Until then, there are always the local events, like Columbus Day's Southern Tier Alpaca Tour, wherein you can drive around Upstate New York and visit these wonderful beasts and those who love them.

And you can tell how thrilled the Diva is to be with me...

We only made it to HaSu this year. The weather was a factor, as was the fact that we were all wiped out from a week full of visits from various grandparents. HaSu is about ten minutes from our house, in the hills and up a narrow dirt road. You can see what I mean about the weather -- and this is the most pleasant it ever really got.

Hazen and Susan, former Brooklynites, have quite the spread and quite the herd. Both are personable and great resources. I always feel like I'm taking advantage of the breeders' time when I go to farms on the tour. I have no desire to own an alpaca (as much as I may joke about it because it makes the Hub turn all sorts of shades of red), but loooooove to knit with the fleece. My only compaint about the stops on the tour is that they don't have enough yarn to paw through. But that's not really what the tour is for.

I have yet to meet an alpaca breeder/owner who isn't proud of their animals. They also all seem to be the sort of folk you'd trust with deep dark secrets or large sums of cash. Not that I would, mind you.

Perhaps this is due to many, many hours around these funny-looking things, which seem to be part camel and part alien.

And, maybe, part emu.