May 25th, 2002.
Cummington is a tiny, tiny little town located somewhere in the void of Western Massachusetts, not
implying at all that being in a void is a bad thing!
Anyhow, I got word there was to be a sheep festival here, and that said sheep festival would also
have an angora goat exhibit, and being a fan of goats (my 2002 calendar exhibited photographs of a
variety of goats), I decided to attend. Besides, the weather was great, and I was in the mood
for a ride. I was intending to meet up with friends, but they weren't certain if they'd be there
Saturday or Sunday, and I could only attend that Saturday. So.....
Saturday it was. My friends didn't make it that day, but I did run into an old friend from
work who'd moved up here when he'd had enough of the grind down in Connecticut.
It's a laid back town of some low number. Possibly half of its population that day was at the festival.
Mostly sheep, the festival did have the goat exhibit (all Angora), and even a few llamas. My
favorite sheep were the Jacob's sheep, a breed of black and white ovine which can sometimes have three or
four horns. Even the females have horns. They're a bit smaller than the typical Sheep sheep,
and seem to have good and perhaps somewhat bright dispositions.
My goal someday down the road: a small fiber farm, a few angora goats, a couple llamas, and adding to that, a couple Jacob's sheep.
I'd supply my friends with quality fiber.
Two more pages of Cummington 2002 follow, both are pretty photo-intensive. One focuses in on the
regular sheep, and the other on the angora goats, and even the llamas, which somehow turned up here too.
This festival is also known as the Massachusetts Sheep and Woolcraft Fair.
Unshorn
Shorn
Now, I neither spin nor weave, although I seem to be increasing the numbers of my friends
who have taken either or both up as hobbies. I may at some point take up spinning, but since my free time
is usually spent huddled over the keyboard (when not outdoors or in a book or driving somewhere!), I'm
not quite sure when this will happen. It's not like I use my television as a backdrop for
much of anything.
A RootGrafix creation