Sheep, and wool

Yesterday we drove the kids up north and did two things. First we stopped off at Bard, one of my alma maters. It was the first time I'd been there in 8 years. It was beautiful, and I felt reassured about the choice my 17 year old self made to go there. When my mom and gramma and I visited the colleges I'd applied to, Bard was the only one where I felt at home. And I still feel at home there. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no Thacher...when I go back to Thacher I just want to thorw my arms around the whole place, or lay down on the ground and make sure my roots are still there or something. Bard doesn't do that for me, but it is still an excellent place.

After our quick walk around part of the campus we got back in the car and headed to Rhinebeck for the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival. Rhinebeck is all of 10 minutes from Bard, and my friend Eleanor used to go to the Festival every year. I didn't knit at the time, and had no interest. Now, however, I know better! Rhinebeck hosts one of the bigger fiber festivals in the US, and I was super-psyched to get to go at last.

So we went to a llama jumping contest, a canine frisbee demonstration, a sheep display (with plenty of real, live sheep for petting!), and the wine and food hall. I spent about 20 minutes quickly perusing some of the yarn offerings, too, while Robert and the kids played outside. It was a gorgeous day- sunny, about 73 and fall colors all around. I didn't actually buy any yarn, which surprised me a bit, but I just didn't see anything I liked better than my Favored Yarns. We did buy some venison sausage, maple sugar candy, and wine. The wine we bought was a muscat, made by a NY state winery we've been wanting to check out. The muscat didn't taste like any of the NY dessert wines we've tried; it tasted like wine from home. As I was thinking this Robert looked over at me and said "This tastes like Mike Brown 's (winemaker and owner of Kalyra, and former winemaker at Buttonwood) muscat!" We looked at the bottle- ah. The grapes came from the Central Coast. We bought it. $18 for a 750 of yummy muscat? Yes, please!

Here are some pictures from the frisbee event. We met up with some friends there- their daughter and Zion go to preschool together.