Alpaca Heaven

First, my apologies for not posting before now. It has been too long.

Second, today was one of those days when miracles really did happen.

First of all we had snow this morning. And it's APRIL! Over two inches came down and we lost power about 8 a.m. It did not come back on for about three hours but finally came back. The weather folks are predicting a hard frost tonight (20 degrees) which will probably kill all the fruit tree blossoms, but with luck the other spring flowers will survive.

I took a picture of the tulips in the snow, but it was so dark, and the wind was blowing so hard, you couldn't tell they were tulips, much less that they were in the snow.

It's now 5:24 p.m. and all the snow is gone. It got up to 45 degrees today.

This is a good thing because I made a very special trip in the early afternoon.

I met up with Heather and her husband in Saluda (about halfway between our two homes).

Heather and family raise alpacas. Heather crochets but does not knit and she does not yet spin. For the last five years she has been shearing her alpacas and her llama and storing the fleeces. That's five years of six alpaca fleeces, folks!

We met via a mutual friend who knew this would be a very special match. Heather and hubby arrived in Saluda shortly before I did (and I was a half hour early!). Their vehicle was stuffed with bags of fiber. I came home with about half.

The deal is that my other friend (T) in Pennsylvannia who also recently learned to spin and I are going to spin up this fiber. We get to keep half. The other half (once spun) goes back to Heather.

So here are pictures of what I came home with (and I honestly didn't bring all of what she brought simply because I didn't have room) and she said she only brought along about a third of what she has at home. And last month they bought another seven alpacas and will be shearing in May. That's 13 alpacas and one llama, folks!

If she is happy with what we spin for her, T and I are set for life!

Here are some pictures:

Cria locks and looking into the bag of the Cria fiber. 1.5 pounds.

Black fleece and black lock (This stuff is almost blue it is so black). 1.5 pounds.

Fancy fleece and fancy locks (two versions) (2 pounds)

Fawn Fleece and locks (about 4 pounds)

White Fleece with locks (about 2 pounds)

Llama Fleece bag and locks (about 5 pounds)

Okay, T, tell me which bags you want to tackle.