Vermont Day Trip

mom and cria (baby alpaca)

curious alapca (click on image)

Yesterday, several of us (32 to be exact) spent a wonderful summer day in Vermont. A guided tour of Green Mountain Spinnery was fascinating! We were all amazed at how many steps and hard labor is involved in turning sheep's wool into beautiful knitting yarn. I heard several comments along the line of "I'll never complain about the cost of nice yarn ever again". A little bit of shopping in Putney, lunch at the Putney Inn and then on to our adventure: IBIWISI Alpaca Farm. Our motor coach couldn't make it up the driveway (a very steep and narrow dirt road) so we walked off our lunch and then some! Cathy who owns the farm (Now she's an interesting lady..a Midwesterner who moved east to work in Manhattan only to give it all up to move to Vermont alone to start her farm. Well, she met a nice gentleman, who happens to be very handy and they are celebrating their first wedding anniversary today!) I digress... Cathy has a herd of about 30 alpacas and there were 2 crias (babies) that were only 2 and 4 days old for us to adore. Some of the women hand dyed their own alpaca, others meandered the farm and we all relaxed under a perfect summer sky. It was a lovely day indeed!

the boys...check out his eyes!