When I went to the Jacob Sheep Breeders AGM I took 9 sheep with me. I came home with 10. That was not the original plan. However, five of those sheep are new to the flock.

I don’t have all the right paperwork yet so I don’t remember what Karen named this little girl, but she is from the bide a wee farm in Oregon.This is bide a wee Jewell. Karen and I were going to trade lambs and when I couldn’t decide between the two lambs, they said that they would trade for both. They have beautiful fleeces and I can’t wait for shearing day! Another new face is this pretty ewe lamb from Mud Ranch in California. I am waiting for her paperwork too and I don’t remember what Joan named her.

This is a preview of the Mud Ranch lamb’s fleece.

This pretty lamb is one of my flock. I feel kind of guilty for not trading or selling her, but not guilty enough that I can’t be glad to have her in the flock. This is the little ewe who almost won Best Fleece in the sheep show. (Is it OK to spend the rest of your life saying I “almost won”? I’m proud of that because she was second to the Kenleigh Acres ram who has consistently won everything he has been entered in (and deserves it).This is my little ewe’s fleece. I guess I need to name her now since she is staying here. Her dad is Tioga and her mom is Zip (out of Zelda, whose mom is Zena). How about Zippy? I don’t know if that has quite the image that I want for her.

The three new girls plus Z— joining the rest of the flock.

I brought home some boys too, but i think they deserve a post of their own.

Katie and I crammed a lot into two days and didn’t have to drive more than about an hour away.

We spent all day yesterday at the Shelburne Museum. There is too much to see in one day and, in fact, your ticket buys you two consecutive days.  I think it would be hard to absorb any more if you really spend time reading all the signs and looking at everything.

This is just one room of Shaker tools. Behind Katie there are more tools, wood stoves, and a lot of things that I can’t identify.

Here is the Jacquard loom in the weaving shed.

How about a two-handed spinning wheel? There are two bobbins and the docent told us that one person used this wheel to spin two bobbins at a time.

This is a portion of a reed from a loom–made with real reeds.

There is an entire house displaying weather vanes, whirly-gigs, and ships’ mast-heads.

The Museum grounds are full of incredible buildings. This horseshoe-shaped barn houses dozens of sleighs and buggies on two levels. Other buildings house a 1″:1′ scale circus train, blacksmith shop, printing presses, dental office, general store, apothecary, toys, dolls, quilts, wooden decoys. Can you imagine entire displays of glass canes, trivets, crystal glasses, hatboxes, embroidery samplers? The list goes on. At the end of the day when we found there was only about 35 minutes until closing we breezed through the Fashion exhibit and had to skip a couple of other buildings.

 We came home exhausted and finished the evening by making triple chocolate ice cream in Katie’s new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker and watching the DVD of Cavalia that I had given Katie for Christmas after having seen the show.

It rained last night and that was good, for I guess two weeks without rain in VT in the summer is considered almost a drought. Today we drove south and went to three more tourist attractions.

Living in California, I don’t know much about “sugaring” so this was an interesting exhibit. Especially fun was the tasting room. There is quite a difference between the mild and the stronger flavored maple syrup, but all are good.

We drove past and through picturesque  covered bridges on our way to the next stop.

The Vermont Marble Museum is fascinating. It is housed in what was once a huge mill/warehouse and has rooms full of exhibits and marble. Lots of marble. There is a poignant exhibit describing the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The marble for the monument came from Colorado but was designed and finished in Vermont. There are marble portraits of all the U.S. Presidents up through Bush #1. Take a look below.

 This is a huge room full of slabs of all kinds of marble. I had no idea there was this much variety.

Our day wasn’t finished. We had passed a sign that said “Castle 3 miles”. Why not?

The Wilson Castle was built in the mid-1800’s for almost $1.5 million!

It is a spectacular building with an interesting history, but I think I liked the outside veranda best. Doesn’t the tile floor look woven?

More VT  tourism reports tomorrow!

Why Vermont? That’s where my daughter lives right now. I travelled all day Thursday (4 planes and 14 hours) to get here and spent today hanging around the farm. Katie had to work for a few hours this morning so her landlord, Carl, showed me around the place.

The road runs through the property.  The barn and arena are on one side and the houses are on the other. The property goes to the river that is at the base of the hill in the background. The forest on the hills on both sides of the property is National Forest.

This is the house where Katie and Kurtis live. The entrance on the right is a common entrance way. Katie and Kurtis live in the house on the left side and Carl and Leslie live in the back, and have an office on the right, but it is all attached somehow. Everyone shares chores and I don’t think Katie could have found a nicer living situation.

I took this photo of the bed I’m using because that is the blanket that I made for Katie after Christmas. I used a lot of my mom’s handspun yarn to weave it. I was unhappy with the size and the “ruffly” edges after fulling, but it works great on this bed and is quite soft.

Libby will follow Katie anywhere. I think Libby might even remember me.

Tomorrow we’re off to the Shelburne Museum.