The fair and more gardening.

After a long but successful week of staring at spreadsheets (next week I actually get to go work in the lab), I was ready for some weekend fun. On the docket for this weekend was a trip to the Shepherds extravaganza at the Puyallup Spring Fair. Despite being filthy with knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers (I'm not kidding, I am NEVER the only person knitting on a bus. Last week someone was spinning on a drop spindle ON THE BUS) there aren't any big wool or yarn markets in Washington. I find this a little odd. The closest things we have are the yarn marketplace at Madrona (I haven't gone yet) and the Shepherds Extravaganza at the spring fair. I wanted some new spinning fiber, and maybe even a raw fleece so off I went to the fair, accompanied by my friend Grace, who is always down for an adventure.

It was very fun, but I have to say, the whole place was.....smaller....than I expected. Good, but smaller. We saw angora goats.

They were less blurry in real life. The midway was in full swing. We decided not to ride anything, though it appeared that's what most other people were there for.

They were setting up for the demolition derby later, and we saw the cars go by.


There was a sustainability section, on how to make your house and yard better for the environment (definitely in the Pacific Northwest when they are advertising the next Rodeo adjacent to the sustainability tent). There were Pygmy goats (a whole show of them in fact).

And also miniature horses (but I don't have any pictures of them). And Dancing Horses.

And that was it. Like I said, really good, I had a lot of fun, but small, the whole place only took a couple hours to wander. There was more we could have stayed for, the pig races for instance, but we decided to head home. The haul:

That's two bags of alpaca, one big bag of romney, and one bag of angora/softwool. The three bags of white fiber I'm going to dye with mushrooms after they are spun up this summer.

Sunday was our regular Farmers market/clean house/house projects day. And Alli came over for dinner. Of note, we worked in the garden (I'm liking the garden). We moved the remainder of our big pile of dirt out of the driveway and into the backyard. And then we planted.


We've added a third bed, and we planted 4 kinds of tomatoes in it yesterday. I also planted some radishes. The plants have been loving the weather.



And so has the cat. She's spent most of her time rolling around on the pavement in the back soaking up sun.

Just like all the humans (well except for the rolling on the pavement part).