SAFF, part one

This weekend was the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair near Asheville, NC. I went this year with Keith. I have found over the years that I don't much like to travel with other people whether its family or a tour group. Keith says I'm difficult, and perhaps I am. I was very happy that he agreed to go with me since the 2 of us travel very well together. (It helps that we really are soulmates. We have very similar tastes and often think parallel thoughts. Not that it's like travelling with myself at all. We have different personalities which is usually a very good thing.)

Anyway, we drove up later than we had planned on Friday and missed getting to go to SAFF at all that day. However, we did find a good Asian restaurant that had several different Pacific Rim cuisines. It doesn't have a website for me to link you to, so I'll have to tell you from memory that we had sushi (Osaka Maki I think it was - a roll with crab and cucumber topped with smoked eel and raw salmon), miso soup, and green tea. I had a Hawaiian chicken dish and Keith had something more typically Chinese with filet mignon & scallops. At dessert time the waitress and manager talked us into trying the tempura cheesecake. They take a slice of lemon cheesecake, dip it in tempura batter, fry it up and serve it with ice cream. I don't want to think about the calories or cholesterol, but it was super yummy.

On Saturday I woke poor Keith up at 5:55 a.m. I just couldn't sleep. I was excited about being able to look at yarn, but more importantly, I wanted to see the livestock. I work in a yarnshop; I have friends who buy lots of yarn online; I buy look at yarn and buy it online - in other words, I can find yarn. I don't have lots of opportunities to pet llamas, angora rabbits or alpacas. Keith and I did the circuit of all the yarn and fiber vendors. I think if I were actively spinning or processing my own fleeces, I would have gotten more out of SAFF. I did buy 5 skeins of sock yarn. Keith picked out 2 that I'll knit up for him, and I found 3. I did offer to buy him more, but he just didn't find anymore he liked, and he seriously doubts that I'll do his anytime soon. I also found this gal, Dee Sharp, who makes really fun jewelry. I would show you the manta ray that I got for myself, but I need to take a pic. She doesn't have it on her site.

I'll edit this later and insert yarn pictures for you to drool over as I do.

Keith was fabulous and willingly went with me to see all the animals. We have alpaca pictures, we saw angora rabbits galore, and we wandered along the stalls where the llamas were kept. Later we went to the tent where the sheep and goats were. The most wierd thing to me was that as we wandered around the sheep and goat tent, I was overcome with thoughts of cheese. It was a strange thing to be looking at these adorable tiny sheep or looking at big fluffy sheep and thinking of cheese. It only made sense as I was leaving. Goat milk and cheese smell a bit like the live goats do. A year or two ago I tried goat milk as a substitute for cow milk. It's supposed to be more digestable, but it has a smell. Goat feta doesn't bother me a bit, but the milk smell was a little too strong. Apparently it smells enough like live goats to have me thinking of cheese when I should be thinking about fleece.

That's all I'm blogging about tonight. We took a long scenic way home today. We left Fletcher just before 11:00 a.m. and got home around 6:00 p.m. Obviously we took the scenic route and made a few stops. More later.