Monday, November 14, 2011

There were also hundreds of fluffy bunnies

Yesterday was the last day of the Royal Winter Fair, so we made the trip down to Toronto to witness the spectacle. I'd never been to an agricultural fair that didn't involve warehouse-sized rooms full of combines and wheat-braiding competitions, so this big-city Ontario version was novel for me.

We saw prize-winning apples!

Prizewinning apples

And inspected many fleeces (more on this subject anon)!

Coloured fleeces

We swooned over sweet sheepy faces!

Lounging

And marvelled at a row of giant butts!

Butts

At the end of the day we were rewarded with a lovely cow with silky ears! Her handlers had a fan set up next to her enclosure so her ear furnishings waved in the breeze.

The best-furnished ears

The fleece auction was surprisingly exhilarating; Mel and I had a lot of (quiet, intense) fun making a slow circuit through the auction room examining each one and making notes on our cheat sheet. We didn't get our best beloved but did get our second-favourite, a massive handsome grey Romney-looking fleece from Gillian Mullins in Stirling. Today I washed a few locks to see what the deal was, and they are sturdy and glossy and long. Also bought were a shiny longwool fleece¹ and a creamy white Icelandic fleece I want to knit about twenty mittens out of.² It should be enough to last me until next November.



¹ What, we were curious. It placed sixth in its category and I felt sorry for the poor darling because it's lovely really; I promised it I'd make it into something pretty.

² Another One That Got Away was a beautiful moorit Icelandic lamb fleece. Sigh.

1 comment:

Mel said...

I washed a pile of the RomneyX fleece on Monday and oh my is it ever soft. I may kick my current spinning projects off the Lendrum and let this take over <3

Let's go see bunnies EVERY YEAR.