Sharon and Zippy visit the alpaca farm.

It was a cloudy grey, damp day on Saturday. I visited Riverbend Alpacas near Croghan, New York. It appears that all the Alpaca farms are having open house today. I had volunteered to demostrate handspinning. My host, Ellen Chamberlain, has a small shop full of alpaca garments and yarn. She had her loom set up under a tent, and I joined her with Zippy and a more conventional looking spinning wheel.
Quite a few people stopped by to enjoy the open farm. The dozen or so alpacas were charming hosts, and alpaca roving was the obvious spinning choice. Zippy did a wonderful job spinning alpaca. She's very fast, and very easy to control. We spun a lovely single, and plied it up at the end of the day, into a sleek 2=ply fingering weight.
Back in the real world today, DH and I spent the morning taking up the pavers, and digging up the compacted gravel to receive the new concrete steps on Monday. This 'weekend project' has leaked past the middle of the summer and bled right into fall. I have robust leg muscles from climbing into the house without the use of steps, since the beginning of August. I have robust arm muscles from swinging a sledge hammer and shoveling crushed stone. I am still pretty soft in the middle, though. And, in a cruel twist of happenstance, the new bathroom scales are 3 pounds 'heavier' than the old ones. Oh well, at least I can blame 3 pounds on the scales.