I heard via e-mail that there were a couple of sheep in need of rescue. The owners had lost their property and had moved out of state. They needed someone to pick up the sheep. I don't normally take in unwanted sheep, but these were two that had been purchased from me as lambs and had never been around other sheep or goats. So I rounded up my friends (Chris and Colleen) with the enticement (bribe) that there was another fiber event going on in the area and my dog and we drove to Placerville. The first hard part was finding the place. We had very detailed instructions, but I'm glad that there was someone to read them as I was driving. I knew that Rusty couldn't effectively herd these sheep with a cone on his head so I found a rib band from our collection of arm/foot/shoulder injury paraphernalia and put that around his middle so that the drain tube wouldn't get hung up on a bush. The sheep gathering itself went surprisingly well (you can read about that on Rusty's blog as he described it fairly well, if you can get over his know-it-all attitude). What Rusty didn't say is that, even with his skill and expertise, we never would have got those sheep in without the extra friends and the panels.

Next stop was the Yarnival, a celebration of the opening of the PluckyFluff workshop at a winery in Placerville. It seems like I usually recognize everyone at out local fiber events, but the PluckyFluff following includes a different group of people. There were vendors, live music, and pizza on the winery grounds. I don't usually take my dog to events like this, but I couldn't leave him in the hot car (the sheep were OK in the back with the shade) so he came along.

The yarns are wild and crazy. I'm not sure how you actually use most of them, but they are certainly fun to look at.

This is a collection of handspun yarns from around the world made into the "world's largest skein".

Here is a detail of that yarn.

There were a few sheep and goats around. Isn't this a beautiful colored Wensleydale? Do you notice the color of the dirt? Dirt in the Placerville area is red. That sure makes for a beautiful sheep, but I'm told that under that red color this sheep is really a brilliant white.