Rising Meadow Farm Fest

Yesterday, I spent the day at Rising Meadow Farm's annual Farm Fest. Us always, there were great venders, tempting food and excellent live celtic music. My mom and I have gone together before and this year we went together again. That was even more special than usual because this summer I moved across the state, my first time leaving my home town, and so my mom and I don't see as much of each other as we are used to. We spent most of the afternoon sitting in the

 shade listening to the band, Seamus Stout. I LOVE celtic music. So much so that we even had a celtic band at our wedding. One of the members of Seamus Stout is actually the son of the farm owners, so they come all the way from Texas to play at Farm Fest every year. While listening, I worked on the second Ram sock. I had to black out the photo, though, because this pattern is TOP SECRET until the shipment goes out in October. I meant to take photos of all the great fiber/yarn/etc vendors but I got a bit overwhelmed by all the goodies and forgot. You can kind of see the booths in the background of the photo to the left. Maybe someone else who was there got better photos--if so, send them to me and I'll post them here! Farm Fest is still small compared to most of the fiber festivals out there, but the vendors that are there are great. There were several people selling yarn, of course, but also a couple of potters, a basket maker (boy was it hard to get out of that booth with my wallet intact), a couple of jewelry makers and a fellow who makes kniting needles, crochet hooks and other wooden accessories, . And the bunnies. I was THISCLOSE to bringing home an angora bunny. I had to call my husband and have him talk me out of it (we don't have room for the two of us and the dog in our little apartment right now, much less a big fluffy angora rabbit). Some of them had just been sheared and they looked so adorable and skinny. Ok stop it Laura, you don't need a bunny. The bunnies weren't the only animals present. There were also baby alpacas who stole my heart. Thankfully they wouldn't fit in the car, so I wasn't quite as tempted to take one home with me (this year). And then of course there were the sheep and chickens that live at Rising Meadow. They looked a bit hot. And the working dogs that keep those sheep in line. I thought they looked just like my Avi. What do you think?
 

The best part of the day had to be meeting all the great fiber people. Before I even

 got out of the parking lot I ran into Kim from Knit Picky and her darling daughters, and then as soon as I sat down to knit for a few minutes I was tapped on the shoulder by a member of our Ram club! Thankfully I hadn't pulled out my secret Ram sock yet! Unfortunately I'm terrible with names-- if you see yourself in this photo, please remind me who you are! See that beautiful scarf shes working on? Well she used one of the skeins we sent in the first shipment for socks and is using the other skein for a scarf! I had a really nice time talking to the vendors, especially Tina from Spinners Ridge, Mary Ann from Three Waters Farm and a lovely family from Thistledew Farm selling crocheted rugs (even the littlest girl was working on one!), clay art, angora fiber, shawls woven on triangle looms and other goodies. 

It was a lovely day, I met a lot of great fiber folk, my mom and I got to hang out, and there was knitting and celtic music. Really, could you ask for more? The only drawback was that it made me REALLY want to have my dream farm NOW.