NH Sheep & Wool and TURKEY!
This past weekend was the annual New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival. This is an event that I look forward to every year. I certainly do not need any more yarn (oh boy, I just started cataloging my stash on Ravelry this week and I think I might have been in a bit of denial about how much I actually have…) but, I have always viewed this festival (and sometimes the Webs tent sale) as guilty free yarn shopping events (this might also now include the North Shore Yarn Crawl after the blast we had doing it this spring). This year was extra fun because Bill and I, and L and G (friends of ours), decided to all carpool together and turn in into a day of road tripping fun.
We started our adventure by all hopping into my car in the drizzly weather and heading north. Bill was kind enough to do the actual driving so that I could knit while we drove. Our first stop was to get travel sustenance, pistachio iced coffee (OMG!) and delicious baked goods, at Heav’nly Donuts. Then back on the road to Deerfield! Though the ride was a bit gloomy, it cleared up nicely by the time we got to the festival. The sun was shining, it was warm, and we even managed to get a tad sunburned. Of course I did not walk away from the event empty handed, that would just be tragic. Here is what I acquired this year (I managed to not break the bank too badly for a change):
And what would a sheep and wool festival be without some sheep? And, of course, a few alpaca as well (alpaca fest was going on out back, which is also awesome, but why must they always put the alpaca in costumes? Alpaca just look weird in clothes…):
I am not sure why I did not manage to snag any pictures of the big fluffy bunnies (maybe Bill will post some, he had his extra fancy camera with him…). I suspect I was distracted by the idea of taking one of the baby ones home with me. Realistically a sheep or alpaca is just not going to fit in our apartment, but a bunny (particularly one that will sit in my lap and let me spin the fluff directly off of him) is not even all that insane of an idea. Just saying… It could happen.
Next we headed to Dunkin Donuts for some midday iced coffee fortification before venturing further north towards Meredith. After some scenic views and lovely bodies of water, and just as we were reaching the famished level of hunger, we arrived at our dinner destination: Hart’s Turkey Farm. Who doesn’t love a good turkey dinner? Carrot relish, rolls, corn bread, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, butternut squash (!!!), cranberry sauce… it was all awesome! There may have been a slight incident that involved drawing on the paper placemats (let's just say turkeys look weird with human hands).
Our plan had been to get some local ice cream after dinner, but the general consensus was that (although we could certainly suffer through it if forced into ice cream eating) we should head for home and give ourselves some time to digest before dessert. This ended up being an excellent plan. By the time we reached Mass we had sufficient space in our stomachs again and stopped for gelato at Dolce Freddo. This place has so many awesome sounding flavors that I can never remember which are my favorite because they all sound so good. I ended up with a scoop of white chocolate peanut butter cup and a scoop of salted caramel heath bar and neither one disappointed. It's hard to go wrong with gelato though, yum!
All and all it was a pretty great day. And now I can’t stop working on the Spectra Scarf pattern… There’s a voice in my head that says “you can do one more wedge, just do one more before you put it down…” I’m up to seventeen wedges already, I have a feeling this is going to be a quickly finished project!
