A Morning at Black Pines Sheep…

See the full versions of these photos as a slideshow here.

Monday morning I got up quite early and headed to Snow‘s to pick up Liz for a day of fibery tourism. We arrived at Black Pines Sheep run by the Dows just a bit north and east of Severance, CO and Bruce’s Bar (famous for their Rocky Mountain Oysters which we decided were not on the breakfast menu for Monday morning) around 9:30am. Myrtle was out in the corrals trying to get photos of some of the sheep so she could register them so we headed on down.

Liz and I went a bit crazy with the photographs. I have about 60 total on my hard drive of just the ranch. You’d swear I had never seen sheep before, LOL! I have to say, I adored the Wensleydales with their mutton chops and how thier sounds were lower and kind of gravely and filled with vibrato and just sounded like what something with mutton chops should sound like.

And the lambs… Who can resist those cute little bas and the thier adorable little faces?? Especially when they aren’t afraid of you yet! *sigh*

The Teeswater were fun to look at as well with their almost dreadlock look. I adore the tufts on the tops of their heads! On the right is a CVM/Romeldale of which Liz, Theresa, and Julie are great fans. I have my own reason for adoring them myself which those who know me in real life understand.

Of course the morning would not have been complete without fleece shopping! On the left is one wall of the fleece room at Black Pines Sheep. This is where the skirted and ready for sale fleeces live. That set of shelves held a lot of Karakul, but also some Teesewater and some Wensleydale fleeces if I recall correctly. The large stack in front were some CVM/Romeldale fleeces that Myrtle had set aside especially for Liz to check out. In case you were wondering if we purchased anything, those two big garbage bags in the picture to the right are what will be going to live with Liz. I believe that is 6 fleeces (EDIT: I stand corrected, that is five fleeces). Plus, Liz put her name on a gorgous black CVM/Romeldale that hadn’t yet been skirted but was so big it will take two people to transport it to the skirting table! To save on shipping Myrtle will be delivering them to Maryland Sheep & Wool for her. I too did succumb to the lures of lovely CVM/Romeldale fleece despite my lack of carders of any type or combs or even so much as a flicker. But, there will be more on that later…

After nearly three hours on the ranch we headed back to Loveland for a wonderful lunch of exotic meats at Henry’s Pub (buffalo meatloaf and elk brat followed by a great bread pudding) with Amanda who then took us on a tour of Interweave Press (be sure to click that link so you too can take a bit of a tour yourself).

The day ended with some fleece washing (Myrtle gave us some samples from some unskirted fleeces which I’ll share more about later as well) and then a lovely evening at Catalyst Coffee with all the SnB gals.

All in all it was a busy few days, but I had a blast! Liz, we all enjoyed your company very much and would *love* to have you back to visit if you don’t hold the altitude sickness against us :-) I promise we won’t whisk you to even higher elevations right away next time! And, Emma will get friendlier with each visit, I promise! I suspect the same will be true of VanGogh as well, as he bit me my first visit with him and we are fast friends now…

Celebrate Colorado!

1. Unusual Flavor Combos, 2. The Spread, 3. The Tea Takers, 4. Cour de la Creme - After

On Sunday afternoon some of the SnB regulars gathered at my house for another knitting tea/luncheon. The theme this time around was Colorado so we could expose Lizzy B to as much Colorado as we could in the three short days she spent with us.

We filled the table with as much food stuffs from Colorado as we could possible eat (plus some). I enlisted much help from DH who provided homemade gouda and mozzarella as well as a cour de la creme (a sweetened and whipped homemade cream cheese molded into a heart and covered with raspberry sauce). He also made the cream scones since he has the most experience with the recipe. I guess I provided the presentation and the chicken salad, crackers, cookies and the tea.

I do have to pipe up here - I did a fair bit of work on the cream cheese that went into the cour de la creme! DH put it together and such, but I had to do the draining of it as it sits and acidifies and forms the curd over 16-18 hours which meant no matter what time he started it, it would need draining while he was at work. I’m a cheesemaker too! Well, sort of…

Ashley brought with her some wonderful Colorado preserves. One was an organic apple-pear butter from a westen slope company called Ela Family Farms. The other was a somewhat unusual (though kind of normal for this region’s cuisine) organic apricot pepper jam from Plum Daisy also located on the western slope. They were both hits with everyone! She also shared with us a Colorado wine that she had taken with her to Denmark on several occasions and I can understand why! It was a 2004 Riesling from Plum Creek that was a perfect accompaniment to our luncheon. In fact, we plan to add some bottles of it to our wine cellar.

Snow brought a wonderful savory tomato bread and some herbed butter from a wonderful bavarian bakery in the area. Then Amanda contributed some local fibery goodness in the form of hand dyed skeins of Luna, a fingering weight textured rayon yarn, from Textiles a Mano in colors appropriate for each of us. I of course got green! I can’t imagine why? LOL!

I heard Snow (who as I understand will also be posting about the tea today) whisper about sneaking some of the chicken salad home to take for lunch on Monday so I’ll share the recipe here…
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Saturday…

As much as I’m dying to tell you about yesterday’s fun at the ranch and Interweave and SnB I think I should probably start at the beginning of Liz‘s visit, which for me was Saturday morning…

Saturday was deemed tourist day. I headed to Snow‘s house for breakfast (which I must say G did a wonderul job of cooking) and then we piled into the car and headed towards the Big Thompson Canyon and Estes Park. I have to confess that Snow and I weren’t thinking too hard when we planned this. See, poor Liz is from sea level, as in really sea level. Ft. Collins/Loveland is at roughly 5000 ft and Estes Park around 7500-8000 ft. Liz came in Friday night. When we headed through the windy and ever higher Big Thompson Canyon we hadn’t given any thought to the fact that in well under 24 hours Liz was rising 8000 ft in elevation. Our time in Estes was cut a little short due to a case of altitude sickness and we didn’t make it into the actual park. Now this also wasn’t helped by the two large cups of coffee and some greasy sausage that were a part of breakfast.

Liz, I still say if you plan to arrive a few days before the Estes Park Wool Market that you’ll do just fine because you can aclimate to the 5000 ft elevation and get full hydrated and such and then the additional 2500 ft to Estes probably won’t make much of a difference to you! I would recommend this tactic to anyone wanting to attend the EPWM who is from lower elevations. Not everyone is susceptible to altitude sickness, but it will make the market experience a bit more enjoyable if you are unaccustomed to higher altitudes. And water, drink much more of it than you think you need, as it is dry here and often altitude sickness can be attributed to dehydration.

We did get to meander around Estes Park a little and window shop in the tourist traps. I have to say what made my day was pulling into the parking lot and seeing a big coach bus from my HOME TOWN in Minnesota! Small, small world. And no, I did not go over there and see if I knew anyone. Truthfully, while a small town, Willmar is not so small that you know everyone not to mention I haven’t lived there in a decade.

We captured some views of Estes and visited The Stichin’ Den, then we started to head towards the park. But, the guys at the visitor’s center were having fun playing with Liz. They pulled out a topographic relief map of the park and were showing us some of the best places to get photos and describing the elevation changes for each one which made Liz a bit more green, so we turned around and headed back down.

1. Lake Estes, 2. The Stanley Hotel, 3. Longs and Meeker, 4. Big Horn Sheep in Big Thompson Canyon

We did stop at The Stanley Hotel, made quite famous by The Shining, and took some photos of the architecture (G had an assignment for one of her history classes) and the scenery. Then it was time to head back down the canyon and get Liz to a lower elevation. On the way down we got to see some big horn sheep grazing on the steep rocks of the canyon wall. I’ve lived here nearly 7 years now and that was my first sighting of big horn sheep, believe it or not!

The rest of the afternoon we sat around and knit and forced peppermint tea upon Liz until she felt better and could contemplate eating dinner. We called many restaurants in town until we found one that served elk steak and took Liz there as that was one of her requests of food she wanted to try while she was here. She said it was wonderful, aside from the juniper berry sauce. Everyone’s food was wonderful and the atmosphere lovely and the service was also great.

A teaser….

The weekend with Liz has been absolutely wonderful! She will be here yet today and we will be heading out to visit her favorite Romeldale/CVM fleece enabler, Myrtle of Black Pines Sheep. It’s only about 20-30 minutes from my house! I’m in trouble aren’t I???? I suppose the lack of a drum carder and the possibility of one in the near future is very slim will help keep me in check won’t it??

We’re headed out there in the morning then we’ll have lunch with Amanda and have a tour of Interweave. We may also stop at Lambspun before heading down to Loveland. Then, this evening is SnB night! Wheeeee!

I’ll start the full reports of the weekend’s activities tomorrow, complete with pictures!