[2006.11.08 12noon EST: Major overhaul. I just moved each section of photos to their own pages. See notes below.]

[2006.10.23 11:30 EDT: Linked title to Sheep&Wool Web site.]
[2006.10.22 22:50 EDT: Added Yarn and Stuff, indexed by category.]
[2006.10.22 20:00 EDT: Added explanatory text. Added photos of Sheep Dog Trials, Broom-making, Hand-spinning.]
[2006.10.22 15:20 EDT: Added photos of “The Scene“, Musicians, Goats, Llamas and Alpacas.]
[2001.10.21 23:55 EDT: Initial placeholder with link to Flickr set.]

Thanks to Bev Wigney of Burning Silo, I decided to move each section of photos to their own page, instead of keeping everything in one huuuuge page. Each of the links in this table of contents will take you to a page with just those photos. At the bottom of each page you’ll find a link to the “Previous” and “Next” sections, and a link back to the “Table of Contents,” this page. As before, each photo on each page links to the Flick page for that photo.

1. The Scene
2. Musicians
3. Goats
4. Llamas and Alpacas
5. Sheep Dog Trials
6. Broom-making
7. Hand-spinning
8. Yarn and Stuff
9. Blanket and Broomstick

These are most of the photos from my Flickr set of the Festival. In the Flickr set, they’re simply listed in the order they were taken, without any explanations. The photos are also geotagged on Flickr, so you can see where they were taken on the fairgrounds.

1. The Scene

As you can see from these photos, it was a perfect fall day. The drive up the Taconic State Parkway was beautiful. The drive took an hour more than we had planned. Because of construction along the road, we bailed for Route 9 south of Poughkeepsie. That area was in peak fall foliage. The Dutchess County Fairgrounds were just past peak; a lot of the leaves had already fallen, but there was still plenty of color on many of the trees.

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• Next: #2 Musicians
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2. Musicians

An organ grinder (with a stuffed toy monkey banging little cymbals). Check out the large picture of the organ itself so you can see the beautiful inlay work on the audience-facing side.

Banjoist (dreamy … sigh …).

Nickel-harpist. I’ve never seen one of these instruments before. I did a double-take once I realized what she was doing. Basically a violin with keyed fingering on the strings for different notes and chords.

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• Previous: #1 The Scene
• Next: #3 Goats
• Table of Contents

3. Goats

We love goats. So there’s lots of pictures of goats. The long-haired shaggy ones are Angora Goats. I don’t know what the other ones are.

[Updated 2006.10.23 11:43 EDT: A friend of mine from Vermont who has goats says that the non-Angora goats are Cashmere goats.]

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• Previous: #2 Musicians
• Next: #4 Llamas and Alpacas
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4. Llamas and Alpacas

Beautiful animals. Not economical, but they seem to produce useful and desirable wool.

Llamas have attitude. Alpacas are cute. Five foot tall and still cute. The Seussian creature to the left is an alpaca.

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• Previous: #3 Goats
• Next: #5 Sheep Dog Trials
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5. Sheep Dog Trials

Lots of fun. It wasn’t always clear what the dogs were supposed to do, but watching it for a while, you understood the course. It wasn’t until I left that I saw the big board with all the explanations, and the map of the course.

On this course, the sheep were actually out of sight, over a small rise. The handler set the dog out on a right outrun. These dogs don’t run, they fly. I tried to capture some sense of their speed in the photos. The second set of drive gates, after the post, were actually on the “left-hand” side of the course, closest to the observers (and the photographer). Those are the ones you see in the photos below.

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• Previous: #4 Llamas and Alpacas
• Next: #6 Broom-making
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6. Broom-making

This shows Bob Haffly of Lone Oak Brooms in Pennsylvania making brooms by hand using antique equipment outside of the Horticulture building (which had nothing to do with horticulture for the festival). The first photo shows a brook-making machine on display in the Antique Museum Barn.

We bought an “art” broom. I don’t know what else to call it. It has a naturally curved, not straight, handle. The wood has fine tunnels on the surface, probably caused by ants beneath the bark. It’s then hard-carved and stained with an ivy pattern. Each such broom was truly a unique work of art. Bob insisted that it’s a working broom, and we shouldn’t be afraid to use it. It’s an amazing construction.

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• Previous: #5 Sheep Dog Trials
• Next: #7 Hand-Spinning
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7. Hand-spinning

This is Sunny Huppert, demonstrating how to spin rough wool and hair into yarn with a foot-powered wheel. She was working with a mix of wool and dog hair.


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• Previous: #6 Broom-making
• Next: #8 Yarn and Stuff
• Table of Contents

8. Yarn and Stuff

Last, but not least, there was a lot of yarn. MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over … I wouldn’t know what to do with the stuff.

It was a color photographer’s dream.

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• Previous: #7 Hand-spinning
• Next: #9 Blanket and Broomstick
• Table of Contents.