When I met the lady who I am buying the spinning wheel from, she gave me a shopping bag full of fiber, too. She appeared to just grab a couple of fistfuls from a nearby sack, at random, as we walked by, which sort of wowed me in itself. About half of it is some longwool with very crimped wool. I'm not sure that this is a specific breed- it could be a mix of longwool types. If I had to guess on the breed I would guess some kind of Leicester crossed with Romney, but I really have no idea and since she is a sheep shearer, it may not even be from her sheep. It's nice, interesting wool of a type I haven't worked with yet.

But the mohair.....words fail me. It is sort of a strawberry blonde color or maybe rosy beige and it's finer than a baby's hair. It is fine to the point of being ethereal. It must be kid mohair?? I have never in my life encountered mohair of this airy, lustrous delicacy. It is so incredibly fine. I am longing to spin it, but since it is the highest quality stuff I've ever seen, I want to be able to do the fiber justice when I spin it. It seems to be finer and lighter than silk. It's like that shiny, lightweight, airborne fluff that floats away from say, milkweed or thistles..hmmm....there are other plants like that...only this is much thinner and lighter, longer and curly. It is simply wonderful.

Anyway...having experienced mohair again, I am trying to figure out why on earth I wanted sheep. I could just buy a fleece if I want the wool. Mohair is worth more, the mohair subsidy is higher than that for wool and goats are just so much more interesting and fun to have around than sheep. Sheep just sort of stand there, eat, run away if you try to pet them, etc. But goats....goats never outgrow their childhood. They're always frolicking around, climbing whatever they have to climb on, leaping off whatever they climbed and causing various sorts of mischief. Angora goats are less naughty than dairy goats and the bucks don't seem to smell as dairy bucks do (dairy bucks reek); they're a bit more laid back, but they are still intelligent, mischievous, playful animals.

It's all just a pipe dream anyway...but yeah...goats, not sheep.