I said hello to goats and sheep and visit with Flan who sighed and hummed and tried to convince us the couch should be his. I came home with all sorts of goodies, as I always do.

I came home from Vermont with some lovely goodies: gorgeous grey French Angora for an itch-free hat, delicious apple cider fresh off the press, and kefir which I have been interested in trying since I first heard about it a few years ago.

Today we visited some of the neighbor animals including a very snuggly young llama who’s super soft and very kissy. We also went to a cider pressing where the others helped and I was lazy and just watched because my back felt pretty good and I didn’t want to overdo and send it into spasms. I was lucky enough to bring home some of that delicious cider. You can’t tell in the photo but the apple trees are just to the left of the cider press.

While many of my friends are down at Juniper Moon Fiber Farm for shearing this weekend, I am up at Gilead Fiber Farm to help with a sewing machine introduction and lend a hand in general. Three of us came to visit this weekend and we spent this afternoon digging up as much burdock as we could find from the pasture nearest the barn. This will mean the animals can be moved to the barn and dry off for shearing. Burdock seeds are in the form of nasty burrs that were the inspiration for velcro and they make an insidious mess of sheep and goat fiber. It was very satisfying to see the pile of burdock grow and the four of us could barely pull the tarp out of the pasture when we were done. In the evening we had a delicious meal and a toast to the JMFF folks down south.

We made a brief stop at Knit Purl which is new since MmeP lived in the area. We both exercised great restraint and left without purchasing anything. We were still on a mission to find a travel tea mug with strainer like mine (we'd searched at the Concord kitchen shop with no luck) and Jason said he'd found it at Teavana.  Someone really needed to get in some seafood while visiting so we grabbed lunch at Legal's in the mall and visited Teavana after. I got a big 1 pound size cannister which has tea brewing temperatures and times on the back, very useful. I bought the most expensive Dragon Pearl Jasmine tea ever (I'd misunderstood the pricing) and am sorely disappointed with that as the stuff I get from Teazone in Somerville is not only much less expensive but also of a decidedly higher quailty. I do not recommend Teavana's tea but we were trhilled to get the travel mug as it's out of stock everywhere else. Our last stop on the way home was the Yarn and Fiber Company. Debbi loves this shop and has been trying to get me to go there for ages. She has had her first pattern published there and I wanted a copy. I also wanted to see what the shop was like having enjoyed their booth at the Knit and Crochet show last summer and I have to say they have a fantastic selection and a very welcoming shop.

Then we popped over to the town center where we browsed the book store complete with requisite bearded book vendor. I picked up a copy of the current Cook's Illustrated so I could try out the cookie recipe Jerseyknitter recently raved about. We also visited my favorite little antique shop and button source. Of course I had to grab a few buttons while we were there. I'd also found some nice buttons at the quilt shop. After that we headed home where I made salmon with fennel, leeks and carrots in parchment packets. It took longer than expected but when they were done they were really delicious. Sadly I forgot to photograph them for you but that just means I'll have to make them again soon.