ALL TUCKERED OUT!

It’s so tiring waiting around for your category to be called for competition, but this young man found a great spot to rest.

Today we went to the Llama Fest at Michigan State University’s Pavilion just to catch a good blip opportunity. There were a huge number of llamas and alpacas, and even a camel! It’s surprising how many people are into raising these animals. Several booths sold unspun fleece as well as yarn already spun. There were also people spinning and a variety of items knitted & woven from these animals’ fiber. I bought some very soft alpaca yarn in a mid-green.

Various levels of competition were being held in the arena. They’re shown much like livestock at a county fair, or like dogs at a dog show. They come in a wide variety of colors and in quite a range of sizes. (This photo shows the llama is just about twice as big as an alpaca.) Evidently they are shorn once every two years, so their fiber was in various stages of growth – but that didn’t seem to effect the judging.

The lone camel was a constant attraction. It’s a distant relative to the llama, so he ‘belonged’ at this event, and they were selling beautiful, soft camel fiber & yarn. Interestingly, this five year old camel had no upper teeth. (You can see this in a shot of him yawning - on Flickr.) The owner said he just has a very hard upper palate and the bottom teeth do the chewing – a side to side gnashing movement. (This is normal – no teeth had been removed.) He assured me that the camel could easily bite off a finger, chew it up and swallow it with no problem! :-) (Online I found both descriptions - with upper teeth & without, so I’m not sure which is correct.)