Happy Halloween

Northern California Angora Guild wishes everyone a happy Halloween.

There will be no new post for a week due to the ARBA National Convention in Fort Worth Texas. New photos and reports will start on Friday, November 3, 2006.

Holly's Yukon

Our Canadian member Holly sends in the photo of HHR's Yukon, an English Angora white senior doe, to share. Yukon is the littermate sister of the Best In Show HHR's Avalanche. Both are daughters of Chu's Terena. Yukon is a late bloomer; she was lagging behind when Avalanche won all the shows. Now Yukon is in full bloom and will be Holly's major rabbit in shows.

Too bad that Holly is not going to the convention, or Yukon would be a top contender for the big one.

Casey's Barns

Several breeders have recently remodeled their barns. Casey is one of them.

Casey has two main barns, one for the goats and one for the rabbits. There are a couple other smaller barns for chickens and other animals.

The top photo shows the entrance to her bunny barn with Leo on guard duty. Leo is Casey's grooming buddy.

The second photo shows Casey's bunny barn.

The third photo shows Casey's goat barn that has a new roof and a new coat of paint.

Casey and hubby Jeff have done a lot of work to the barns recently to enhance the lives of her beloved animals.

Doggie Fiber Love

We read about Raykun's love for her dog Sandy in the post yesterday.

Sandy is a Cocker Spaniel with a pretty good hair length. Every couple of months, Sandy gets a hair cut. It is too tempting for Betty; whenever she sees something longer than two or three inches, she sees something for the spinning wheel.

Raykun saved a box of Sandy's hair; a small amount is shown at the left of the first photo. Since it is hair, not wool, the ability to stick together after spinning is not as good. Betty uses a small amount of silk blend, shown at the right of the first photo, to blend with Sandy's hair to make it more suitable for spinning. Angora wool would have been a good blending source but Raykun is allergic to rabbits.

In the second photo, dog hair and the small amount of silk blend are being carded together by using two slicker brushes. It is a very slow process, especially comparing to Angora wool that could be spun directly from the rabbit.

In the third photo, the carded dog hair has been spun into single ply yarn on the bobbin.

In the last photo, the single ply yarn is plied with a binding thread and made into a skein. This skein weighs about 5.5 oz with 126 yards in length.

The feel of the dog yarn is very similar to mohair, a little on the coarse side and with a lot of sheen.

Doggie Love

Betty and Raykun went to graduate school together and became the best of friends at the University of Notre Dame in the 70s. Both received their Ph.D. degrees in Economics and both became college professors. Now both are retired and spend a lot of time with their animals. Betty's love are her rabbits, Raykun's love is her dog Sandy.

Sandy was a stray on the street in Taiwan; she was picked up and sent to an animal shelter, sickly and dirty. Raykun fell in love with her, spent days, hours and tons of money to bring her back to health. When Raykun and family moved back to the US, she flew Sandy to the US. They resided first in San Jose then moved to Redding.

Those who go to shows in Orland or Red Bluff will remember meeting Raykun; she comes to shows regularly to have lunch with Betty. Raykun and hubby even flew to the ARBA convention at Indianapolis last year to visit Betty and did some sightseeing around Midwest.

The top photo is Raykun with Sandy in front of the famous suspension bridge in Redding and the second photo is Raykun's love Sandy.

This is a wonderful story about the love between a dog and her owner. There will be some other surprises shown tomorrow. Please check back.