Monday, June 05, 2006

HEAVENS TO MURGATROYD!

Back and almost recovered from the Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival. Firstly, Franklin, Indiana, is a delightful small town. Tidy lawns in front of nice homes. Very close to Indianapolis. The management of the festival was great, the facilities were above average, being in large, clean, cement-floored 4-H buildings. There were maybe 60 vendors in two buildings and outside.

Lynne and I were in the second, un-air-conditioned building. We set up on Friday afternoon and having had practice, it took only two and a half hours. We're getting better! The Quality Inn where we stayed, well, I would grade them a C overall. Not great, not awful. Rather pricey for what it was, what with the generally awful "continental breakfast," a noisy air conditioner, and a smelly refrigerator. The service, however, was just fine. Yes, I filled out the comment card and left it at the front desk.

The weather on Saturday was absolutely perfect! Highs in the upper 70s, with mostly clear skies and a nice breeze. Attendance was meager until about 11 and was steady until 3, and then it became, shall we say, dead. Lynne and I broke even and then some, so we were not unhappy but we did converse with other vendors who were not so fortunate. WTF? Is it the economy? The sudden plethora of fiber festivals? Graduation and wedding season? Lack of publicity? The bottom line was that the folks that came just did not spend much money.

We met a lot a great people, as always at such events, and made contact with other vendors and collected business cards.

Lynne and I became captivated with a little fawn colored, English angora bunny. Her owners at the Timbre Ridge Farmbooth were sort of cattycornered to us and we observed the fuzzy darling for some time. I, of course, was missing my babies, and made many rounds petting all the lovely angoras that were there. When I inquired of Marlene the particulars of this sweet little ball of fluff, I knew she was coming home with me. The bunny, not Marlene. Although Marlene was certainly nice enough to bring home.

The story is that when the litter was born, mother Katie, in her nervousness, chewed off the front toes of this one particular kit. Marlene was advised to cull (read KILL) the worthless kit. Being of kind heart, she didn't, and two months later, this little girl has adapted to life just fine, thank you very much. This little baby, if fully toed, would have been of show quality. Her parents, Katie and Steely Dan, are both papered show bunnies. But because of this defect, she was valueless in the show world, no matter how wonderful her wool. Within nanoseconds of hearing this sad story, two suckers named Lynne and Fuzzarelly stepped in to offer her a loving home. She is not handicapped, she is handicapable! She gets around just fine and has a lovely, inquisitive, and sweet disposition.

The next step was to name her. At first, we thought she was a he and we were thinking of appellations like Wellington and Buckingham. A little bitty bunny needs a big name, we thought. But when the taco/donut test was done and it was determined that he was a she we were stumped for awhile. We still needed a big name, but what? Heavens to Murgatroyd, What Happened to Your Toes! That's it, Murgatroyd! So now, dear Murgatroyd is sitting in my lap whilst I type this out.

Bringing her home with us was certainly less trouble than two lambs in diapers. Here's a close up of the little darling.



And here she is with her future mate, Percival.