Life Embellished

OK, so I apologize ahead of time for the mass quantity of photos you are about to see. But this is the waaaay edited version. I just couldn't pare it down more than this! I guess maybe I should visit my blog more often to spare you all my sporadic lengthy posts. These are photos of when Drew's mom and sister were here last week, my VERY FIRST BREAD MADE FROM SCRATCH (!!!), and the Sheep to Shawl festival at Oatland Island I went to yesterday with my mom. I wish every weekend was like this!

Drew and I took his mom and sister to Oatland Island while they were here, so I've gone there 2 weekends in a row!

Right after we left Oatland Island we took them to the beach for a short, blustery walk.

I spent all day Friday making bread for the first time-- from scratch! This one is rosemary garlic focaccia. Yummm.

And this is a part-white, part-wheat, all-delicious loaf. Yum again! If you've never made bread before I highly recommend it. It's addictive- I just want to make it all the time! And it's so gratifying; it kind of feels like changing a tire, but a little more girly.

First step of sheep to shawl: shearing the sheep. This is Dottie the sheep. She's not knocked out or anything, so don't worry. She's not even really being held down that much. Apparently once the sheep is on the ground they don't struggle. Kind of sad, but this was a hot day, so I'm sure she felt way better after this was done.

There were tons of old-timey expositions going on there. In a log cabin a couple women were making cornbread from scratch and cooking it over that open fire!

Even old-timey music.

Watching someone spin yarn is magical.

They had carding going on, too, which is when you use two fine-toothed brushes to brush the wool back and forth to get out all the debris and to get all the fibers to go in the same direction. This prepares it for spinning later.

This was Philippa (I think that was her name). She was showing everyone how to card...

Including my mom!

Wa-hoo-hoo! (the owl's name, I'm not just spouting out onomatopoeias here)

A woman in Effingham County has 4 alpacas, along with her 20 or so chickens. She brought 2 of the alpacas to Oatland Island to demonstrate shearing. It just made me want one all the more! And apparently you can't own just one-- they'll practically die without a mate!