Summer 2004
$5.95
Fall 2004
CASHMERE Chinese Australian Made in the USA Hay Etiquette Precious Vicuña Sentimental Sweaters Rabbit Rescue
Rare seaweed-eating sheep from Scotland Starting a cashmere farm at 90 Llama Rodeo The knitting addict Raising Angora rabbits Learning to spin alpaca
2004 Can 10 incredible years of traveling to some of the most remote parts of the planet be summarized in a few short pages? Probably not, but it’s a worth a try.
T
en years ago, before there was a magazine called Wild Fibers, before my passport collected so many stamps I had to upgrade it with 36 additional pages, and before I had teetered out of helicopters in New Zealand or swallowed handfuls of crispy worms in Zimbabwe, I was a goat farmer. I was living on 30 secluded acres near the coast of Maine along with my modest herd of cashmere goats, two dogs, and two cats: Bill and Elvis. At age 45, I’d had the remarkable good fortune of achieving my dream, or so it seemed. It may not have been a grand corner office with a petulant assistant taking irksome coffee breaks. And it may not have been a snappy sports car (I did own a dandy red truck), and it certainly wasn’t an impressive stock portfolio. I had my farm, my animals, and most importantly, a broken heart. Broken hearts are the sharp edges that teach us that life goes on in spite of unstoppable sadness. I was fairly certain that life would, eventually, continue. I just wasn’t convinced. Eat, Pray, Love, the runaway best-seller by Elizabeth Gilbert, was spawned from her own broken heart, caused by a dramatic divorce replete with fist-pounding hysteria on the kitchen floor and other signs of dire distress. Already an author of note, Gilbert took her sorrows around the world, eventually making herself nearly as rich as the Sultan of Bru-nei (a position that entitles to him a residence with 1,888 rooms, 290 of them bathrooms). Not that I wish to appear small, but Eat, Pray, Love was published two years after I started Wild Fibers. I think Ms. Gilbert owes me. I wish I had Elizabeth Gilbert’s talent—not to mention her bank account. But if someone had handed me 10 mil26
lion dollars on the condition that I could never leave the country, I would have to say, “No thanks.” Without hesitation, the rewards of being the editor of Wild Fibers are priceless, and it is thanks to you. Unlike Gilbert’s dreams (and frequent flyer miles), which were funded by an advance from Random House, every page of Wild Fibers since the second issue has been totally supported by its readers and advertisers. And so as I look back over the past 10 years and all the things both good, and not-quite-as-good that happened, I not only have to thank cupid for a broken arrow, but also a spinning wheel manufacturer whom I will simply refer to as “GB.” Before the first issue went to press I needed advertisers, so I reached for a recent copy of Spin Off and started calling some of their advertisers. I wasn’t exactly looking to steal Spin Off ’s advertisers; I was simply offering them a chance to “enhance” their marketing program. It was a Tuesday afternoon when I phoned GB, and to my delight he didn’t immediately hang up. In fact, he began asking some very thoughtful questions about this wild dream of mine, and I took that as my queue to give him the full sales pitch. Again, he asked more questions. And again, I continued with my exuberance. And just about the time I thought he was getting ready to take out an ad he said, “Well, you seem pretty excited about this idea, but I’ve been around for a long time and I see a lot of people like you come along with big ideas. They never last.” And then he said good-bye, good luck, and hung up. My heart broke. GB wasn’t a friend, let alone an ex-lover. In fact I wouldn’t have recognized him if the FedEx man had delivered him to my doorstep.
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