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April 1, 2001
Dear FiberNetters:
Well, I think the time has come to tell you about our experiment with the rare Mongolian Wooly Lizards, now that everything
seems to be working out (knock wood, cross fingers). I hope there's enough fiber content here to sneak the 'care and feeding'
past Ron, because I think the list has a vested interest in these unique creatures.
After much research into climate, environment and available food, not to mention hard soul-searching about whether we
could give them the care they would demand, DH and I decided to import a pair of Wooly Lizards to northeast Pennsylvania.
From our perspective, it was surprisingly easy - the lizards are so rare that there is little known about them and the
backwater Mongolian bureaucracy couldn't find anything in the book to restrict their movement. The papers were filled out
with the help of a translator, crates built and the lizards were on their way.
Of course we feel badly about the trapper. It's a shame there will never be children, but the good news is that he is
out of his wheelchair and the prosthesis for his right leg is working fine. He retains his spunk and last we heard he is fighting
the divorce suit filed by his wife (a sore loser if ever there was one).
The lizards made the long trip in excellent fashion although it was discovered upon uncrating them that the male had chewed
nearly through the wood - another day and he'd have been double-timing it to the galley in search of Twinkies. (He'd gotten
a taste for them after escaping from his holding pen at the dock and raiding a border guard's lunch pail.) A rare Mongolian
Wooly Lizard with an unsatisfied sweet tooth is not something you want to fool with.
It was some time after they were settled in their new home that it became evident he had found something else to do on
the long dark nights besides chew wood. We would certainly have been happy enough just to have them arrive in good condition,
but on finding out that the female was gravid (that's preggers in non-lizard terms) our joy knew no bounds.
The Wooly Lizards and their little brood, one male, two female, make their home in a section of our farm that was once
a celery farm and then fertile cow pasture. Some fool dammed up the creek a mile or so away and turned twelve acres into virtual
swampland - the place looks surreal with old fence posts and dead trees sticking out of the water at strange angles. The downy-cheeked
geniuses from the EPA with their clipboards and mechanical pencils prevent taxpaying landowners from defending their property
and so the benefit goes to the Wooly Lizards. Fine. We look forward to the day when an EPA inspector meets up with them.
The babies are cute as the dickens. They are covered now with light brown fuzz which will turn into the familiar putrid
green fleece as they get older. Their tails are only two feet long but they love to practice smacking each other with them.
They tumble around uproariously at the water's edge, getting their babywool filthy and biting each other with their rows of
needle-sharp teeth. Mother Lizard is thankful that lizard moms do not nurse.
As is so often the case with sheep, the baby lizards like to snuggle onto mom's broad wooly back - often playing hide
and seek in the great stiff locks of her fleece. It's a sad fact that wooly lizard fleece has not yet gained its rightful
acceptance in the fiber world, but it is still necessary to shear them for purposes of health and hygiene. We figure that
until we put our marketing skills to work, we can use the fleece to pave our dirt road.
When Bill, our shearer, finished with the sheep we asked him to take a walk with us to meet the lizards. We found Father
Lizard where he had hauled himself out of the water and lay breathing heavily on the soft bank, his wet fleece a mass of burrs
and heavy with mud. On the far side Short Pants, the male baby lizard, was frisking about in the shallows, chasing frogs and
calling to his dad "Ha, Ha, you can't catch me". Mother Lizard was sunning in the weeds, relieved to be rid of the
boy for a while and her daughters, a pair of snooty little apple-polishers, watched from her back with sisterly scorn.
Bill stepped a little too close to get his first look at wooly lizard fleece and, at the end of his patience, Father Lizard
gave a couple of vicious swipes with his eight-foot tail. I'd venture to say it's been a good many years since Bill jumped
that high. Still, after we fortified him with a bottle of Jack Daniels, he was game for the adventure and sharpened his shears
while I got my portable radio.
I had discovered quite by accident that the music of the second worst composer of the nineteenth century had a hypnotic
effect on Father Lizard. A few bars of "Sleeping Beauty" and the big lizard became glassy-eyed and docile. At least
until Bill snipped too near a personal area. Father Lizard roused from his reverie and again whipped his lethal tail. But
Bill had become increasingly light on his feet as the afternoon wore on and the level of Jack Daniels dropped, so with a mighty
leap he found safety behind the rock-like fortress of sheared wool.
Mother Lizard's musical tastes were still an unknown quantity and I twirled the dial without effect until I came to a
station playing golden oldies. Mother Lizard, it turns out, gets positively limp with desire over Elvis Presley. When it came
to the Hawaiian Wedding Song, sighs and moans issued from her throat as she stretched out on her back in rapture - it was
all the three of us could do to heave her upright again to finish the shearing.
So our little transplanted community seems to thrive. We are excited about next year's shearing - to the best of our knowledge,
no one has ever seen a rare Mongolian Wooly Lizard hogget fleece. Suggestions would be appreciated on the best wheel for this
spinning.
It bothers me though to refer to "Father Lizard" and "Mother Lizard". We have only a scant knowledge
of Mongolian, gleaned mainly from filling out forms at the export office. Can anyone here suggest names for these two that
would be nicer than "Shipping Method" and "Destination"?
Naturally, any comments or expressions of encouragement would also be welcome.
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