Muskox!

Last spring we bought a Groupon to the Muskox Farm up in Wasilla, so we went up in early May after the baby muskoxen were born. The have a little shop and tiny museum about muskoxen that we looked around in before we went out into the pastures. The muskox is valued for its wool, called qiviut. They say it's eight times warmer than sheep's wool and doesn't shrink in water. It's extremely soft, even more so than cashmere. They sell hats and scarves and things made of qiviut but they're quite expensive, owing to the small numbers of domesticated muskoxen and the relatively small amount they get from each animal each year. (Not to mention that everything they make from it is kind of ugly, not because the wool is ugly, but because they apparently don't have anyone with any sense of style knitting with qiviut)

There was big, heavy rubber ball in the shop that they used to let the muskoxen play with, but a few times they apparently got it rolling so fast that they started knocking down walls. Now they only play with much smaller balls. This ball was actually made for cleaning out the oil pipeline. It's quite heavy and the girls could hardly move it.

Silly picture of Sabrina that happened to be taken there.

And here they are, both moms and babies. I believe they said the males are kept separate most of the time, but I may be thinking about the reindeer farm we went to last year.