This is a picture of my daughter, Katherine, taken in California in September 1985. We were hiking at Castle Craig and stopped along the trail to take her picture with Mt. Shasta in the background. It was a beautiful day, the kind that make you wonder if life could possibly get any better.

I was born in Northern California and enjoyed the time I spent as a child in the mountains there. Over the years life would take me in other directions, but I always held a special love for the mountains of California. Mt. Shasta in paticular was always my favorite. As a young mother, I returned to live again in Northern California for a while. I will always remember the day when Katherine was about 3 years old and we were driving along a winding mountain road in Shasta county. As we came around a corner and Mt. Shasta came into view Katherine pointed with excitement and exclaimed "look mommy, my mountain!" It still gives me goose bumps when I think about it today. She didn't know the mountain's name then, but instinctively she had the same love for it as I did.

I live in Connecticut now and Katherine is a young mom living the magic of having a child of her own.

Recently I bought an alpaca fleece and was surprised to learn that the alpaca whose fleece I chose is named Shasta. AND it is the same color as the undercoat of my German Shepherd dog, Shasta. So......I am hoping to make a Shasta Shasta sweater by blending the fibers of both aminals together. I have been working on charting a knit graph of Mt. Shasta that I hope to incorporate in the sweater.