Angora Rabbits Soften Up a Rough Life

Connie Sanchez, 34, is living a yesteryear life.

“I feel I was born in the wrong era. I don’t like city life,” said Sanchez, who lives with her husband, Tito, 36, and two children on a 3-acre site in the hills above San Juan Capistrano in a home heated only by a fireplace.

The electricity comes from a generator, and the only access to the house is a one-lane road that winds 6 miles up the hill from Ortega Highway.

“It’s a hard life because we have all the elements of nature,” she said, including cold winds, oppressive heat, coyotes, mountain lions and hordes of flies.

But that life style, which includes chopping wood, growing vegetables, tanning animal hides and serving as teacher to her sons, ages 6 and 8, has its moments.

For Sanchez, it’s raising English Angora rabbits, spinning their wool, knitting sweaters with it and selling them for $500 and more. But it takes a month to knit one.

“Actually I spend most of my free time doing that,” she said.

During her days at Saddleback College, where she studied interior design, Sanchez said, “I used to spin dog hair with a hand drill and wrapped it around bicycle rims as wall hangings.” She sold them for $45 at craft shows and fairs to support herself in school.”When you’re young, it’s fun to kick around and do whatever you want.”

Sanchez, a graduate of San Clemente High School who grew up in Capistrano Beach, also tried other types of crafts, such as crocheting and rug making, until a friend gave her an Angora rabbit.

“I finally found something I truly enjoyed doing,” she said.

Now she is sharing the knowledge about her 50 Angora rabbits with schoolchildren in a program called Hare Loom, in which she shows kids about breeding, shearing them and spinning the rabbit fur, which she demonstrates on her own spinning wheel.

“I hear a lot of oooohs and aaaaahs,” she said. “Kids love it. They can’t believe how soft the rabbits are.”

She tells students in the program promoted by the Orange County Fair that Angora rabbit wool is seven times warmer than lamb’s wool. “I let them hold an Angora rabbit, and they can’t believe what can be produced from an animal without killing it. Most people think Angora wool comes from sheep.”

She may shun city and crowds in her private life, but when Sanchez brings her spinning wheels and live English Angora rabbits with her to classrooms in Orange County, she enjoys “being in the spotlight. . . . It’s like being one-on-one with children, and that’s OK.”

Along with the information, she also shows sweaters, mittens, cowl neck pieces, shirts, scarfs, shawls, belts and socks that she makes from the wool.

One thing Sanchez can’t do is hurry the rabbit’s wool growth. “It takes 28 ounces of wool to make a sweater,” she said. “It takes the rabbit 2 years to produce that much.”

The Apartment Assn. of Orange County scheduled a two-part informational seminar called Rental Housing Expo ’89 in March and went looking for a featured speaker.

Clearly, they came up with the right man--at least he has the appropriate name. The program will be presented by Newport Beach financial planner W. Dennis Renter.

Acknowledgments--Thomas A. Fuentes, a Newport Beach businessman and sixth-generation Californian, has been named to his sixth consecutive term as board chairman of the Food Distribution Center, which collects and distributes food to the poor of Orange County.