I've recently taken up knitting again after a few year break, and was
perhpas thinking of spinning my own yarn, but I have never done this
before, and frankly, I don't really know much about spinning.

Would anyone know of a great website or book that could teach me more
about this? While I have found some websites that were helpful, I am
still clueless.

Can I spin by hand? I don't want to be fully commited and spend lots of
money of equipment like a wheel, I just want to try it out. Also, this
may sound stupid, but what kind of materials would you spin? I don't
have a sheep in my backyard that I can go get wool from LOL. Can I
buy wool that is meant for spinning? I have heard of less conventional
materials such as dog hair for instance. This site for example,
http://www.mdnpd.com/pd/, talked about that and had tutorials about
spinning.

Thanks for any help.