Doin' the Skagit - Part 2

The judge for the sheep show was a young woman named Amy Wolf. She is a handspinner and had obviously done her homework to learn the breed standards of the sheep she was judging. She gave a commentary about each breed with good reasons for her placements. Dave and Franna from EverRanch in Auburn started the show with their yearling rams.







We had a nice contingent of little fellows.

Sally Tibbets (in the flowered shirt on the right) from Sleepy Hollow farm in Granite Falls was the other breeder with sheep at the fair.


Notice the puzzled look on my face? This is where the batteries in my camera decided to take a nose dive - & I had just charged them, too. Donna's step father, Al took most of the rest of the pictures, although I was able to squeeze a couple more pictures out after the camera was turned off for a while - some reporter I make! (Thanks, also, to Franna & Donna for some of my content)

Two other Shetland Sheep breeders stopped by during the fair. Donna & Tom's neighbor, Alta was by on Saturday and our friend Nancy came down on Friday night.













Next were the ewe lambs - Donna & Tom's Amanda and Moni got first & second place.

The Shepherd is on the right in the dark green shirt, helping Donna & Tom show - they had 4 ewe lambs in this class. Moni, the little black lamb that John is leading is very pretty and I think he has his eye on her. She and Scooter would make very pretty babies with fantastic wool (and we might even get a spot or two)




Joyce Thomas, from Thistledown Farm in Edwall, WA helped out by showing Dave & Franna's yearling ewe. Joyce's granddaughter, Brianna also helped out, showing sheep as well. It was great to have Joyce join us - it's about 270 miles from her farm to Mt. Vernon, so it was a huge commitment for her to come. Hopefully next year she'll be back with some of the beautiful moorit sheep that she was telling us about.





In the lamb flock entries, the judge really liked Dave & Franna's triplets - two gulmogets and a katmoget -







Besides having the open judging by Amy, we held our own "NW Shetland Owners" group competition. While all the woolies were lined up outside the pens waiting to go out for the judging, we had our own judging and judged all the Shetlands at the show for Best Tail (Sally's Aggie got first, with D&F's Winter as runner up); Best Horns (T&D's Hemlock with a tie between Sally's Guinness and D&F's Buddy) & Best Fleece (a tie between D&F's Buddy & T&D's Amanda). Prize money, from NASSA & a donation from Eliz. Martin certainly helped to offset everyone's traveling expenses. It was eye opening to get to play "touchey/feeley with so many different styles of fleece (and I'm sure all those little sheepies were ready to say "Would you guys get your paws off our tails" (poor babies).



There were also a number of fleeces entered and having a handspinner as the judge was just the greatest. You could tell that she really liked Shetland wool! Right here, she's commenting to Donna about all her moorit sheep.

Congratulations go out to Dave & Franna for the Best Overall Fleece for a Finn lamb fleece and Reserve Best for one of their Shetland lamb fleeces.


I spent most of the morning demonstrating with my spinning wheel, so I didn't really go out and walk around at all (I'm kind of a "you seen one, you seen 'em all" in the fair department - this fair looks very much like the North Centeral Washington Fair that I spent my "grownin' up years" and my 4-H years going to in Waterville, WA.) - small, homey, a place to meet your friends and have the best corn dog you've eaten in years (mmmm, and the Shepherd put LOTS of mustard on it too) - but of course, no fair would be complete without the biggest steer in the countryside - this big guy's name is Ben and he is over 6 feet tall at the shoulder and is 11 years old. He lives here in Whatcom county. Now, that's a LOT of hamburger...

I think I could easily say that a good time was had by all! Hope to see everyone back next year!