No, you didn’t miss the first, second, and third days. I haven’t had time to sort photos or write anything. So I’ll start with the last day which was our show day.

We tied our sheep to the outside of the pens while waiting our turn so we could get the straw off the bellies. We had 11 sheep at the fair this year. I was missing a yearling ram because I sold Turbo at the Estes Park show. My show string consisted of 2 ram lambs, 2 yearling ewes, and 2 ewe lambs. Kirby has sheep that are the descendants of the ewe I gave her in 2019–I don’t give her sheep each year for the show. Kirby had twin yearlings (ram and ewe), and three lambs (two ewes and a ram) to show. I just looked at the blog post I wrote after the 2019 State Fair. There are some of my favorite photos of Kirby there, and you’ll see some of the same other characters in 2019 as in this post.

Kirby with the yearling ram, KJ Royalty Thorn, twin to KJ Royalty Rose. It’s the breeder’s prefix that is part of a registered sheep’s name, and Kirby’s prefix is KJ Royalty. She was the owner of Meridian Belle when she was bred. Now all the offspring of Belle and Belle’s offspring will have that prefix. There is a theme here for some of the sheep names. You’ll pick up on that if you’re a Disney fan.

Thorn was the only entry in the Yearling Ram class and the judge gave him high praise for conformation and fleece.

It is too bad that there are no other breeders showing up for the Primitive Breeds sheep show now. Pre-pandemic we had some Shetlands, Icelandic, and other breeds so there was competition. Now it’s just Kirby and me as separate breeders. This is the Champion drive for rams. That’s Thorn as the yearling. My ram lamb, Meridian Cyclone (weather theme for 2023 lambs) was first place ram lamb and Kirby’s Gusgus was second. Thorn was given Champion Ram and Cyclone was Reserve.

There were three Farm Club members helping on this day and it took all of us to make sure the sheep were where they were supposed to be and Kirby had an adult helper so we don’t have more photos of the show. But we have photos of After. Thorn’s sister, Rose was awarded Champion Ewe so Kirby made out with the banners.

Fair week is always exhausting and Kirby’s four fair days were at the end of being away from home for six weeks. Her birthday was the previous day, and there was a lot going on then as well.

After the show we were back to educating (entertaining / enlightening?) the public. I am grateful to the Farm Club members who came to help. Siobhan was there Thursday and brought a local friend to help also. Lisa came Friday and Saturday. Marina, Beth, and Doris were there Saturday and Sunday. I couldn’t have done this and stayed sane without them there.

This entertainer showed up in that 2019 post.

He rides all over the fair and makes balloon characters for kids. This is a dinosaur that Kirby plans to take home to her brother. Hopefully it will survive a road trip back to Texas.

The last event of the day was the Supreme Champion show. Both of Kirby’s Champion sheep needed to be in their respective classes. This photo shows Rose and Thorn together. I don’t have photos of the Supreme show because I was in the show ring with Kirby. Afterwards they announced the Herdsman and Marketing awards.

We did it! First in Herdsman and first in Marketing. These awards have more meaning for me than the sheep show awards because there wasn’t competition in the sheep show ring. Actually there wasn’t that much competition this year for these, but there was some and we really worked for it.

If you look at that 2019 post you’ll see that this is the same crew as then, with the addition of Kirby.

While we were loading the trailer and my car I let Kirby watch one last horse performance if she stood at the corner where I could see her (easy in the bright green shirt). When we finished loading I joined her.