Waking up at 4:45 to do chores on the farm was easier than I expected and the 2.5+ hour drive across the state seemed to go by pretty quickly as well. The whirwind day of visiting with friends, meeting people, showing sheep, showing fleeces, selling my clun ram lamb... Let's just say that it seemed like it was time to leave for home WAY too soon. The 2.5+ hour drive home and all of the evening chores, well... those were just as much "fun" as expected.
We did GREAT at the fleece show. Wayne took two fleeces to exhibit, a white Merino fleece from Annie, and the new black Merino ram's fleece. Annie's fleece took 2nd place in the white class, and the black fleece took first place in the black fine class... Then Annie's fleece took Reserve Champion Fleece overall and we got to talk to the judge and she was very complimentary of both fleeces.
The judge indicated that she would have placed the white fleece first overall had it been a little longer... You see it wasn't a full three inches because as a yearling Annie was sheared in May and this year she was pregnant and was sheared at the first of February... So it was not a full years growth. We are thrilled with our results at the fleece show!
The Merino lambs did well in the sheep show although Merinos are pretty slow growing so they are not much competition to the large framed Columbias they were competing against. It is great to be able to exhibit our sheep and show the "fiber community" what we are producing. As Merino breeders, I think we are really happy to make our mark with our fleeces while putting out nice sheep.
The Clun Ram "Y059" has a new home with Salle Haverkamp of Newago, Michigan. Salle will be using "Cadbury" (so named because Salle thinks his face coloring reminds her of chocolate) to help produce a dairy sheep flock. I am very excited to hear how he works out!
Y059 - aka "Cadbury" with Magic
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