(read Part 1, if you haven’t yet!)
We were up at 6:30 for a second day in a row (well, I get up at 5:45 almost every day, but still). We were out of the hotel before the continental breakfast was out, so we made do with IHOP. The traffic reached the festival before we did, but excellent parking management got us on the grounds and in the door rapidly. After orienting to the space and buying our teeshirts and totebags, we headed barn-ward to find our BFL farm contacts.
What we found were our sheep-sellers hastily clipping and tidying their charges. The Bluefaced Leicester National Show was scheduled from 9am-12pm, but Karakuls were still in the showring and no one had been called in yet. I introduced myself to Cindy and Margaret from Pitchfork Ranch, and then settled in to watch the show before Mom and I were able to find Brenda from Beechtree Farm. My sister, her husband and my little niece Cora were there with us, and we alternated between watching the show and looking at other exhibits. At the tender age of 11 months, Cora is skilled at making a “baa” sound and at joining in a round of applause. We sat in the stands as she moved from person to person, giving hugs and coo-ing and pulling the glasses off our faces.
In the stands, we encountered the grandmother of the gal whose ewes we are bringing home in two weeks! She raises her own sheep for wool and is also from New Hampshire, so there was plenty to chat about. We watched as the Chapin Family picked up several show ring victories in coveted categories, like Champion Ewe. Way to go!
Finally, with the show over, the sellers and I finally had a chance to talk. We met with Cindy and Margaret from Pitchfork and discussed their sheepraising program at length. I realized that I have anxiety about being perceived as uncommitted or likely to abandon my sheep-raising program. I may have overcompensated for that fear by talking about dairy goat genetics longer than anyone cares to hear about that topic. We noticed that they were selling an extra ewe. Reading her pedigree, I could see that she had just enough distance from most of my flock to be a good brood ewe and a possible source of a ram to keep my flock going without input for a while. I think I knew we were buying her when I felt along her back and could not palpate a spine. She had so much strong, hard meat and muscle there that her spine and her ribs were completely obscured. That is just not the case for my Cormo flock, even in their best condition. Selling Tim and Swift gave me just enough money to make the purchase possible.
We met with Brenda from Beechtree, as well. We didn’t find her until a little later, and didn’t have as much time to meet and greet. It was now nearing 2pm, two hours later than our ideal departure, and it was past time to plan the sheep loading. Mom and I had recognized a serious problem a few days before the festival. Due to crowds and rules at MSWF, you can’t just drive up to the sheep barns and load sheep. We would need to move them across open country. So we agreed that Brenda would bring the adult ram from her pen, and Margaret and I would meet her leading the ewe lamb, while Cindy fetched the littler ram lamb from their trailer nearby. Our silly sheep-moving group provided plenty of entertainment to the crowd as we passed. Like a ninja, Mom snuck the truck through a gate. It was great to see it waiting as we rounded the corner with the sheep in tow and Brenda joined us with Outlander, the adult ram!
Getting the ewe in the truck was a simple lift job. I got in the truck to hold her in, and I was handed Outlander’s lead rope while Brenda and Margaret each lifted a side. We made a really tricky task look easy. The last lamb was small and no trouble. I really owe a lot to Margaret, Cindy and Brenda for shlepping those sheep across the fairgrounds.
Again, the strong degree of organization at MSWF helped, as we were able to get the sheep cooling off on the road quickly. Mom drove the first half of the trip up I95. To cope with the crazy traffic that is far beyond what we’re used to, Mom and I began an index of reckless driving behaviors. We counted 25 incidents between the start of our drive in Friendship, Maryland and the New Jersey/New York border. We were well over 10 after Maryland and through Delaware, but the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway made solid contributions of scary incidents, near misses, and the crossing of multiple lanes through constantly shifting traffic. This incident happened just a short time before we reached Brunswick, and that earned a point for scary driving! I could not have withstood the kind of hair-raising driving that my mom handles. Crowded roads make me very anxious. I would have lost my mind handling the DC metro area. Thanks, Mom! The Adirondack Northway only amassed 7 points, but the speeders were really cruising on that road. The truck shook every time the sheep stood up and shuffled around, so we didn’t even try to keep up with the left lane traffic.
People give weird looks at rest stops when the back of your truck is bouncing and baa-ing. We never left the sheep completely unattended, so it was one coffee-break at a time.
We reached the Vermont border at 10pm, and I focused on staying alert all the way home to Williston at 11:30. There was no feeling like lying down after we unloaded the sheep in the barn and went to bed.