Sheep!

 

On Mother's Day, DH and I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Growers Festival.While it might not be every mother's idea of fun, since my children were off with their Step Mom, I was happy to be with the fiber friends at the Deerfield Fairgrounds in New Hampshire.  The weather was PERFECT, the yarn (spun or not, dyed or not) was very pettable and the sheep were charmers.  (I'm glad I didn't know which ones were destined to be "meat" sheep, however.

 Since I have 5 cases of "stash" to unpack when we move, I didn't buy anything... but I was sorely tempted by these silk/merino blends.

 This young man (and two of his siblings) seemed pretty interested in the spinning wheels.  His mom (imho) was overly frantic about keeping him from touching anything.  But perhaps he turned into a klutz in a china shop if he wasn't warned.  Repeatedly.

 These are soccer ball sized balls of roving.  Aren't the colors wonderful?

 After judging and shearing.


Pre judging and shearing.  I thought this one had an inquisitive face.

 I wonder if it matters that this sheep had white spots on nose, lip and crown.

 My favorite of the Ram Lambs... but a third place finisher.  Apparently he was bowlegged... or whatever the sheepy equivalent is.

 The sheep herding demo was very funny.  While the drover/shepherd was explaining how he trains his dogs, all of the sheep were in their pen.

 After he let them out, sure enough, they formed a clump as far away from the four dogs as possible.

 Using logic that I didn't immediately understand, the shepherd got the dogs to separate these two sheep with the marked faces. They were NOT happy to be away from the rest of their buddies.  And NONE of them said anything like Baaaa- Ram- Ewe that I could tell.

 They were happy to be free later!

 Thank goodness the program listed ALL of the vendors.  I'll have lots of websites to look at.  While some of the yarn was truly exquisite, some of the vendors had especially "good" patterns.

 View of the Kettle Korn hut from the top of the hill.  (We resisted. A miracle!!)

 The skeins on this "yarn tree" were tempting, too.  Mostly sock weight.  The vendor had a sock knitting machine that people were trying out.  It looked very fast AND fairly complicated, actually.