Fair Week: Day One

Today was the biggest day of the fair for our family. We picked veggies and grains to enter in the veggie show (an almost extinct part of our county fair, which is in itself an endangered species). We packed along the show clothes and some lunch and headed out mid-morning. The kids had enough time before the show to weigh their lambs and wash them. We ate a quick lunch, and they changed into their show clothes.

The first judging was on showmanship. Showmanship is really about how the kids handle themselves. They need to make eye contact with the judge, smile pleasantly, and answer questions intelligently, all while leading and setting up their lamb. Setting up refers to positioning the legs and body of the lamb so that it looks nice. It doesn't sound hard, but lambs often have other ideas!

Both our kids did very well, but our daughter took first place in her showmanship class. Woot!

After showmanship, the lambs are separated into four classes by gender and weight--light wether (castrated male), heavy wether, light ewe and heavy ewe. Each kid shows their two lambs in the appropriate class, and this time the lamb is judged for conformity, structure, leanness, muscling, etc. One of our son's lambs won Reserve Champion Ewe (2nd overall ewe lamb in the fair) and one of our daughter's lambs won Grand Champion Wether (1st overall wether lamb in the fair). Now our fair is small--there were only about 20 lambs in all. But we are proud of the kids and the lambs, even so. 

Here's a photo of "setting up". 

And one of the judge in action.

The strained smile.

And the final photos!

I am home, blogging about it. Everyone else went back to the fair after supper to see the Demolition Derby. I prefer the quiet of our empty house...