county fair, county fair

Everybody in town wasn't there, at least on Saturday, because it poured and poured and poured some more, even before the deluge on Saturday night. Turns out I couldn't have returned, even if I tried, because the road into the fairgrounds was closed. Several people who didn't intend to spend the night there ended up having no choice!

We jinxed ourselves with the giant sheep show. The last time the fairgrounds flooded, we had 20 sheep coming for the invitational sheep show. This year, we had 40. I should have known. We were almost done with the entire sheep show on Saturday morning, and the fairgrounds had to be evacuated because of lightning. Back the sheep went into their pens for 45 minutes, until we were eventually able to finish up.

Due to all the crazy, did I get a picture of Primo and his Best in County Yearling Ewe? No I did not. The best I have is a picture of him helping out his little brother, who was getting the business from his wild little ewe lamb, Lambykins.

This was truly Primo's year, though in very subtle ways. He was the bedrock of our family and farm getting ready and out the door in a timely manner, anticipating what needed to be done and helping me with all kinds of organizational tasks. He worked his tail off all weekend, setting up the sound system, putting up rain flaps, taking down rain flaps, setting up for the sheep show, cleaning up after the sheep show, organizing a line dancing activity for club members (yes, he did, Aunt Paula! using steps he printed off the internet before the show...)

But the most impressive to me was the sheep shearing demonstration his friends and he did for the public. George was in charge of the shearing, and Alex (with some help from George's sister) kept up a spontaneous running commentary about the process, the results, various things that could be done with a sheep's fleece, and anything else that came to mind, with absolutely no assistance from an adult.

They are both 16. It blows me away.

In addition to the undocumented sheep showing, we had some goat showing:

No, we don't have goats, but now my kids wish we did!

Terzo's costume, which he designed himself, was also a big hit, once he finally got to present it on Sunday (costume contest was rained out on Saturday):

Sheriff Terzo and on-the-Lam(bykins) took second place.

The goat milking contest was also a hit, as always. 

No winners in our family this year, but look at that concentration!

Now all we need to do is finish a heap of wet laundry (everything got soaked on Saturday night, including all the sleeping bags), dry out the tents, and get back to something resembling normal after another great—but exhausting—county fair.