Shepherd's Harvest

Saturday Rina and I went to the Wool Festival and had an awesome time. I didn't overspend but did buy a couple of skeins of sock yarn, some sock blockers and handmade soaps (mmmm). We also ran into Christy and her friend Kim and daughter Emily. Besides wandering endlessly thru the 4 barns full of vendors, we watched the Stock Dog show in the outdoor arena, checked out some sheep shearing, had lunch at the 4H building, and wandered thru the Sheep, Goat and Llama barns. Rina bought a drop spindle and some roving (Coopworth, I believe). I may get sucked into spinning someday...just not ready to take on another obsession quite yet.


Back to the festival...the weather was absolutely gorgeous! Completely the opposite of last year...thank goodness! I managed to get a few pictures taken before my camera battery died...I didn't really plan that very well but here are a few of the photos I did manage to snap


One of these things is not like the others....





Waiting for Shearing..... they literally filled the pen in the morning

Sorry I don't have an "after" shot showing all the room in the pen later in the day after they were all coifed and cool. But there was considerable space in there with the newly sheared sheep.


We sat in the stands and watched Bill Gary and Mary Sullivan of Kensmuir, Working Stockdog Center in River Falls, WI work their Border Collies and answer questions about working herds of sheep and cattle with stock dogs. They even had a couple of the people in the stands down to work Bobby, one of their dogs. The dogs were amazing and fascinating to watch. Pure instinct, training and eagerness to work. Comical at times in their focus on those sheep!


Bill and his dog bringing the flock out into the arena ....

Mary and Bobby herding them into the pen

Wish I had more pictures to share but I'm not a photographer...Rina didn't bring her camera this year...although she IS a photographer. ;-) I think she brought it last year. At any rate, Christy had her's so I suspect you will find pictures over on her site this week.