Summer time is all about family, friends, and sheep for Doug and me! Recently we’ve been busy getting sheep ready for our niece M and our “sister” C to show at the Loudon County 4-H Show. Both girls exhibited 22 sheep consisting of Southdowns, black face, and Hampshire ewes and wethers. Doug and I were very proud of them! Both girls won showmanship, and had several class winners, with Cassie raking in Supreme Ewe, Champion Commercial Ewe, and Champion Market Lamb. All in all it was a great day and we celebrated by putting up hay (our livestock have to eat too!) and having a cookout with family and friends. Every night since then we have been helping the girls work their sheep in preparation for the All American Junior Sheep Show in Michigan this coming week. This is our first time at the All American and we couldn’t be more excited! We have heard awesome things about this show and we are looking forward to spending a weekend with our sheep friends from across the country. This should be a learning experience for both M & C and we cannot wait to share it with them 🙂 Hopefully it will become a tradition!
I was discussing sheep with my dad the other day (shocker I know!) and we both concluded that Doug and me could be into worse things with our spare time. Sheep are a lot of hard work as most of you know, this is the case with any type of livestock! But I am so glad Doug and I have these animals to take care of together (who needs spare time anyway?!?). Feeding, washing, shearing, treating, and all sorts of other “ing” words are done on a weekly basis but we couldn’t be happier doing this together. Hopefully we are teaching M & C what it means to care for livestock and be responsible with life as a whole, but at the same time we are all learning!
I’m off to continue cleaning and packing for the week ahead, hopefully we will see many of you at the All American next week, and if not you will just have to wait for the pictures because you know I am bringing my camera!
“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin
Shanks Genetics 