I love seeing Dallas and the State Fair. I love the smell of the barns and the food walk as I call it. I saw, I ate, I talked, I swam (sitting in a heated hot tub), I slept and I am finally back to my humble home. The show goat is back in his pen after seeing the bright city lights of Dallas.
Nobody from our group of local FFA ers made the top lists. The kids all got “participation ribbons”, a free t-shirt and the experience of saying ” I showed at the State Fair of Texas”. Gator worked his butt off, but to be honest the goat was young and the big money goats were beside him on either side. Nobody worked his goat harder in the ring than Gator, but some days it is not meant to be. He came out, fussed for a minute and watched so more goats be shown.
As each kid got sifted out, the trend was clear. We have one Senior showing a sheep, a sheep that hates his ears touched. Which is a challenge when that is how you show them is by touching their faces. She was at the end of the last breed, by that time she was a funny girl. I had told her to smile, red lipstick, flirt and work that wild sheep no matter what. Her being a Senior and having Senioritis (disease that affects many Seniors, not being “full on” in competition). As she made ten feet without the judge pulling her, she knew what we knew she would have to work it. She smiled up and me and winked. I could have killed her, she laughed. She did a good job, but not a great job. Her Senioritis kicked in, she was being not the girl I know to show. She was tired and hungry, with a three hour drive ahead of her with two steers to feed when she made it home. She got her purple ribbon like most in the show and said “let’s go eat”.
She has been a great kid showing two to three steers a year, with a lamb every other time. But reality of sheep being bred to win, versus what you can afford had caught up with her. That and Senioritis, she was mentally done, she had stressed all day about the wild sheep. Gator had no comforting words since he had wrangled him for a 18 hours before she got there, this is a sheep that hates a halter. Unheard of!
We got back late, the goat got back even later. Gator and Dunk went to bed as we unloaded the goat to the pen. They had early class, and we knew it was not going to be hard just a bit of work. Poor goat was as whopped as the kids, he wanted to be in his pen as soon as possible.
Today we will sanitize every inch of him and the poor goat he is sharing the pen with, it was too late to do it. They have to be protected from disease and spraying the pen, the buckets, the clips and the goats is the only option. He will have months before the stress of a trip will happen again, it will much shorter and he will be fine.
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