Easily Fascinated Blog: Sheepishly Telling the Rest OR No Sheep, Sherlock!

DAY 2:

As promised, in Day 2, we explore the rest of the Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival.

This day, we headed to the other part of the faire, affectionately known as "The Barns."

Early morning between a few of the barns.
Early CHILLY morning... Thankfully, we had wool.

The barns are a series of...well, barns, filled with even MORE vendors and wooly-type sellers.

And wooly-type people.

You'll only get this once this post, so I'll get it out of the way:

Man. There were TONS of people and vendors.

Another barn!

And another!

There were a several more barns filled with more wooly vendors. But these were much more natural type yarns, wools, and colors in general. The placement of which will make sense shortly.

One barn had a demonstration of dying with natural plants, and herbs.

Those of you following this blog (hi, Mom!) will remember my fondness for informative plaques. Sadly, since this was a temporary faire, so there were no permanent plaques...

...But the natural plant demonstration had an informative natural dye chart!

Informative!

And next to that, we learned even more why they're called the Barns.

We were also reminded why it's called the Duchess County Sheep & Wool Festival.

I'm thinkin' it's because of the sheep.

And not just sheep! If it can produce yarn, it was there:

Goats!

Fluffy sheep!

Shorn sheep!

Llamas! (On parade!)

This sheep!
(Bringing back the frosted tips!)

There was a 4H component of the show, so the crazy variety of sheep made a fair degree of sense.

Now here's what entertained me: So many phrases talk about sheep as docile, quiet creatures, easily following whatever they're told to.

Not. True.

Observe how the professionals handle the prize-winning sheep:

Yup. By holding the sheep's head in a death grip.

I sadly cannot adequately portray this next point without sound. But I will try.

See, our childhood books tell us sheep say, "baa." Or possibly, "Baaah." The use phrases like "softly bleating."

I saw many, many sheep. Some were silent. The ones that weren't did NOT "softly bleat." No, their noises reminded one that "bleat" is only one letter away from "beat."

It's more properly written as "BLLLLAWWWWAAGGH!!!"

Even the lambs! We watched a tiny boy of maybe 4 cautiously approach a tiny, tiny "adowrable wamb..."

...which promptly replied, "BLLIIIIIIIAAAGGGHH!!" and scared the heck out the boy. That poor kid isn't gonna have nightmares... He'll have "nightsheep."

...But moving on: Ever hear of Angora fur? This guy has!

SO FLUFFY!!

Yes, there were even Angora rabbits. And in case you're wondering, these guys are shorn like sheep, so no, they are not hurt for the fluffy, fluffy fur. It's cut off, then spun into yarn.

This is getting a little long, so I'll do a quick run by sum up: