Friday, June 11, 2010

It' showtime and other stuff

Last weekend (6-4 to 6-6) I spent in the lovely village of Ferndale. Um , wait, let us correct that - last weekend I spent the weekend on the fairgrounds of the lovely village of Ferndale www.victorianferndale.com/ and the only time I saw Ferndale was hauling in and out. But it is lovely!

My dear friend Donna and I went to the Humboldt Co. Dairy Goat Club show there. I must say the grounds were nice, the showers came clean and with unlimited hot water (every goat persons dream) and the host club was friendly, efficient and hard working.

It was a kick back show for us. We each brought 2 dry yearlings and Donna brought her 2 y.o. buck DRD Adhamh Patrick. Red is the sire of my crop of Nubian kids this year and a fine crop they are. We opted to clean up the livestock trailer and sleep in it. Donna has this incredible bed that inflates with the help of a truck battery and converter to a queen size 2 foot off the ground real live bed. Now add to that a portable DVD player with CD's and you can say Best Western eat your heart out!

Chef Donna cooked both mornings  my home grown (or is that laid) eggs with fried potatoes, onions and toast. I got the hang of camp coffee (it has been awhile) and we had a blast. Thank God for the Boy Scout troop running the concession stand as we forgot the catsup and I made a nice donation for some at the window.

Did I fail to mention the wine that was sipped while propped up against the Circle J head board while enjoying Thelma and Louise and the Bucket List. Of course I need to fess up to being grateful that we had both seen these movies before. Between a 12 hours show day on Saturday and traveling and settling in on Friday we both nodded off not far into either flick.

But it was worth it. Donna's dry does and mine got some lessons in show etiquette and Red got 2 legs towards the 3 he needs to be a permanent champion like Dad Patrick was. This line is from the Hidden Meadows herd and Donna has built over the last 10 years a lovely herd. I feel lucky to have quads from Red  even though I only got 1 doe in the 4.  

We both entered the cheese competition and I was lucky enough to get 1st place soft cheese and Best in Show. I have been making cheese for 20 years and my dream is still to become legal and do artisan goat cheese on a small scale. So this was a real treat for me. The judges were a commercial cheese producer and a chef.


My doeling Raz-ma-taz by Red.




To the right home sweet home for the weekend and Chef Donna doing her thing.