On the heels of such sadness...

...we had a red letter day. God promises to bind up our wounds, and so He does.
The Gooneybush herd (George, Keri Jo, Hannah Jo, Nicholas and goats) participated in the Georgia Dairy Goat Breeders Association's annual goat show today at the Monroe Agricultural Center. It is a tremendous amount of work to prepare livestock for a show, and I always wonder why I do it. Especially once the goats are lounging in their suites and I'm the only one sweating and red in the face.

I was wondering that very strongly throughout the morning as my two senior does and my "senior" self came in last, or almost last, in every event that we entered. I thought that I would try my hand at the showmanship competition. Ha!. Myself and three other similarly aged women placed in a dead heat for the end of the line. As the judge commended the winners and the people in the mediocre range, he came to us and said, "Thanks for coming out, you were very brave." Let me interpret, what he really said was, smoothly like silk so as not to feel the piercing of the knife, "Considering your skill level you had nerve to enter the ring with the other folks." We (the three at the end) congratulated one another and agreed that we should celebrate at Cracker Barrel. That didn't happen, but the thought comforted us.

But after lunch this herd came back in power.

I knew that we had a hot lineup of young goats that could be competitive, but they are very young. Typically the awards go to the older does because they have had time to develop the desired characteristics, but sho' nuf, Enterprise, daughter of Discovery, mopped up first place in her class in both rings. She then went on to be grand champion in one ring, placing higher than does much older than herself. Hannah-Jo did a stellar job of showing Enterprise and the other goats, and received kind words from the judge. Her day was further brightened by the presence of her new friend Christy (to Hannah Jo's left in this picture.) She and her family, you will recall from a previous blog, acquired one of our Pyrenees puppies and two of our goats this past month. We were reunited for the weekend with those sweet animals and people. Our younger does Blossom and Buckets had respectable second and third place wins as well. To cap it off we won second place for herdsmanship, which is the award given for the way that you manage and present yourself and animals during the show. We are looking forward to watching this year's crop of kids grow and mature. In 2010 the herd holds promise. As usual, we pause to give credit to the two great herds from which the Gooneybush herd descends, the Dzimianski and Jug-Tavern herds. Thanks to to our goat mentor and strategist Sara Dzimianski. To our goat club and all of the folks that make these shows go...thanks guys!