Ewe make a run for it.................

and then you get caught! Gibbo and I took our show team on the road to Pittsworth Show on March 7. We were up at 5.30, packing the group up. We had spent hours over the previous days washing the white ones and checking and cutting toenails. I even gave Drew, the silkie rooster, a head shampoo to clean his crest feathers.

We pulled up at the exhibitor entrance, paid our money, got our pass outs and drove on in. There were cars and floats and 4wd’s and trailers – and cattle and sheep and goats and pigeons and chooks. It was organised chaos. Gibbo collected our pen sheet and as I pulled each pullet or cockerel from its’ travelling box, Gibbo took them inside to pen them up.

There was a real feeling of activity in the air. Pittsworth is one of the most popular agricultural shows. The morning was fresh, the sky was blue and all around, there were people, busy with the jobs they had to do - reversing floats, putting halters on sheep and goats and penning them up and stewards ensuring all was in readiness for the day ahead. Little kids on ponies were in the ring, the announcer encouraging them all. Sideshow alley was gearing up. The famous Shannons chip van was parked nearby. The ambulance man was in attendance. A sheep escaped as she was being led to her pen – she took off one way and got hunted back; she ran around a couple of cars, back past the ambulance and took off up sideshow alley with a bunch of kids and adults in hot pursuit. Not long after, I saw her coming back, rather reluctantly, being pushed from behind and pulled from in front. I couldn’t resist a couple of photos. She must have been pretty spun out by this stage; I wonder how the rest of her day went and whether she won a ribbon?

We left Pittsworth and went to Toowoomba to visit the M’s and then had lunch with Gibbo’s mum and Viv; the H’s were away in Brisbane.

Back at Pittsworth we found we’d won a first, 2 seconds and 2 thirds. There were some really magnificent looking birds there and we picked up a few pointers from some of the other exhibitors. We think our chooks look quite good when they’re at home here – but when you put them up against some others, they’re really quite ordinary. However, they all have potential and will improve as they grow.
I went for a walk and took some photos in the cattle section. We arrived home around 5.30. It was a long day but I had a good time.