Sheep {and an introvert} on parade

Here they come! Our first day at the festival was a full day of sheep dog trials, and the fair (I shared these in my last post). The second day of the festival was the sheep parade, where the sheep would start there long trek down from the mountains, through town and on to their next destination. This was the day I was most excited for – watching the sheep being guided down the main street of town just like shepherds had done for hundreds of years. I was envisioning a scene like in the book The Shepherd’s Life that I had recently read.

We had hopes of arriving in Ketchum early that day so that I could go on the photography walk up in the mountains where the sheep were before they were brought down into town. Alas, we didn’t arrive home until very late the night before and ended up oversleeping. We got into the van at the time the walk was starting. It just wasn’t meant to be. I think Kevin feared we would be late for the parade too so he rushed us through the mountains a tad bit too quickly. *ahem* Thank you kind officer for giving us a warning instead of a ticket. In the end we made it on time. We watched the parade from the very beginning of the route so that we could see the sheep coming down from the mountains. It was quite an incredible sight! After the parade we chatted with some farmers and then did more wandering around Ketchum.

I failed to mention in my last post that one thing I did not factor in when I dreamed up our matching sheep hats was the response people would have to them. I am perhaps even more withdrawn than your typical introvert so the thought of bringing attention to myself is frightening. Well about every five steps we took at the fair people would come up to give our hats lots of love. We drew quite a bit of attention. It was so nice chatting with other knitters but I think my face was bright red the whole time. Quite a few people asked us if we purchased the hats at the fair. When I told them I knitted them they asked where my booth was or if I had an Etsy shop. That is such a compliment. I told them no and each one responded saying I should. I don’t know if I could ever do it though. Maybe. Would any of you ever be interested in hand knits?

Speaking of hand knits – We logged eight hours of driving for the whole trip. It would have been nice to have camped out close to the festival to save ourselves four hours of driving but with our mini-zoo at home that wasn’t really a possibility. One of these days we’ll get everything we need to bring all of the dogs camping with us but right now we can only bring two at a time. I took advantage of all that driving time and got some knitting done (isn’t that the perfect thing to do on your way to a sheep parade?). I knit Baby F a new pilot cap with my leftover hand dyed yarn as well as a milo with leftover scraps from K’s Bulle and Little L’s birthday sweater. I think he looks pretty cute in them but then again I think he looks cute in anything.

To bring our festivities to an end, I made some good shepherds pie (thank you Lucy for mentioning the perfect name for a vegan shepherd’s pie over on Instagram). The recipe is in the new Oh She Glows Everyday cookbook (which I am sure you know I love). My family and I had never tried real shepherd’s pie before so we didn’t know what to expect but this was pretty good!

Well, I guess that concludes our Trailing of the Sheep fun. I am so glad we got out of the house and went. It couldn’t have happened without Kevin and I so appreciate him for it! I hope you all enjoyed the photos and forgive my sleepy typing/storytelling.