This past weekend was full of every emotion that you can imagine. After another particularly stressful week of work coupled with concern over our goats and a bought of a cold for me we looked forward to our first show weekend of 2022! We had been planning to attend the WRDGA show as an annual tradition for months now! I woke up Friday full of excitement and anticipation! I had taken the day off of work to pack the trailer. This was the latest I have ever waited to pack everything, but it simply was the only option with our schedule. So I packed our things, the goat items, show items, and camping items, plus our beloved dog's items, finally after packing for hours we were able to leave the homestead around 4:30 PM. This was a good thing as we checked into the show and settled into our stalls right at 6:30 as the show committee was finishing up setting up.
The hum and anticipation of the first show of the season awaited me with baited breath! We were able to catch up with friends we had not seen in a year and observe some gorgeous goats! We got our camper set up and decided instead of cooking we would go out for a nice dinner out, at a local Mexican place! It was delicious and absolutely the relaxation that we needed. Saturday morning I awoke before my alarm, excited to head to the barn to see how my beautiful does had turned out! Godiva and Tanky both had beautiful full, round udders that were show ready. I fed the babies that I had brought with me and took care of clipping udders and preparing for the show! As the day wore on the classes came and went with Tanky winning her 3 year old milker class and Godiva getting 4th. The day got very hot, and we had every window and fan on in the barn and show arena, until you could feel the shift in the weather. So I decided it would be a good idea to go put away everything under our awning, in case the weather turned and we needed to put it away quickly. We got to showing Jrs and Trudy got 4th place in a large class of over 20 yearling nigerians and soon after it was time to show bucks. By this time the weather had changed and there was nothing we could do about it. The rain poured, lightning struck and hail hit. Rob and I prayed that our awning would make it through... We finished showing Jasper my yearling buck who took 2nd in his class to the Grand Champion of the day in both rings and we went over to observe the damage. At first glance we thought we had avoided consequence, the awning was still standing and appeared to be unharmed. We agreed to get pizza instead of cooking in the giant river that was in front of our trailer because of the storm and head to bed after a shower.
Sunday rolled around quickly, and we hit the ground running. We started showing Sr. Does and Godiva won her class, and went on to be the Reserve Champion Nigerian Dwarf in the ring. I was so proud of her as her first show out as a milker, she did beautifully! Then we moved onto Jrs and Trudy won the dry yearling class, out of another large competitive set. Then we went to start packing up to get home and we noticed that not only had the fabric of the actual awning ripped but that the arm closest to the nose of the trailer broke too, so Rob and I took our time to get the awning secured to the trailer, packed up and headed home with mixed emotions. We were exhausted from a long fun weekend of showing, frustrated that our 2 year old awning needed to be replaced again and cold, because the weather had turned into the 50's while we were at the show.
Ultimately we had a wonderful weekend and are looking forward to the WPDGA show in two weeks! The damages just mean that we may replace the awning with an electric one, and that we now can shop for a larger trailer..... I am so happy that we were able to get away, spend time with our goats and each other, I would not change it for the world! Here is to hoping that your first show of the season goes off without a hitch!! Happy Goating!!!
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