And I still hadn’t figured out why the teenagers were very deliberately avoiding even so much as a glance at the naked sheep.
I saw Seth Early leaning on the ring near the gate where the sheep had entered. His Border Collie, Lad, was lying at his feet, staring fixedly at the sheep as if he could barely restrain himself from leaping out into the ring to herd them. I climbed down off the bleachers and strolled over to see if Seth could explain what was going on.
As I walked, I saw a few other adults circulating through the teenagers, handing out sheets of paper and pencils, and warning them to “Wait till we give the word.”
“And what happens when they get the word?” I asked Seth, when I reached him.
“They turn around and start judging,” Seth said.
“So these three sheep are competing for something?” I asked.
“No, the kids are competing. They’ve been learning how to judge conformation. Now we’re seeing who’s learned the most.”
An older man—one of Randall’s uncles, though I couldn’t remember which—stood up on a small platform near us and addressed the crowd.
“Okay—we’re ready!” he announced. “When I say the word, you have fifteen minutes. Ready! Set! Go!”
The teenagers all turned around and began staring at the sheep, jostling each other for the best positions on the rail, and scribbling on their sheets of paper.
“Those sheep have already been judged by qualified sheep judges,” Seth said. “Now it’s the kids’ turn to rate them. There’s twenty teams from FFV clubs all over the state. The team that comes the closest to matching how the adults rated the sheep wins the blue ribbon.”
“Is there a reason for shearing the sheep so closely?” I asked. “They look as if they’ve been shaved.”
“They have,” Seth said. “I just shaved them. We do that before they go into the ring, so the judges can see the conformation. Go out there, Fred. Keep ’em moving.”
One of the nearby adults went through the gate into the ring and followed the sheep around, chivvying them into motion from time to time. Lad whined a bit as if longing to be allowed to do Fred’s job.
“Are you making them trot to show off the conformation, or so one side of the ring doesn’t get a closer look than the others?”
“A little of both,” Seth said. He leaned on the fence and watched with satisfaction as the sheep trotted.
“So I assume these sheep have flaws that the kids should identify?” I asked. “Because giving them perfect sheep to judge wouldn’t be much of a test.”
He nodded.
“Any idea what’s wrong with ’em?” he asked.
I studied the sheep. I’d spent a lot of time gazing at Seth’s sheep over the last several years, both when they were peacefully grazing in his pasture across the road and when they turned up in unexpected places on our land or even inside our house. But I was usually studying them to see if they were about to eat parts of my garden or track dung into the house, not to assess them as worthy or unworthy specimens of their breed.
I waited until the adults were collecting the judging sheets before replying to Seth’s question.
“If I were giving a ribbon, I’d give it to the medium-sized sheep,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Why?” he asked.
“The biggest one has a slight sway back,” I said. “I don’t recall that any of your sheep do. And the smallest one looks as if her body is too big. Or maybe her legs are too small. Out of proportion.”
“Not bad.” He nodded with approval. “Not bad at all. We’ll make a shepherd of you yet.”
“Alas, that’s unlikely,” I said. “We’re running out of room for the llamas as it is.”
“Last time I was over at the sheep barn, one of your boys was begging his daddy for a sheep,” Seth countered.
Would it hurt Seth’s feelings if I mentioned that Jamie, an inveterate animal lover, was also begging for kittens, chicks, rabbits, turtles, snakes, axolotls, frogs, canaries, pigeons, turkeys, ducks, guinea pigs, hamsters, and “cowsies”?
“By the way—” Seth began. Then he broke off, looked around as if to see if anyone was eavesdropping.
“We seem to have had another prank,” he continued, in a lower voice. “Not a new one—happened last night, like all the rest of ’em, but wasn’t reported.”
“What was it?” I asked. “And why wasn’t it reported?”
“Someone spray-painted rude words on the side of each of the sheep we were originally going to use for this event,” Seth said. “They belonged to Mason Shiffley, and you know how prim and proper he can be.”