This year’s Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was just over a week ago, part of a a surprisingly damp and chilly first week in May. As usual, I went on Sunday, always less crowded and, this year, a far drier day than Saturday.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the weather was conducive to knitwear and finished weaving in and trimming the ends on my Partridgefield Cowl (you’ll get a better picture later in the week after I’ve blocked it) before heading out, so it could get its debut this spring, rather than having to wait until next fall.

This led me to get a later start than I would have liked (this seems to be a recurring refrain for me with this event), and I didn’t arrive until 2 p.m., giving me three hours until the festival closed.

I started with the sheep barns:

You can see this sheep has recently been sheared (using electric clippers, which is what most shepherds seem to prefer these days).

If you needed a surfer sheep, wouldn’t this one be high on your list to nominate?

I see you!

The lambs were at the far end of the last barn I visited:

Awww!!!!

Next up was acquiring some lunch. When I first started going, I used to try to find real food (which is possible) for a midday repast, but in recent years, I’ve come to embrace the festival food and just get myself fried dough. I lucked out in that the breeze had mostly died down by the time I bought my funnel cake, so I was not wearing as much of the powdered sugar as I might have otherwise.

I like to watch the sheep dog demonstrations, so headed to the far end of the festival with my plate. This was the sixth and final demonstration of the weekend, so the sheep were done and feeling relatively compliant. Unlike a few years ago, when they broke out of the ring and the demonstration turned into real-life herding, the sheep understood what was asked of them and quickly went wherever the dogs (and their shepherds) asked them to go.

It’s fun to watch the dogs work and nearly as enjoyable to watch the dogs who are waiting their turn. It’s so obvious they each want to be out there moving the sheep around, and sometimes they’ll be so caught up in what’s going on in the ring that they’ll inch out before their shepherd notices to lend a hand paw.

After the conclusion of the demonstration, I worked my way back through the stalls. This is where my late arrival hurt me, because I just ran out of time to see everyone and everything.

But in the end, I came away with a flat of tomato and pepper plants for my garden and these goodies:

There’s a jar of maple cream, an Eiffel Tower zipper pull, and two skeins of sock yarn. The top one is a sparkly mini skein from Ellen’s Half Pint Farm in an undisclosed colorway. The bottom is Into the Whirled’s Pakokku Sock in the Pink Elephant colorway. It should make some very pretty socks, with single row stripes of pink, purple, and grey. (I do love me some stripy socks!)

Another great knitterly event. I can’t wait until next year!