This is the 4^th year George and I have been attending. The show is 3 days long and incorporates animal, fleece, and fiber arts competition and a wide variety of structured educational opportunities.

The show was developed 25 years ago with colored wool producers and users in the mind and is still going strong today. Handspinning fiber is the driving force when judging the fleece on the animal. It accounts for 50% of the total score while the other 50% is on conformation and overall appearance.

In addition to winning best young flock in our division, Hawks Mountain Ranch "Black Champ", HMRR063J, took the champion ram black sheep trophy. This huge midnight black ram lamb not only won his ram lamb class, but also was judged best ram when he went up against the yearling rams in the overall championship. This long bodied, polled black ram has luxurious fine fleece.

Our polled moorit ewe lamb, HMRR065J, won reserve champion ewe. She is a tall, long ewe lamb with a strikingly silky fleece.

Although it was a very busy weekend, I managed to take a class from Dr. Phil Sponenberg DVM on "Color Genetics in Sheep". It was a very informational class encompassing all wool sheep with very descriptive color slides. I left with a new appreciation about how the basic color genetic study can be applied to not only our Icelandics, but to all other sheep breeds.

The Black Sheep Gathering is the only show we've taken our Icelandic sheep to. We enjoy the atmosphere and the focus of the show. It is a great place to meet others with an interest in sheep and the use of their wool. I thoroughly enjoyed talking "Sheep" all weekend!