FAIR AT HOME ~ Day 5

My friend Pam has mentioned her sheep herding hobby off and on over the years. I will occasionally hear about a competition she attended or the learning curve (both human and dog) of training a Border Collie to round up a flock of ewes.

While curious, I never really took the time to pepper Pam with questions about sheep herding. I am so grateful that my determination to Fair At Home finally inspired me to invite myself over to Pam’s pasture to learn about her decades-in-the-making hobby.

Clare turned to look at me when I called her name!
I have cats.  Enough said.

Pam's hobby began by owing Border Collies – an interest inspired by seeing them at work years ago at an event in Kentucky. She then started meeting with a trainer to learn how to work with her dogs to herd borrowed sheep, just because it looked fun. A few years ago, Pam worked her magic the way wives do and convinced her hubby that they needed to move just a few miles west to a new property with the perfect sheep set-up.

Pam now has two Border Collies (the veteran Clare and the up-and-comer Agnes), about a dozen sheep, and is absolutely living her very best life. When I think of Pam, I always imagine a smile. Today, seeing her in her pasture with her animals, that smile just beamed.

Before we headed into the field, Pam showed me the tools of her trade. She had two staffs, one that looked like a walking stick a blind person might use, the other a wooden hook that an advanced pig tapper or Little Bo Peep might use.

Agnes checking out the staffs.  Pam said
they serve the same purpose.  The wooden
one with the hook is just more fancy for
competitions and shows.  Really strong
shepherds can also use the hook on the
wooden one to snag a sheep's foot to
help turn her over, sort of like roping
a calf.  Pam is not a sheep hooker.

Pam explained that the staffs are largely used to direct the dog if she is going in the wrong direction. I thought this meant that Pam would use the staff to point in the direction she wanted to the dog to go. Instead, the presence of a staff serves as a visual wall telling the dog “NOT HERE.”

Pam also uses a whistle to give commands. Some herders whistle with their fingers; Pam demonstrated an impressively loud finger whistle that would have rounded up every kid within three miles if it had been dinner time.

Pam said most herders these days – at least in competition – use a special plastic or metal whistle. She blew into one and was able to toot a whole scale of notes and pitches and other music terms I don’t know. She handed me a freshly sanitized whistle in a baggie and offered to let me give it a blow.

It sort of looked like the metal tappy part of a tap shoe.

Thinking this would be as easy as blowing on a whistle from Dollar Tree, I raised the herding whistle to my lips, gave it a hearty blow, and heard absolutely nothing. I tried it a few more times and produced the sound of burbling spit.

Coming to my ego’s rescue, Pam explained that learning how to not just make a noise but make an array of noises on the herding whistle takes a lot of practice. So much so, she was very shy about using her whistle in competitions for a while.

Me spitting up the whistle and contemplating the
true expanse of my life skills

Although whistling is key in directing a sheep dog, the real commands are verbal. Harkening back to olden days in Scotland, the terms are very polite and dapper sounding.

Want the dog to go left? “Come-bye.” Go right? “Away to me.” Slow down?  "Steady."  Stop but keep your eyes on the sheep? “Lie down.” All done, good job, come on back? “That’ll do.” Just like Babe the pig!!

I asked Pam how the dogs are able to control a flock of animals so much larger than they are, especially without barking or nipping or biting.

“Oh, they just give The Eye.”

The Eye is something that most Border Collies are born with. It is basically an intense stare-down that makes the sheep – and even the visiting yahoo with a camera – submit without hesitation. Sort of like someone giving you “the evil eye,” the intimidating energy of a herding dog’s eye is impressively effective.

Clare giving the sheep The Eye.  So powerful, they don't
need to look at her to feel it.  Impressive!

In the field, the handler and the dog work as a team. The goal is to control the sheep, and the dog is ALL IN. In fact, Pam said the dogs are not given treats or affection as rewards. Instead, they are given the sheep.

The herding dogs simply, and with every ounce of their DNA, want to be in charge of the sheep. If the dog isn’t behaving properly, she doesn’t get to play with her sheep. If her job is well done, she gets to guard them for a while.

The team at work.  Pam said she loves herding for the
challenge of getting three species (sheep, dog, and human)
to work together.  We can learn a lot from shepherds. 

We walked out to Pam’s pasture and she and Clare went to work. Responding to a series of whistles and voice commands, Clare ran around collecting the sheep. As a veteran, when Pam tells Clare to “Lie down” Clare actually just stops. She has the self-control to stop in place and wait. Pam called this “earning her legs.”

The young Agnes, however, is just so dang excited! She loves sheep! And she wants to round them all up and run around them and bring them to Pam. Pleeeease?? So Agnes, when told to “Lie down” actually has to lie down on her belly. Otherwise, she will start creeping towards the sheep despite the commands of her shepherd.

ON THE MOVE!!  Everyone!

Pam ran both dogs around a few times, but never together. That is a different competition (called “a brace” – see how much I learned??) and a different set of training.

When Clare was done, she trotted over to her water trough and enjoyed a calm, measured, professional, lady-like cool down. Agnes on the other hand, jumped in the trough and splashed and made waves and got everything wet like a toddler in bath tub. It was hysterical! And adorable. And I'm still super bummed I was enjoying it too much to grab my camera.

Click here for 40 seconds of awesome sheep herding!  Volume on!


Quilts…for barns??
With the dogs cooling down, I asked Pam to show me two of her Quarantine Crafts. You know, those new hobbies you picked up after the closets were cleaned and the spice rack alphabetized and the bookshelf organized by spine color?

The first was a barn quilt. No, this is not a big blankie to tuck around your barn for night-night. It’s actually a smooth piece of wood that is painstakingly painted with exacting lines in the pattern of a quilt block. Barn quilts can be as small as a foot square or as large as many feet square so that they are big enough to be seen on a large country barn.

Pam said she had seen barn quilts on various homes and businesses…and barns…and thought it would be fun to make one. Early mistakes included using rough wood, interior paint, and a sealant that will likely yellow and flake over time.  She said the paint also thankfully covers a multitude of pencil marks.

Pam has made five barn quilts so far, the last one featuring painted shadow lines that give depth to the point I was certain the quilt pieces were additional cuts of wood glued on a base.

Although patterns are available online, Pam is enjoying doing the designs on her own. She spoke to my mathy heart when she enticingly mentioned the use of protractors and T-squares and rulers. Ooooh!!! There’s that practical math application again!!

Woodhaven has a (small) barn. Pam is looking for practice. Guess what dinner conversation was tonight??

Pam's hubby built the frame and her
daughter added the white twinkle lights.
SO PRETTY!

Tanning hides
So when you have a flock of sheep for your dogs, you find yourself with a variety of hobbies. Like lambing. And hoof trimming. And finding new recipes for fresh lamb meat. And tanning sheep hides.

Like any real farmer, the last thing you want is for anything to go to waste when you have livestock butchered. After a few years of enjoying lamb dinners while cringing at the thought of the beautiful fleece just being cast aside, Pam decided to see if she could tan a sheep hide. Because Quarantine.

Although Pam is very hands-on, there are some necessities she leaves to professionals. So her fleecy, untanned sheep hides were delivered to her with her freshly processed lamb meat. However, there was still work to be done.

Using a tool that sounded like a big scraper, Pam “fleshed” the skin to remove all the meat. She then used salt as well as a special spray solution to break down the hide to make it pliable.

Although Pam prefers to buy her tanning solution in a bottle, purists…again, dedicated to letting nothing go to waste when butchering an animal…use the sheep’s brain as the tanner. I wasn’t entirely sure what questions to ask about this. I eventually managed to find out that the brain is put in a blender and whirred up and then spread out on the skin.

I am grateful we are not at that level of quarantine.

The hide and fleece are washed and rinsed a number of times throughout the tanning process. Pam said she brushed out the fleece while watching TV. Gotta be honest, that sounds delightfully soothing and relaxing.

Pam isn’t quite sure what she will do with her self-tanned sheepskins. Wall hangings, rugs, dog beds are all options. She is just excited she finally made one. And I am entirely impressed.

Those darker spots are places where Pam said she didn't
get quite enough of the meat off.  I'm both fascinated
and ooked out by this information.

FAIR AT HOME STATS!

Today’s t-shirt: Desperate to have a collection of Clark County Fair shirts, one year I was ecstatic to learn that a print shop at the mall (The Mall – our county only has one) had permission to use the Fair’s logo. Snagging a couple blank shirts in fun, Fairing colors, I commissioned my own Fair Swag. Shirts, cinch sack, hoodie. Today’s shirt is from that original collection.

Hey, batter batter batter!

Today’s earrings: Popcorn! Real popcorn! Several years ago, while snacking on my annual bag of white cheddar cheese popcorn, inspiration hit that the big puffs of corn would make adorable earrings. Remembering my brief foray into jewelry making in my 40s, the next morning I dug out my earring supplies and fashioned my own edible accessories. I’m not sure if I’m proud or concerned that the puffs are still in tact and holding up surprisingly well.

It was a lot less yellow a few years ago.

Today’s hand sticker: A lot of friends have commented on that Pickle Dog I ate on Sunday. If only I had randomly drawn today’s sticker that day instead.

Time today’s hand sticker finally bit it:  I dropped my pickle at 9:06pm

Number of steps walked:  2,052.  A little less than yesterday since I didn't have a horse show to walk to.

UnFair food consumed: I finally had time to make my standard smoothie for breakfast (frozen strawberries, pineapple juice, Greek Yogurt, a banana, and a spoon of peanut butter for protein and texture). Lunch was leftover Pad Thai from dinner on Friday. I decided water was a good idea, so I tried to keep pouring liquids down my throat…including a small bottle of Cran Pomegranate Glucosamine Chondroitin because I have 52-year-old knees. Dinner was pizza (see below), spinach (my GI tract is soooo happy!), and the rest of the Mourvedre we opened on Saturday.

Not Fair, not UnFair food consumed: Rob and I have a favorite pizza topping that we have only seen on one menu (which is where we tried it). Dario’s Pizza in Sausalito (near San Francisco) no longer offers bananas as a pizza topping. Apparently Rob and I were the only ones to ever try it. In any case, we LOVE banana and sausage pizza!

Whenever we have two almost-ripe-enough-for-bread bananas, we grab a sausage pizza from Papa Murphy’s Take n Bake, add our ripe banana slices, and have the most delicious pizza you’ve never thought to try (the bananas have the sweetness of pineapple without the tartness). A blessing in disguise of not being able to make my breakfast smoothies the past few days is having bananas ready for dinner!

Doesn't that look scrumptious??

FAIR FOOD FEAST TREATS!


Deep Fried Fruit
Jazzed about last night’s delicious discovery of Homemade Elephant Ears, we were eager to test out some more deep fried fun. Tonight’s adventure: Deep Fried Fruit.

I have never seen deep fried fruit options on Fair menus. The experiment would not have occurred to me were it not for my friend Theresa who requested I give deep fried watermelon a try. Since the pre-cut cubes I bought at Safeway were accompanied by cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple…why not give those a dunk in the fryer too?  And we have frozen strawberries for my smoothies so...

Verdict:  There's a reason I have never seen deep fried fruit options.  Especially melons.  Not recommended.

The watermelon was really just warm watermelon covered in a fried dough.  Nothing about frying it made it interesting.  And warm watermelon is weird.

Skeptical about the deep fried watermelon

The cantaloupe was just gross.  As I made faces while trying to determine what made the cantaloupe so unappetizing, Rob asked, "What's the matter with it?"

"Have you ever had hot cantaloupe?"

"No..."

"Don't."

Blech.

The strawberry and the pineapple were much more interesting.  The deep fried strawberry tasted like warm strawberry jam or maybe even pie filling.  It was quite enjoyable but not quite sweet enough.  I am thinking a dipping sauce of whipped cream or frosting would help.

Ahhh, sooo much better.  Chocolate syrup could be
a fun dipping sauce for the deep fried strawberry.

The deep fried pineapple was also very edible.  I immediately wanted a glazey dipping sauce, though.  Again, a little more sweetness was needed.

As I was enjoying the deep fried pineapple, I realized
I have hot pineapple with some regularity on
pizzas and in Asian dishes.  So this was not
as jarring as the hot melons.

As for the honeydew melon... I don't like honeydew to begin with, so I couldn't imagine deep frying it would change my mind based on my research thus far.  I decided it was time to move on.


Deep Fried Thin Mints
Determined to end the night on a positive note, I dug into our freezer and produced an unopened box of Thin Mints dated September 2018.  Pretty remarkable that we had a box of Thin Mints that long.  Not remarkable to find something 2 years old lurking in our freezer.

Frying up the Thin Mints was a little tricky.  As the chocolate started to melt, some of the batter sort of slid off.  A thicker batter would definitely help -- even though this batter had less milk than our first batch.

Verdict:  The Deep Fried Thin Mints were pretty darn tasty!  Not as good as the Deep Fried Oreos, but worth making again.  I still wanted it to be sweeter (maybe our batter needs more sugar?), so I first tried a drizzle of chocolate syrup.  Not satisfied, I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top of an unsyruped one and that hit the spot.  Just the touch of added sweetness I was looking for.  I'm thinking the secret to the Oreo's success was the Double Stuffing.

Very tasty!  And in 3rd place of Favorite Homemade
Deep Fried Discoveries, after Deep Fried Oreos and
Elephant Ears