This Friday, my family and I packed up (okay, we brought rain jackets and our purses) and headed to Lewisburg, Tennessee at the early-but-not-so-bright hour of 4:00am. Luckily, I came prepared with a blanket and pillow, hogged the back seat, sprawled out, and slept most of the way there and back.In case you’re wondering why we left at such an early hour, it was for a pretty good reason. Lewisburg was having their Goats, Music, and More Festival, and the Nigerian Dwarf goat show was at 9:00am! ( http://www.goatsmusicandmore.com)

I have been looking forward to the festival ever since the people we bought our LGD, Mellow, from, and was even more delighted to find they were having a Nigie show. It was a double show, with two judges judging, and therefore a double chance at the competitors winning first. Though I had thought about bring Ariel to show, I had decided against it because I had not yet attended a NDGA show. I immediately regretted it when I realized how simple it would have been! But, there is always next year, and you can be sure I’ll be entering one or more of my goats at the next show I go to. It looked like a lot of fun!

I also learned quite a bit from observing the show. The judges gave very good explanations as to why they chose the goats they chose. Though I still didn’t understand quite everything they said, I got a much better understanding of overall good qualities. Even things I already understood fairly well, such as body capacity and udder attachment, became even clearer when I was able to compare winning goats to the ones who got lower placements. After the first couple of classes, I started to “bet” on which goat would do well, and I was pretty accurate.We watched all of the doe shows, and a few of the buck shows, but then sitting on the hard bleachers got a little too much to bare, so we walked around and looked at the booths. There was of course fair food to be indulged in, and some really neat booths to look at. Overall it was a very well done festival, and the coming storms held off until after we left. I would recommend the festival to anyone, goat fanatic or not. It was just good old fashioned family fun.

We also got to see some of our “goat friends” that I have purchased my goats from, and watch them show. They both did very well, so congratulations to them! Several first and second place goats, and at least one Reserve Champion each (my memory is failing as to what else they got.)

Congratulations to them!If you ever get a chance to visit the Goats, Music, and More Festival, I highly recommend it. See you there next year!

Beauty says, “Goodbye!”