BevLive: Meeker, Day One

We mistakenly thought the sheep looked pretty broke yesterday as the wranglers moved them about the field. Wrong. Was one of the toughest first days I remember at Meeker in years. Sheep didn’t really fight. They just didn’t want to move. They most certainly didn’t want to go through the fetch gates, around the post, or through the first drive gate. Oddly, they were their most agreeable at the second drive gate. That may just have been that only the most agreeable sheep and ablest dogs got that far.

There were many runs that took eight to nine minutes to complete the gather. Very hard sledding all around the course for most of us. Barbara and Stella made it look easy with the day’s high score, a 75 with no pen. Hemp ran midway through the day and while he made it look hard he did a great job getting a 67, currently tied for 4th in good shape to make the semifinals. It was very hard though, as the judge called many poor souls for grips, making all of us very cautious in the face of sheep that were reluctant to move and repeatedly faced the dogs.

Running was fairly consistent through the day. Weather got warm in the afternoon with periods of moderate wind but I thought the sheep seemed pretty even. The sheep are certainly beautiful. Very fit yearlings that are fun to work, or would be if we weren’t all trying to make the semifinal at Meeker.