Staffordshire County Show 2012

With my interests in spinning firmly taking hold and wanting to learn more about different breeds of sheep and other animals and maybe make some contacts with farmers who sell fleece direct to the public I suggested to my husband that maybe we visit a couple of Country Shows with the kids and make it a great family day out.  We booked tickets to go see Staffordshire County Show 2012 at the Staffordshire County Showground and we visited yesterday, on 5th June.

We didn't tell the kids where we were going, we kept it a surprise until we got there when we were all wowed with the shear size of the event and how much there was to see and do.  With the typical British weather, we did get rained on on and off throughout the day but we still had a good time.  My girls are the two in the second photo, standing in front of the North Ronaldsay sheep.  I can tell you that the white bull in the 6th photo was absolutely huge and was one of the biggest that we saw at the show.  The sheep in photos 9 and 10 are really docile and came up to us for petting and are Ryeland sheep.

I didn't make contact with any farmers on the day but I did find a stall that was selling bags of spinning fibre, both tops and roving, I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, will have to research that.  I had a hard time deciding which breeds and type I wanted to try but finally settled on these 4, all of which are roving and I got them from Griffiths Mill.

I can't wait to get spinning these and will write separate posts about my experiences with these when I spin them.