Jr. show day whizzed by, and suddenly we were at the last full day of ADGA nationals, which also happened to be Sr. Nigerian show day! I was excited, both of my does had uddered well and were ready for competition! As I took our chairs over to ringside, to both spectate and give Rob a place to sit while I was in the arena, I looked around at all of the beautiful goat, and thought how fortunate we were to be able to come and compete at the biggest and best dairy goat show in the world! Showtime approached and my amazing husband brought over breakfast sliders and I marveled, he was wearing show whites for the first time ever! I was even more anxious to get showing! The 2 year old class came and I had hopes of making the top 20 cut, but with over 80 goats in the class, I knew it would be challenging! My 2 year old has a beautiful udder, so I took her out and showed her to the best of my ability! Smiling the whole time!! Low and behold we not only were called out to be in the top 20, but we made the top 10!! Placing 8th in the nation out of a huge line up of gorgeous does!! To say I almost lost my cool multiple times in that class is an understatement! I was so close to tears, that I kept having to tell myself to hold it together! As we exited the arena, the people who we bought my 2 year old's mother from came by to congratulate us, and Rob immediately took Stella from my hands to give me a break..... This is when we made a scene.... Stella's old owners reached down to touch her tail, which she HATES!!! she proceeded to slip her collar and run back into the arena, in front of the judge who was still giving reasons! Rob and took opposite corners, and we managed to grab her on her first pass.... But it sure made an impression!
Soon after the 2 year old class it was time for the 4 year old's to show. I had high hopes for Stella, and Zoey is beautiful, however her udder is not nearly as show pretty as her daughters. Still, I took my faithful, patient, loving doe Zoey into the ring, where she behaved and performed perfectly! To my surprise and happiness Zoey was pulled out and was placed 12th out of over 70 4 year old does! This had me so ready to compete in the Dam & Daughter class! I knew we should do well seeing as they both placed highly! But first, we competed in the get of sire class, for both of the does sires, with Rob beating me with Zoey getting 4th place get of sire! We finished our show day out with something I am most proud of. We showed in the Dam & Daughter class and were pulled out 6th of many many high quality pairs! The only does that beat us, were from the herd of National Champions, all of the does ahead of us were owned and shown by Agapa'e Prize! To be considered up against such beautiful does is an absolute honor and I cannot wait to see how the three doe kids that I retained from these does perform!
Just like that ADGA Nationals was a wrap. We decided to go out to dinner to celebrate, and after saying goodbye to some of our good friends new and old, we enjoyed a celebratory BBQ meal and went back to the dreaded task of packing up. We discussed and wanted to be on the road by 8 the next morning so we could be home at a respectable time to allow us to unpack. We packed and packed, and were able to get on the road by 8 AM the following morning and home relatively uneventfully. One hiccup was our living quarters door of our trailer kept swinging open on the highway, thankfully, Jodi Walker was able to come to our rescue by giving us Duct Tape to keep it closed for the rest of the drive home and it worked well!!! We arrived home safely and worked quickly to unload! This means that we could not be more excited for 2022 Nationals which will be held only 4 hours from our home in Harrisburg PA!! We cannot wait and we hope many of you will join us there! Take care and Happy Goating!!!
