Can I Repeat?

As Maryland Sheep and Wool, the largest sheep and fiber festival on the East Coast looms large, I am wondering what photographs I will enter into the photo contest. Last year my "Princess of the Flowers" won First Place in the portrait section and Best in Show overall. They gave me $100 in cash, but that wasn't the best part. Everybody I know in sheep was there to see it. It's the recognition and the chance to "shep nachas" (glow with pride in Yiddish) that's the best thing about winning. I get shaky just thinking about it. It was 12 years before that I won a first in the sheep portrait category. I have a couple in mind and one doesn't even have a sheep in it, if you can imagine. It's a shot of my empty hay mow with sunbeams shining through the slats. There's something so beautiful about the old wood and the way they built supports and nailed up pieces of wood to climb to the high ceilings. Sister Bernadette told me her job was to climb to the tippy top and change the light bulbs once a year when the hay got high enough. I think of the hay mow as my church, a very spiritual place...or an empty cupboard that needs to be filled - depending on my situation. Princess of the Flowers has a story behind it that I must have told somewhere in the past 2,000 posts in this journal that tell the story of my voyage in sheep. I'll tell it again somday, when I don't have critters waiting in the barn to tend to...