MOSES LAKE — Patience and responsibility.

That’s what Anabelle Brown, 13, said she’s learned showing sheep at this year’s Grant County Fair, which started on Tuesday.

“My mom thought sheep; I would do good with sheep,” Brown said. “So we signed up.”

Brown stood in a pen in the Sheep Barn of the Grant County Fairgrounds with her friend Ariel Montoya, 14. Both wear Skyline 4-H Sheep 2022 T-shirts. And both are exhibiting animals for the very first time.

“I've shown art and stuff, but I've never shown animals,” Brown said. “Okay, this is my first year trying to work with all these people. I didn't really know how to work some of the equipment. I had to ask for help learning how to use them.”

“This is actually my first year,” Montoya added. “Yeah, I started this year.”

Brown said learning to take care of the animal has been a lot of work every day, something she said hasn’t come easily for her.

“It takes time getting up in the morning, practicing with your sheep and trying to work with it when you're showing it,” she said. “It was good for me because I'm not patient. But with my sheep, I had to work every day, morning and night. Walk my sheep. I had to give it time. I can't just push my sheep into it.”

It was a sentiment Montoya echoed, saying that because she actually lives in town, she had to keep her animal with her uncle.

Getting ready for competition — the first day of fair had FFA and 4-H students showing off market animals, and so showmanship was not an issue in the competition ring — involved making sure their animals were healthy, clean and watered so they weren’t too hot, both Montoya and Brown said.

“I got her ready by taking off her stuff, giving her water and food so she's more calm,” Montoya said.

“I had to brush her legs because she had some sawdust, just trying to make them fluffy,” Brown added.

Once in the ring, exhibitors kept a keen eye on the judge, following orders and often struggling to control animals which can occasionally get loose. Which doesn’t matter much with animals being judged for their meat value, according to Jeremy Falk, a sheep judge at this year’s Grant County Fair and an associate professor at the University of Idaho in Moscow.

“Yeah, sheep are always loose in sheep shows,” Falk said.

For young or first-time exhibitors, Falk said their nervousness at competing can be easily felt by their animals.

“Maybe it's just that exhibitors first time they get a little antsy. And so they make their animals a little more antsy as well,” he said.

Brown said she was very nervous as she got ready to step into the ring for her first exhibition.

“Getting ready to take the halter off, I felt like I was gonna throw up. I don't know, but a lot queasy,” she said. “But then in the ring, I saw the people struggling and I felt like I got this. I got this. So I was really excited. And I wanted to show them what I had to show.”

Both Brown and Montoya said it takes a lot of concentration to pay attention to the judge in the ring.

“You have to multitask a lot,” Montoya said. “Trying to pay attention to where the judge is and if the judge is gonna touch your lamb you have to embrace it. So the muscles are showing.”

The 2022 Grant County Fair opened on Tuesday and will continue through Friday.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].