We had a great "family" Holiday season with trips to Florida for Thanksgiving, family home on the farm for Christmas and a big family birthday celebration in Savannah on New Years Day. Follow all that by a couple of lambs born in early January, the ASI Convention in San Antonio in late January and a quick trip home to Wyoming to wish Mom a happy 95th. Getting home to the farm became a priority as the months wore on and after firing up the wood stoves and re-bedding barns, all seems right with the world again.
The ASI convention was, as always, a great way to start the year. There was the usual broad menu of meetings and programs available. So many in fact, that there is not enough time to take it all in. This year I "cut" a Wool Council forum to take in one on the Lamb Council agenda. I was very interested in presentations from USDA, and others, on the plight of the lamb meat market; the causes and the path to recovery. Other presentations dealt with the soon to be available "Tenderness" labeling sticker for Lamb to be issued by USDA. There will a few hoops to jump through to qualify, however, in the presentation, it was stated that almost all the lamb tested from around the country qualified!
The Make It With Wool banquet and fashion show was again the perfect ending for the convention. Our New England entrants looked great on the runway and while they did not take home the award they would have wanted, they come back to us having done a great job in representing all of us. Anna Charest and Brianna Taylor......you are both the very best! Congratulations.
Our February Association meeting was held at Stony Farm in Holden and the speaker was Nick Forgione, a lawyer from Burns & Levinson, LLC in Boston. Nick specializes in Estate Planning for the agriculture community and his presentation was well received and brought forth an animated Q&A session. If you need contact info for Nick, you can call either me or Gordon for his number.
Our Association Blankets are here and if you have not picked yours up, please make contact with our program managers ASAP as they need their living rooms back. By the way, the blankets are bringing rave reviews.
More next Month!
