There’s a lot you can do with a sheep.  You can farm with sheep for meat or wool; the karakul lamb has a famous pelt called Swakara for upmarket coats;  little baa-lambs are always the main attraction at petting zoos, you can fire sheep from a cannon….

Hang on a minute.  Did you say  “Fire sheep from a cannon?” Well, yes.  This is what the folks at Smithfield are intending to do during their annual Bibber-Chill Festival 2009, taking place on Saturday 27th June.  Smithfield, of course, is the major South African centre for the merino sheep industry, so it makes perfect sense for them to organize an annual celebration of sheep.  Shooting a sheep from a cannon is the logical follows-on to the sheep-throwing competition they had in 2008. Er, hold on.  Sheep-throwing competition? “We had to cancel the sheep-throwing competition last year,” says organiser Lizette a little sadly, “because we had protests from animal rights groups all over the world – Canada, the UK, you name it.  They made such a fuss that the main sponsor for the festival decided to withdraw.” What the bunny-huggers failed to take into account with all their hysteria (and I have nothing against bunny-huggers, I am one myself) was that the flying sheep in question would have been a dummy, not a real live sheep.   Perhaps they felt a bit sheepish themselves when this was made clear, but the hullabaloo certainly put Smithfield on the map sheepwise and festival-wise, and not a peep of protest was raised this year at the announcement that sheep will be shooting out of cannon. Just to clear up any confusion, all you bunny-huggers - these sheep are going to be miniatures made of clay, and will form the targets for a target-shooting contest.    Being Smithfield, sheep will be playing an important role in the festivities.   On the serious side there will be a sheep-shearing competition (the current sheep-shearing champion hails from Smithfield); serious sheep judging for quality, just like an agricultural show – and then to indicate that sheep are people too, a sheep fashion show and sheep-racing.  Lizette points out that the contestants in the sheep fashion show are children’s pets who will be dressed up in grandma’s Sunday finest for the parade (just in case you are wondering). Sheep dogs will give a display of shepherding, there is an art exhibition (although the subject matter will not necessarily be sheep), there are the usual stalls of arts and crafts and home industries, story-telling around the camp fire in the evening, live music and entertainers, lots of warming drinks and things to eat. The festival has been organised by the community of Smithfield to celebrate two things:  firstly the winter cold that makes this such a fabulous area for sheep (the cold kills all the pests that would otherwise, er, pester sheep, and also compels the sheep to develop such lovely thick, high-quality wool); and then the sheep themselves that are such a natural outcome of such cold.  So the goods on sale would also be heavily tending towards the sheep side, such as lamb and mutton products, wool crafts, slippers, skins and scarves.  “The small rural towns in South Africa are in danger of disappearing,” says Lizette, “and so we organised this festival to attract more visitors and to raise the pride in the area.  A local artist has been commissioned by the municipality to paint pictures on all the rubbish bins on the streets, and we work hard to keep our community pretty and neat.  Not only does a festival like this give people a reason to visit us, but it also gives the people of Smithfield a common goal and a purpose – especially since the local school closed and the children all go to boarding school in other towns.  Without the school, we needed something for people to gather around.  This festival has now become the focus of the community.” Festival-goers arrive from miles around – especially attracted by the Mad Englishman Mountain-bike Challenge that goes through some fairly hair-raising mountain passes.  I have been reliably told that the winner always swears by his sheepskin-covered saddle. There is something extremely brave and indomitable about a small town that refuses to give up against a rising tide of urbanisation and rural decay, that proclaims proudly to the world that sheep deserve respect, a festival of their own and the right to be shot out of cannons.  Smithfield must be congratulated for its initiative and its chutzpah, and anyone who visits this festival can expect some traditional Afrikaans hospitality (which is the best in the world), a lot of information about sheep, and a top-up in the woolly-slipper-and-knitted-scarf department. For more information about the festival, contact Lizette at 082 562-3256.  For the Mad Englishman Mountain-Bike Challenge, contact Gus Uys at 082 697-4224. And  PS – No sheep were harmed or offended during the writing of this article.