STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
The 26th annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival isn’t until October. But the Wood River Sustainability Center is holding its first Farm to Table Lamb Dinner of 2022 to benefit the Trailing of the Sheep Festival.
The dinner will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 16, at Mountain Humane in Hailey. Cost is $90, gratuity included. Reservations may be made at https://www.wrsustainabilitycenter.org.
A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, which gathers, celebrates, presents and preserves the history and heritage of sheepherding in Idaho, the American West and even far-flung regions like the Himalaya.
The dinner will include local lamb from Lava Lake Lamb and produce from local and regional farmers, as well as a variety of complementary wine, said Al McCord, the Wood River Sustainability Center’s owner.
“We are very excited to present this delightful dining experience and since we expect this dinner to sell out quickly, we encourage attendees to make their reservations early,” he said.
Laura Musbach Drake, the festival’s executive director, will share tidbits about the 2022 festival during the dinner.
The festival will run Oct. 5-9, 2022, and will include five days of activities including performances, storytelling, the popular Sheep Folklife Festival and, of course, the Trailing of the Sheep parade through Ketchum.
“With area ranchers' sheep heading north in June for summer grazing in the mountains as they have done for decades, it is a wonderful time to celebrate them, so we partnered with the Wood River Sustainability Center to host this early season Farm to Table Lamb Dinner,” said Drake.