The middle week of the State Fair is Dairy week. If Chris goes to work for the Forest Service next summer like he plans then this was his last State Fair. He showed his 6 goats and Trista came through again. She was not only selected Champion Toggenburg, she also won Supreme Champion Dairy Goat. That’s over all the goats shown in the Junior show. Way to go, Trista and Chris! You can’t see the belt buckle in this photo but it has a bear in the middle with CA poppies all around it. It’s gorgeous.

Trista-Supreme Champion

             The sheep show was over Labor Day weekend. Every since last year I’ve been trying to plan a display that would win the $750 Marketing Award. I spent an inordinant amount of time in the last two weeks before the show thinking about this display. I knew I needed to upgrade my posters and I learned how to use more of the features of PowerPoint to do that. I even found myself taking close-up photos of cement, sand, fence boards, etc after i learned how to make my own background for the posters.

Here are two photos of my display. On the right, friends Mel and Marilyn demonstrate Navajo weaving. They demonstrated on Sunday and drew huge crowds. Several friends helped me staff my display throughout the fair. I had so many items on display (yarn, lambskins, etc) that I didn’t dare leave the area unattended. I wove much of the time I was there-got 3 wool V-shawls woven. The work and the time paid off. I didn’t win 1st place Marketing Award–I got 3rd. But I won an award for Best Program Directed at the Public. I also won the Herdsman award for flocks of 9 head or less and the most prestigious award is 3rd place for Best Educational Exhibit over all 3 weeks of the fair and all livestock species!

What about the sheep show? After all, that’s why we’re there. Last year I got the fair to offer a division for “Heritage” breeds. That was a huge show and it was split this year. The wool sheep had their own division, but the “Heritage and American” breeds show still includes sheep that are awfully hard to judge in the same show. I was the only Jacob exhibitor and competed against Tunis (a large-frame meat sheep), St. Croix (a hair sheep), a few Scottish Blackface, and Shetlands. In most of the classes you can enter 2 sheep, so I got 3rds, behind the Tunis. There was only 1 yearling ram representing each breed though. So my ram, Ranger, got 2nd behind the Tunis and he was able to enter the Champion drive. The yearling Tunis was Champion, but Ranger was awarded Reserve Champion.

Ranger in the yearling ram class

Tunis and Jacob entries for the Flock class.

An amazing longhorn

Check out the eggs I collected yesterday. The photo almost doesn’t do this egg justice. The two smaller eggs are normal sized. They weighed 2.1 and 2.2 ounces. The big one weighed 4.1 ounces! It wouldn’t fit in any egg carton so I decided to use it for a batch of cookies. It replaced two eggs in the recipe.

When I take my dogs for a run (they run, I walk or ride my bike) we use the dirt roads that border the irrigation canals and farm fields. The big fields across the road from our house has been in alfalfa for several years, but last winter the field was planted to rye grass. These fields were harvested last week.

This photo shows a bit of the grass left on the edge of the harvested field.

Here is some of the hay that was harvested. I have figured out that at 80 bales/stack and 80 stacks that’s 6400 bales! I don’t know what rye hay is going for right now, but I’ll bet it’s at least $10/bale (probably more like $15 retail). You can do the math.  Boy, am I envious! I bought 6 stacks of hay (alfalfa, not rye) last summer and that took me through the winter. Now I’m almost out. I’m worried about hay this year because the price is going to be so much higher. The cost of transportation will add up too. If only I could get my hands on some of this hay that’s right across the road! (Why don’t I, you ask? I tried last year when they grew alfalfa and I guess it’s not worth their time to deal with someone who only wants a little bit. Last year most of it already sold–either to dairies or to a company who compresses the alfalfa for shipping overseas!

When I don’t take my bike on a dog run, I usually take my camera. Bonnie knows that there is something in these holes. She just can’t get to it.

Notice in the next photo that Bonnie is actually grabbing the edge of the hole in her mouth. She bites off chunks of dirt to make the hole bigger.  Rusty watches, but doesn’t seem to care so much.

That’s a line that we tell each other as we drive home each night exhausted from dealing with the FAIR. But this year I have it easy. Chris is driving. He is responsible. For the first time I don’t have sheep or an exhibit at the fair. So, although I have to pay to get in for the first time, I also can spend most of my day getting things done at home. This was show day for pigs and Chris got 2nd with this one. They pigs will be sold at the Jr. Livestock Auction on Saturday.

While I was waiting for the next pig to be shown I checked out the Home Leisure Show. This is my Jacob blanket that I have saved to show at State Fair.

And here is one of my favorite things to watch at the fair. I never tire of seeing these Clydesdales.

Do you know how many blogs I have written in my head? How many photos I have taken thinking of including them in my blog? Lots. But I haven’t quite made it to the computer with them. A few weeks ago I took my camera when I took my dogs on their run (they run and I ride my mountain bike). This is the view across the hay field. 

On a warm spring day you can smell the locust trees that grow along the irrigation canals. What a great reminder that spring is here!

We have these trees growing around our house and my shop as well. The fragrance is wonderful. Last week we had several warm days and the savored the combined fragrance of the honeysuckle, locust, and orange trees. The locust flowers are drying out now and when the wind blows it looks as though it is snowing. See all the blossoms on the porch outside my shop. We have drifts of blossoms.

The blossoms made dyeing yesterday a little more difficult. My pots of fiber as well as the jars of dye kept filling with dried flowers. I spent yesterday dyeing to get ready for my booth at CNCH (Conference of N. CA Handweavers) that is next weekend. 

It seemed like spring for awhile. The acacia is blooming and and the sweet scent wafts through the air when it’s warm. Acacias bloom in February here so their beautiful flowers don’t last–another storm is certain to come through. I love daffodils. A friend of mine says that she doesn’t like them and won’t plant them. “They’re just too perky!” Hey, anything that comes up year after year all by itself and has beautiful flowers is OK by me.

   It’s been quite a month. I have 60 lambs now and about a dozen more ewes still to lamb. I spend a lot of time in the barn–watching pregnant ewes, cleaning, filling buckets, etc. Tonight after the barn was clean with fresh straw I sat down and watched lambs.

I finally caught a couple of their antics with my camera.

…PROCRASTINATION. At the top of the list of all the things that I should be doing is Bookkeeping in Preparation for Taxes. And before I can do that task I have to make room at my desk by either working through the piles of paper or repiling them elsewhere. I have found that trying to learn how to make this blog site work and reading blogs by other people can consume huge chunks of time, allowing me to avoid the aforementioned jobs. 

Here are more pictures from the barn–two pairs of mother-daughters.

Above is Tiara and her mother, Diamond. Below is Farrah and her mother, Phoebe. Strong resemblance.