There hasn’t been time or focus for a blog post with a specific subject, so you get Random Farm Photos.
This is how 4th of July looks with a very gun-shy Border Collie. Ginny is next to Kirby’s bed and Kirby covered Ginny with her “special” blanket.
Part of the dye garden. These dahlias are taller than me.
Cosmos in the dye garden.
There is a gate and a driveway under those wild grape vines. This is the result of a truly wet winter.
Sheepskins that were just sent to the tannery.
Skulls that have been buried. Some will need more time to get really clean.
Kirby is here for another three weeks. A couple of nights ago she wanted to make dinner. She described her process and we just got out of the way (and handled the iron frying pan).
Baby blankets almost ready to come off the loom. The same style that I’ve made since 1980.
I just realized that I never finished the Black Sheep Gathering series, and I have other things to write about. So here it is, although it is less about the event and more about the trip home.
This is a sample of the crochet project I was working on when we were sitting near the tents and visiting. There is more of a story to this, but that will be a later post. I was visiting with friends when I heard the activity in the barn.
There is a junior show on Sunday morning. These kids were mostly there helping their families show sheep on Friday and Saturday, but on Sunday they had their own show. I was pleased that the judge spent some time before the show talking with all the kids about general show principles and tactics. Then the kids were all invited into the ring to select colorful halters that had been made for them. After that there were three classes for showmanship. I don’t know the age requirements for each class but the first was the senior class (under 18).
The second class was for intermediate kids.
The third was juniors. I think my granddaughter is probably at the upper end of the Juniors. As I watched these classes I thought that it would be fun to have Kirby there next year to participate in all the events she could. That will take some thinking though–there is a long drive on either side of the actual event and it’s not like you can go home at the end of the day. It would change my experience for sure. Also, I don’t know if our trailer is big enough to accommodate all the sheep that would make up our two sheep flocks. However, I’m still thinking about it.
The show management released those who had a long way to drive a bit early. By the time we were packed and loaded it was close to 3. We made good time. Once in California I pointed out the vista point where I have always stopped on my way home from Oregon.
The mountain top was covered in clouds.
My cute trailer posing in front of the mountain!
We turned around and found the view to the west just as stunning.
Selfie time. I really appreciate that Vicki offered to drive and Doris came with us too.
Sheep on the road.
The sky continued to amaze us.
After Yreka we left the freeway to drive west.
We were picking up a ram for Vicki. He was at a ranch about an hour to the west in the Scott Valley. It was a beautiful drive but I stopped taking photos as it got dark.
We drove in our driveway after 3 a.m. and it was after 4 when I finally got to bed. A long day to finish a great weekend.
Here is what I came home with. Two dishes to go with the mug I bought last year. The potholder loom and loops is what I chose from Eugene Textiles, the business that provided the prize for Spinners’ Lead. This will be my granddaughter’s birthday present this month. I’ll also try their heddle clips. Of course I needed a new BSG t-shirt and the pouch they made for this year. The yarn is a mixed art yarn from Art Fiber Frenzy. I can always use a new basket.
View Day 1 and Day 2 of this adventure. The only thing I had to think about on Saturday was showing sheep in the afternoon and Spinners’ Lead in the evening. I’ll share scenes from the farm booths and around the vendor hall.
Karen of Liongate Farm always has an array of unique needlefelted pieces at her booth.
She was awarded the Black Sheep Cup for this piece. The detail is amazing.
Here is another Black Sheep prize awarded to a different fiber artist.
I was glad to see the Black Lamb Cup awarded to a youth entry. We need to encourage the next generations to be excited about sheep and fiber.
The perfect shoes to wear to a sheep gathering.
This is an impressive display that was just outside the vendor hall. I hope that everyone took a look.
There are dozens of different sea creatures in a variety of fiber arts represented here.
A closer view.
Back at the barn, a little clean up was necessary. Jazzie had been wearing a blanket but I took it off because I’d rather see the sheep than a blanket. Jazzie is a black and white sheep and Lenore, behind her, is a lilac.
We were the only Jacob breeders who entered the show this year so we had to show in an All Other Breeds division. This is for sheep registered in their own breed associations, but without enough sheep or breeders to show in separate divisions.
Ram lamb, Meridian Bridger, won Champion ram of this division.
We also had best Young Flock (one ram lamb, two ewe lambs). This isn’t the typical photo you’d take of your winning sheep group, but I mainly wanted to have one of Farm Club members who were there and helped out. This is Brenda, Lisa, Beth, and me. Doris was taking the photo. Other Farm Club members were there too. Ryan had his own Heritage Fiber booth in the vendor hall, Stephany was helping with the Mendocino Wool Mill booth, and Lyn was visiting. Did I miss someone? I kept running into people I knew all day.
The collection of ribbons and a trophy.
I think Lisa took this photo. I was told that this should be my new profile photo on all my social media pages. What do you think?
The Angora goats showed on Saturday also.
The day ended with Spinners Lead. I had told Ryan that he should definitely wear his handspun handknit sweater using fleece that he got at his first shearing day from Jacob ewe, Columbine.
He led Jazzie, whose fleece matched the spots really well.
There were 15 entries (no photos unfortunately), and the two of us won the top placings in the show. Ryan was first for non-sheep-owner and I won for the sheep owners. Great fun! I’m so glad that we did this.
Usually we show on the Friday of Black Sheep Gathering. Unfortunately I was the only Jacob breeder this year so I was bumped into sort of an All Other Breeds class on Saturday. That meant that Friday was a free day. I had books and magazines and a crochet project with me. What did I accomplish? Nothing, because everywhere I turned there were people to talk to and things to see. Sometimes its the best thing to have a break from “accomplishing” something.
The morning activities began with the wool show. I listened for awhile because there is always something to learn. The Jacob class was #12 so I decided there was time to buy a BSG t-shirt before that started.
This has nothing to do with the t-shirts but it is what caught my eye at the t-shirt table. A women had an 8-day old kitten with her. She is feeding it every two hours.
Back in the barn, there were vendors as well.
The barn vendors have their booths near their pens of show sheep. I have not been a vendor because that would mean there is more organization required, more things to take, and I’d be tied down to staying there the whole time. I was having fun wandering everywhere.
Back to the wool show. There were 8 fleeces in the Jacob class. Four were mine. I placed first with Brady (ram), 2nd with Janna (ewe), and fourth and sixth with two others. The first two sold there. I’ll have the other two on my website.
Wandering through the vendor hall I took photos of just a few things that caught my eye. My friend, Karen of Bide a Wee Farm, came up with unique products–lamb tail keychains and ram horn earrings!
She also does a much better job with ram skulls than I do. Mine are still brown and somewhat nasty looking.
A friend from Davis is selling goods from India, including this box of wool samples from sheep I’ve never heard of.
An Oregon sheep breeder has started producing panels for use with sheep.
I met a new vendor from my area who creates art yarn from leftovers.
Last but not least, it’s a rainbow batt from my friends, Roy and Henry Clemes!
Three of us traveled together to Black Sheep Gathering in Albany, Oregon. My friend, Vicki, used her truck to pull my trailer with my 10 sheep. She brought fleeces to show and sell. Another friend, Doris rode with us. We left about 7 a.m. on Thursday.
I don’t remember the last time that I saw Shasta Lake full.
Glimpse of Mt. Shasta.
Another view of Mt. Shasta.
Two of the sheep I brought were already sold so we did a parking lot transfer of those and then settled the rest of the sheep in the barn by late in the day.
Vicki slept in her camper, but Doris and I set up tents for the weekend. This became a gathering spot for some of our California and Oregon friends.
I took photos of a few of the less common breeds. These are Horned Dorset, a sheep with spots that can make them look like Jacob sheep to people who don’t see the more subtle differences. The horns have a quite different look than my sheep with two horns.
I had plenty of catching up to do after the Estes Park trip described in the last 4 blog posts. These photos were all taken last Wednesday, two days after we got back.
We really needed to irrigate. We were about 2 weeks behind because we didn’t want to irrigate before the trip. The water comes into our property just off the top left near the blackberries. In this photo it is running down the ditch and just starting through the culvert.
The vets were here to issue CVIs (Certificate of Veterinary Inspection) for the sheep going to Oregon the following week (now in two days). I asked them to look at a couple of other sheep while they were here. Jade was noticeably skinny even before lambing–a time when many of the sheep are putting on weight. Dr. Urbano thought that maybe her teeth had sharp points that irritated her mouth so she didn’t spend as much time chewing her cud as she should.
She rasped Jade’s teeth and we’ll see if she starts to put on a little weight.
After the vets left I spent most of the day finishing up with fleeces so I could deliver the wool to the mill for processing. I have a few fleeces and a few one-pound lots listed on the website now. I need to check the barn because I lost track of the paper where I wrote which fleeces are still out there. So there may be more to list, but I’d better check first.
These are the bags I delivered to Valley Oak Mill on Thursday. The wool is sorted into black, white, gray (mixed fiber that I can’t separate), and britch.
These are some 3/4 lb and 1 lb lots that I saved for Siobhan’s Vegetarian Sheepskin class to be held at Lambtown in October (look under Saturday classes) and later in the year here. I will also bring back my felted wool wreath class so some of the wool is saved for that.
These are fleeces I brought back from the Estes Park show because I wanted to show them at Black Sheep Gathering. I took them out of the bags and reorganized and rolled them up again. These are some really nice fleeces. I may have to bring one back home with me!
A small bag of wool that I’ll wash here and then dye if it isn’t clean. The color in this wool is left from the marking harnesses the rams wear during breeding season.
Here is what my hands looked like after working through all this wool.
Unfinished business. I have lots of skulls to try and clean up better before selling the. That’s a whole other story.
I brought back new sheep coats from Estes Park. I got several different sizes to try them out. These are from Rocky Sheep in Colorado.
I’ve been doing a lot more catching up but it wouldn’t be a very good blog post to just show photos of me at my computer all day…that’s where I’ve been.
There isn’t much to this post, but I need to write it to finish the story. In the last post we had driven through Wyoming and eventually stopped in Utah to sleep awhile. I gave the sheep alfalfa and joined Dan in the cab to try and sleep for a few hours.
We were on the road by about 5:30.
We made it to this part of Utah about 7:45. I looked this up online. “An abstract artistic sculpture called Metaphor: The Tree of Utah stands off the edge of I-80 on the barren Bonneville Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City. Swedish artist Karl Momen created the 87-foot high tree between 1982-1986. He financed the project himself to bring bold color and beauty to the stark, flat, salty landscape. The sculpture is made of 225 tons of cement, almost 2000 ceramic tiles, and five tons of welding rod, and tons of minerals and rocks native to Utah.” …
“The concrete trunk covered with tiles holds up six spheres coated with natural rock and minerals native to Utah…The sculpture is surrounded by a fence to protect people from falling tiles.”
I find the whole idea strange–that someone can decide to install something like this in the middle of what I assume is public land. I haven’t found the explanation. This article from Roadside America gives a different perspective about it.
We made it to Nevada around 8 a.m.
Interesting erosion patterns in the rock.
There seemed to be road construction almost the whole way to Colorado and back.
This was about 2 p.m. The Welcome to California sign was on the ground.
It was cloudy in the Sierras and it began to rain.
There is still snow lingering on the peaks.
This is the last photo I took on this trip. We made it home about 4 p.m. Good to be back.
I left off with Saturday’s events at the Estes Park Wool Market. Sunday began with the Estes Park Wool Market Classic Sheep Show. Saturday’s show was specifically for the JSBA annual meeting, but this one could include several breeds. There were a few other sheep, but it was mostly the Jacob sheep that had shown on Saturday. This is Lamb 2329 that was heading to Pennsylvania following the show. She won her class.
Here she is in the champion line-up. The judge spent so much time looking at her and coming back to her that I thought she would take a ribbon, but Grand and Reserve went to some of the older sheep. The sheep in the back being shown by Royal (standing) is Meridian Quince, second in the Yearling Ewe class.
Royal helped show in all the classes while Dan was watching over the sheep that were tied to the fence waiting for their turn. This class is Young Flock, a ram lamb and two ewe lambs.
Best Four. The trick for this class is to pay attention to what the judge has said and choose the ones that she liked best. Ours was first place.
This class is Best Flock. That’s one ram, two ewe lambs, and two older ewes. We chose one of the ram lambs for this class because this judge gave him better comments than she gave Turbo, the yearling who was Champion Ram on Saturday. First place for this group.
A Sheep Lead class followed the sheep show. This ram and his companion are ready for the office!
I wore almost a repeat of the previous day, but substituted a pinwheel shawl that I had just got back from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival where it took the award for the Best Jacob project.
Turbo and I were given the top place in this event. I sure like that ram. He was going to stay behind because one of the organizers of the JSBA meeting purchased him for her flock. However I wouldn’t go home empty-handed.
Her ram, Fair Adventure Horatio, was to come home with me.
The show wasn’t over yet. The Jacob fleeces were judged in the afternoon. It was frustrating to listen to comments but not know whose fleece was being discussed. I tried to recognize bags, but the best I could do was to tell that some bags were NOT mine. I could also tell the difference between coated and non-coated fleeces. When we picked up fleeces after the judging I found that I had won a first, second, and third. Those weren’t all in the same class because large groups had been split into smaller classes. These same fleeces will go to Black Sheep Gathering this week.
I finally spent a little time walking around the vendor booths. This is the only photo I took. I thought these mittens were certainly photo-worthy.
By about 4:00 the barn was almost empty. I was torn about leaving Quince and her lamb behind. I really like that ewe, but I know I have too many sheep and one of the reasons to go all the way to this show was to sell sheep if possible. I’m glad that these sheep will be with a serious Jacob breeder.
We loaded fewer sheep for the return trip. The ram, Horatio, joined us as did a couple of ewe lambs I brought home for a friend. But we left behind Turbo, Quince, and 5 lambs.
My phone showed that if we drove straight through we’d be home at almost 8 a.m. That of course is not possible.
The first point of interest, just a few miles out of town. There were a couple of places where people had pulled off the road to see elk.
On the windy road between Estes Park and Fort Collins.
Now we’re back to drive-by scenery photos like in the first couple of posts about the trip.
I was still in the passenger seat, but now we’re going the other direction so the scenery is different.
Dinner on the road.
Wyoming. We should have paid attention to Siri. The phone told us to take a detour but we didn’t see any reason to. Eventually we came upon a huge back up of trucks and cars and it took us over 90 minutes to go 10 miles. When we got to the problem it turned out to be a big-rig trailer that had caught fire.
In the meantime the traffic was stop and go and the sky became more ominous. I entertained myself with taking videos and isolating the lightning shots.
We also noticed the spinning wheel in this truck when we were both stopped on the freeway. We both had windows down and we asked if he’d been at Estes Park. Yes, he had.
I took this photo and the next from some of the videos I recorded while waiting on the freeway.
We drove until some time after midnight and stopped at a rest stop in Utah I think.
I just finished the blog post about the second day of travel and first day of the Estes Park events.
Saturday was very full, with a whole day of scheduled events for the AGM as well as the full Wool Market events going on. We started the day with breakfast followed by a talk about copper in the diet of sheep and then a discussion of spinning Jacob wool. There was a session on slaughter and butchering with a live demonstration of the butchering part followed by other informational sessions.
The JSBA Jacob Sheep show was held after lunch. Rams were first. Turbo won the yearling ram class
I had two entries in the ram lamb class. I was pleased that the winner of the class was my ram (#2317) purchased by a Jacob breeder (standing) from Pennsylvania.
We went into the ring for the Champion ram class and Turbo was the winner.
The ewe classes followed. Royal helped show in all the other classes. Dan was glad of the help, and he was in the barn keeping people away from the sheep we had tied up in the alley so they’d be ready for the show ring. This is Quora in the aged ewe (anything over yearling) class.
Quince was in the next class. You don’t normally have sheep with lambs at shows, but in this case I brought two nursing ewes with their lambs. The reason for that was the next class:
We were the only entry in this class that was for Three Generations. Dan is holding Quora. Quora’s daughter, Quince, is in the midde, and the lamb is Quince’s.
Quince and her lamb are also in this class, Family Tree. Turbo joined the group as he is the sire of the lamb.
A just-for-fun Project Runway followed the show. There were four entries in the adult category for less serious themes. I was the only person in the Wool category.
They all had humorous stories to go along with the entries. I don’t remember all, but this is obviously a sheep dressed in royal garb and I think Anne is her subject.
I will say that when I compare these ladies to me…
…it reminds me of my job in the early 1980s. Why? I worked at a place called Continental Lady, leading aerobics classes. When we had to wear Halloween costumes I stitched unwashed wool all over a t-shirt, and wore black leggings and a wool hat with cardboard ears. The other people (all young women) all dressed as princesses or fairies or some other cute, pretty character….and then there was me. Just like in these photos. At least I’m not wearing unwashed wool. I have on a base layer of wool that is not seen, a wool sweater knit by friend Kathleen Hendrix, a handspun handwoven v-shawl, and a knit cap that was probably my last knitting project. Turbo is wearing a handspun, handwoven scarf.
It’s taken me two days just to finish writing this post. Let’s see if I can finish this story before the next one starts.
We drove half a day to get to Estes Park from Wyoming. The previous day’s photos took us from California to Wyoming where we pulled in a rest stop about 2 a.m.
We left the rest stop about 5:30 a.m. I didn’t keep track of where we were or where this photo was taken. It’s obvious that someone needs to clean the windshield at the next gas stop.
Wyoming landscape with a train.
Wyoming landscape with snow fences.
There are several Wyoming landscape photos. It was beautifully green with lots of flowers . Too bad this was a trip where we couldn’t stop.
Stopping at a rest stop doesn’t count, although this one had a telescopic viewer set up so you could zoom in on the hills to the west.
While driving (Dan driving) I kept amused by teaching myself some crochet stitches. Too bad I hadn’t read the directions more carefully on this. I learned to do double crochet and did quite a bit before I noticed the H that stood for Half Double Crochet, which is what I was supposed to be doing all along. I persevered, thinking that it will all work itself out. I’m trying to develop a new product using some of my yarn. I continued this on the return trip and I think I will probably be ripping it all out, but that will be another story.
More gorgeous scenery. Green grass, yellow and white flowers, blue sky with clouds. Cows at the base of the hills.
I think we’re finally in Colorado.
I took several photos of pronghorn, but they most were too far away for the iPhone camera.
We pulled into Estes Park in the early afternoon. I didn’t want to do anything but get the sheep out of the trailer and on firm ground and give them water and hay.
It didn’t take long to get the sheep fed and watered and settled in.
The first event of the JSBA part of Estes Park Wool Market was the Jacob wool show. We were able to enter fleeces and sheep in both the JSBA show and the Wool Market show so some of us had double events.
I entered five fleeces and I really don’t remember how they placed. I guess there is a record of it somewhere. These same fleeces also showed on Sunday at the Wool Market show.
We had a JSBA sponsored dinner at the fairgrounds Friday evening and then went to a cabin I had reserved for two nights that was about 3 miles out of town.
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