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.
A week ago today we started the drive to Colorado for the Estes Park Wool Market and the JSBA AGM (Jacob Sheep Breeders Association Annual General Meeting–that’s why it’s easier to use acronyms). I just looked up acronym and JSBA is one when we say it “Jazba”, but AGM is an initialism. Just thought you might want to know that.
We got on the road at 8:30 with a trailer full of sheep.
Turbo, the yearling ram, was up front. A yearling ewe, Quince, with a single lamb and a two-year-old ewe, Quora, and her twins were on the left. The right compartment held 3 ewe lambs and 3 ram lambs. They were bigger than the lambs on the left who were still nursing.
We always bring our map books along, but there wasn’t going to be any National Park time on this trip.
Dan did all the driving. He likes to drive. I entertained myself in a variety of ways, often with my phone. We’re still seeing snow in the Sierras.
I haven’t been through the Sierras on I-80 in years. I think the flumes that follow the canyon are so interesting. And look at the water pouring out of this one.
Nevada landscape. We were amazed at how green it was.
There are lots of “drive-by” scenery photos. As great as the iPhone is for photos, when zoomed in it can leave something to be desired. I left my regular camera home because I couldn’t find the battery charger and both batteries were almost dead.
More green landscape in Nevada. Amazing!
I think this is still Nevada, but I didn’t keep notes. Of course I assumed that I would remember. The photo info shows it was taken about 5:20. I guess I could do the math to figure out where we were.
I know this is Utah because that is the Great Salt Lake. At this point it was 7:20 p.m.
This was taken from a gas station in Lake Point, Utah, just past the Salt Lake.
It was at this gas station that I watered and fed the sheep. We stayed in one spot for about a half hour to give the sheep a chance to eat. Then back on the road.
I was keeping track of miles, mileage, etc. We were dismayed to calculate after this gas stop that we were only getting 10.2 mpg. We’d had 12.6 from home to Loveland and 11.6 from Loveland to Elko. Pulling a loaded trailer, at elevation, and up hills is bad enough, but fighting a headwind made the mileage worse.
We drove into Wyoming. I say “we”. Dan drove into Wyoming and eventually had to stop. We stopped at a rest stop abour 2 a.m. and I gave the sheep a little more hay. I can’t say that we stretched out in the cab of the truck because there really wasn’t room to stretch out, but we covered up with our wool blankets and slept as best we could. I got out my ipad and finished editing the minutes of Tuesday night’s Artery meeting so I could send it when I had wifi. Then I slept.
View after putting sheep on fresh strip of pasture. This is Columbine.
Eilwen with a mouthful of grass.
This mulberry tree is growing at the edge of the pasture. Last year I used the berries for pie, but I don’t know if it’s worth the effort. It seems a shame to not harvest these but they don’t have much flavor, especially compared to the mulberries that I had in Santa Barbara while staying with my friend last weekend.
This turkey hen was in the pasture also, calling to her two babies to keep up with her in the tall grass.
This is a nice looking lilac ram lamb. He is out of one of my granddaughter’s ewes and I may keep this one to see how he looks as a yearling
These lambs were weaned just a few days ago. They will be going to the Estes Park Wool Market next weekend where we’ll be showing sheep.
These sheep will also go to Estes Park. The Jacob Sheep Show has a class for a family group that is a ewe, her daughter, and her granddaughter. That’s Quora on the right, her daughter, Quince, and Quince’s lamb.
We’re used to seeing hot air balloons overhead, but they don’t usually land close by..
This one landed just across the road–on the dirt road, not on the newly planted tomatoes.
I was surprised that they landed so close to power lines.
I guess they know what they are doing and the balloon collapsed in the right direction.
I spent the weekend staying with a friend in the hills above Santa Barbara and drove an hour south to Camarillo on Saturday and Sunday to teach weaving classes for the Ventura County Handweavers and Spinners Guild.
After presenting a presentation (which is a blend of three that are listed here) for the monthly guild meeting I led a Clasped Warp workshop.
This was a half day workshop. The goal was to learn to wind this clasped warp, but there wouldn’t be time in class for weaving. Participants took their looms home to finish the project.
The following day I taught another class that explored using hand manipulated techniques to create design using a rigid heddle loom. These are techniques that can be used on any loom to weave designs that you can’t create any other way.
These are the samplers I brought to show the techniques and give participants an idea of how much space they could use for each structure.
Danish Medallions.
Danish Medallions using variegated yarn.
Loops, hemstitching design, Crow’s Feet, which is another version of the Danish Medallion technique.
When I got back to my friend’s house each evening I went for a walk in the hills above Santa Barbara.
This was a fun weekend spent visiting with a long time friend and meeting new weavers.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 