We crammed a lot into only a couple of days. AGM (Annual General Meeting) is always fun because you see people who you may only see once a year (or less). Because the AGM is held all over the country and at different times of year, not everyone can go to them all. There was a pretty good turnout in Colorado. Here are some photos of the activities.

Friday evening wool show.

Friday evening Spinners’ Lead contest for juniors…

…and for Seniors.

“Make sure that you see the socks too.”

Saturday morning sheep show.

Saturday afternoon presentation about The Effects of Nutrition on Fiber Production.

Also Saturday afternoon–AFD (Average Fiber Diameter) testing for anyone who brought wool samples (or took scissors and cut samples from the sheep that were there). This is Ron Cole from ASI, who taught the Wool Handling Workshop in California a few months ago. He brought the OFDA (optical-based fiber diameter analyser) used to measure wool samples and I think he ran about 200 in the few hours he was there. AFD and some of the other statistical measurements are of importance to sheep farmers because it is AFD that determines the best use and the market for wool.

A wool sample is placed between two screens and thousands of measurements are taken in a few seconds time.

This is the information you get from the scans. I usually send in wool samples for all my yearlings so that I have micron data for each sheep at a consistent age. When they are sent to the lab you get this data back in printed format.

I should have taken a photo of dinner. It was fabulous Jacob lamb prepared by students in the meats lab at Colorado State (I think I have the school right) accompanied by corn, potatoes, and Colorado peach cobbler.

After dinner there was a brief meeting and presentation of a Jacob wool shawl (made by me) to Jennifer, who organized the event.

Throughout the day there was plenty of sheep shopping and trading going on.Most people who were hauling sheep left early Sunday morning. Some of us stayed around and drove a couple of hours up in the mountains to the Lonesome Stone Fiber Mill in Granby.

What a beautiful area! Lonesome Stone currently has about 250 alpacas. We spent some time visiting with the alpacas before seeing the mill.

Note the bowl on the head method of bringing alpaca treats to the field. Once the bowl was lowered the treats were gone within seconds.

Isn’t this a cute baby?

Lonesome Stone is a favorite of alpaca growers, but they also process wool and any other fibers. When a producer sends raw fiber it is scoured, picked, carded, pin-drafted, spun, and plied. The yarn produced is beautiful. This is carded fiber going into the pin-drafter and coming out…

…like this, ready to be spun.

This is a corner of the store where the finished yarn is sold. Oh, did I say that Lonesome Stone also dyes the yarn?

After this field trip I drove 3 hours to Colorado Springs to visit with my husband’s sister and brother and their spouses, spending the night north of Colorado Springs. I left for the airport about 8:30 and got home around 4:30 p.m. It was a great weekend, but I am glad to be home. Tomorrow I’ll be on the road at 5:30 a.m. to pick up my new sheep!

I am now at my brother-in-law’s house in Colorado Springs and my computer is plugged in. I will finish the post of Friday’s Events, but it seems like ages ago now. When I ran out of power last night I think I was including photos of things I thought interesting at Schacht Spindle Company…

…Like these rope twisters.

And this beautiful tapestry of Barry and Jane, their family, and other things of significance.

Here is a farm related photo. This is a chicken coop outside of the building. Employees can sign up for chicken duty for a week. The employee who takes care of the chickens for the week and cleans the pen at the end of that time gets the eggs for the week. There are also garden plots that employees can use if they plant and maintain them.

After touring the business I drove to Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins, the yarn shop in town. Believe me, this is not your average yarn shop.

Here is what you see when you enter the shop.

Turn to the right and enter this room with coned yarn (off to the right of the photo), looms, wheels, and workshop space. Walk through this room into:

…this classroom. You could probably fit 15 of my shop into this room alone.

This is the other end of that room. Look at all those looms!

This poster caught my eye, partly because I had just been reading about the idea of “yarn crawls” in the Yarn Market News. Wouldn’t this be a fun idea in our area?

Changing gears. I left Boulder and drove to Henderson to the Adams County Fairgrounds where the JSBA AGM was to be held.  That will be the next post. Good night from Colorado. (My posts will be behind because I’ll probably be home before I write the next one.)

I flew to Colorado to attend the annual meeting of the Jacob Sheep breeders Association. The gathering started on Friday afternoon so I planned the day to include a side-trip to Boulder to visit the Schacht Spindle Company. I carry Schacht equipment in the shop so I thought it would be fun to have a tour of the business.

Here is the first look into the factory/workshop area. Looks confusing, doesn’t it? There is a lot to see, but I’ll just pick out a few photos to share.

There are several big, fancy, and I’m sure very expensive machines like this one.

When you look closely you see that the machine is drilling and changing the block of wood on the left into the one on the right. This is one side of the Flip loom.

Each piece is sanded using a variety of machines–ones that do flat surfaces, ones like this one with stiff bristle rollers that sand inside all the crevices and holes.

Each piece is dipped in Danish oil. I love the smell when I open a box of Schacht products–I now associate that oil smell with new toys!

Work is done under the watchful eye of Elvis. (There is a sentimental story behind this.)

This is the room where the spinning wheels are put together. You know me with names…I can’t remember this person’s name but he puts together all the Schacht-Reeves wheels.

I am in my motel room. My computer just told me that I am on reserve power and it’s going to go to sleep in a minute if I don’t plug it in. I can’t find the power cord and I hope it’s in the car. I have to quite now. More later. I hope I have time to upload this.

Today I hosted a field trip for 24 six and seven-year-olds and their accompanying adults. Thanks to the Farm Club for helping me out yet again. Kathy, Dona, Mary, and Maggie (Mary’s daughter) all helped with the kids. We split into two groups for petting animals, learning the differences between hay and straw, sorting “sheep” in the chute (with shoe-laces, without shoe laces), etc.  I don’t have many photos because we were busy with the kids but I caught a few.

I always ask the kids if they think I have crayons in the barn. They say “no” and then I show them my crayons. 

Kathy demonstrated how we use crayons.

The demo turned into the farm version of face-painting.

After the groups got back together, Rusty showed how he works sheep. 

Then the kids watched us demonstrate carding, spinning, and dyeing. We read a story, gave them all a postcard with Rusty’s photo and they got back on their bus. Us adults retreated to the shop for de-briefing and visiting with the A/C going. Thanks Farm Club!