Category Archives: Sheep show

State Fair – One More Post

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The story of the last day of the California State Fair, which was show day for us, is here. The other days are in this post. Now I’ll go back to the last day because one of my friends sent me photos of the last show and there are some others to share.

The Supreme Champion show was scheduled at 4:00. This is where the champion animals of each division compete together. The ram class is first followed by the ewe class. They enter the ring in order of the shows over the two days of showing. Kirby’s yearlings were given Champion ram and ewe earlier in the day, the second to last division in the sheep show. This photo shows the ilne-up of all the rams. From right to left Southdown, Dorper, White Dorper, Wether Sire/Wether Dam, Dorset, Hampshire, Suffolk, Montedale, AOB (All Other Breeds) Meat, Columbia, Natural Colored Wool, Primitive, AOB Wool.

Here is a closer view of our end of the line-up.

Two people wearing Meridian Jacobs shirts viewed from the back in the sheep show ring.

I like this photo (if I ignore my hair) from Beth.

I handled the yearling ram, Thorn, but Kirby led Rose into the ewe class. I was just back-up. It is rare that a breed like Jacob would win Supreme Champion. It did happen once! Here is a post from 2016 when Meridian Rotor won Supreme Champion Ram. I have the belt buckle and banner to prove it! The judge had spent so much time talking with Kirby in the show ring and praising her sheep that she thought she might win. She was somewhat disappointed when she didn’t.

Between the primitive breed show and supreme show Dan and I took the opportunity to walk up to the Expo buildings at the front of the fairgrounds.

One of the buildings was devoted to dragons.

Another was all about gaming…maybe. I don’t really know what it was about. We breezed through.

The one that I wanted to see was about Cannabis. I was amused when I first heard that the California State Fair would have a cannabis competition. You can enter a sheep, a woven blanket, a jar of jam, and your cannabis. Can’t you picture the judges sitting around a table sampling the entries? Not like that–this was all lab test results. This was a well done display, with lots of reading about the history, the time-line of cannabis culture in California, and the differences in all the varieties. Who knew? Back in the high school years it was just a baggie of leaves. I’ve been very far removed from this world for a long time. We didn’t have enough time to thoroughly read all the information there because we had to get back to the barn for the Supreme Show.

I have never been part of the gaming or dragon worlds and barely a participant in the early cannabis years so these exhibits made me feel old again.

Back to the barn. Farm Club members were holding down the fort. Yay for Farm Club!

After the Supreme Show they gave out the awards for Marketing and Herdsman. Usually those awards are presented between the Supreme Ram and Ewe shows, but they weren’t announced until after the ewe show and after the photos were taken. It was rather anticlimactic since all the spectators had left and I was the only exhibitor there to pick up the award. See the first State Fair post linked above for photos.

When it was time to take down the display and load sheep I let Kirby watch the last horse event of the fair. When we were finished I joined her. When this show finished we left for home.

Estes Park Wool Market – the third installment

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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.

Two horn Jacob ram being handled in the show ring.

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.