After all the planning and anticipation that went into the AGM it was just so short–Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. I shared some Friday photos here. One of these days when I find Dona’s flashdrive in all the clutter around here (a remodel project going on) I’ll share hers because I think she has some great ones. For now I’ll share the ones that I took Saturday.People arrived for breakfast before the day’s program started.First up was “Pass or Fail” a talk presented by Royal and me, the two JSBA inspectors who were present. We started by looking at slides……and then went outside to look at sheep. I hadn’t sold any of my cull rams yet so that we’d have plenty of examples of potential horn problems.  We also looked at some of the other sheep present.

Next up was Dave Pratt, who owns Ranch Management Consultants and teaches Ranching for Profit schools (described as a business school for ranchers) all over the country (and happens to be my brother). We started with his charts and slides and then moved to the pasture to finish up.Jade is always willing to greet a visitor to the farm.Dr. Joan Rowe from UC Davis talked about Lambing and Sheep Obstetrics. Helpful hint: Another use for a feeding tube and syringe is to get lube around a lamb when you need to reach in to rearrange or pull it.

This was all before lunch.Afterwards Susan Gandy, one of the Farm Club members, demonstrated preparation and analysis of fecal samples using a method that can be used on the farm to stay on top of parasite levels in our sheep.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the background in these photos, we used G-1 (the garage) for PowerPoint presentations because that was the place that was the most dark, the best for viewing slides.

Martin Dally’s talk was next. Martin is well-known as a wool and sheep judge and for his business, Super Sires, Ltd. and we were lucky that he consented to come from Oregon to talk with us. He presented two topics relating to wool–biology and development of wool and the effects of genetics on wool characteristics.

Showing these photos and writing a few paragraphs doesn’t begin to get across the depth of information that was presented in these talks. You should also know that the afternoon temperature was in the high 90’s and the skies had been smoke-filled for days due to the wildfires burning in California. By the time Martin’s presentations were over at 3:45 I was on information overload. But we weren’t finished yet! AGM stands for Annual General Meeting and that is a required element of our gathering. So it was meeting time. Gary Anderson from Michigan led the meeting and brought people up to date on JSBA goings-on, recognition of individuals, and announcements. I was given a much appreciated gift card to my favorite local store, Higby’s Country Feed!Royal and others presented reports…

…while members and friends listened. It was late on a hot afternoon and we still had one more topic scheduled. I had planned a Breeders’ Roundtable where selected members from around the country would offer their expertise on various management topics. At this point I wondered if it was just too much and if people would rather not focus on another presentation. I was actually glad when one of the attendees said that she spent a lot of money to get here and wanted all the info she could get. All right–let’s do it! However, I didn’t orchestrate it as much as I had the other talks–I was tired of being the time-keeper and making sure people were where they were supposed to be. This was informal but very informative and friendly as we sat in the tent and talked about a variety of Jacob sheep topics. Did I share the things to look at in the tent? Dona put together a display of the unshorn Pope Valley sheep that we recently acquired.Having just finished the State Fair the week before we put up part of our Marketing (award winning by the way) display.A couple of people had farm displays and sales.  And there were sheep to buy.I find that my photos kind of stopped here at dinner. (But I will still find Dona’s eventually.) After dinner we held the annual raffle and I don’t have photos of that. There were fantastic prizes and we are grateful to everyone who provided them (you can see them here).

Sunday morning people met back here for breakfast and I caught some sheep so we could talk about condition scoring and how that applies to our Jacob flocks.  Then is was time for most people to wrap things up and leave.I enjoyed have Karen and Doug from Oregon here all weekend as Dan got a chance to meet them and spend some evening hours together. This is Karen’s new look!It was over all too soon. The tent was taken down, everything put away and we’re back to normal. Or is it ever normal? Two days after this event and the months of getting the place fixed up Dan said something like “maybe we should work on the house now.” That will be another story.

The day after the tent was set up  (photos in this post) Farm Club members returned for more work.

                 Tables were set up and arranged.              Trish borrowed sheep panels and we combined those with some I had to make pens.

               The barn was ready for Project Runway.

On Monday I had made a final decision about which ram lambs to keep. I wanted to separate those from the lambs that were for sale. FC member Doris was here then and as we were leading them to the big ram pen I diverted them to the barn. I figured that I should use the 4 days before AGM to get them halter broken. If I turned them out in the ram pen without doing at least a little of that then I may never get to it.

So in between doing the other work we had been working with these rams. On Thursday we put them in with the big rams. There was a bit of drama while the big rams chased them around, but eventually they all settled down.                Mary and Dona stuffed the goodie bags that were to be given to the registrants. FC member, Kathleen wove 30 bags using Jacob wool and we had gathered locally produced items to put in them.

                                                 The special items included cooling neckties made by Mary using sheep-themed fabric. I can attest to how good these feel when it’s 100 degrees out.                       After another day of work we were ready for Friday when we’d be putting up displays and raffle items and greeting the registrants.