The CA State Fair was at the end of July but I was too busy with back-to-back events to post about it. Now we’ll go back in time to the fair. Of course, entering the fair is about showing sheep. But for me an important element is the display and the Marketing Award. A lot of effort goes into that from me and from Farm Club members.
We’ve been using the old tin backdrop for a long time and I still really like the look. It worked especially well with the natural dye display we made this year. There are also signs about Farm Club, examples of yarn and wool on the table, and a continuous loop of about 45 minutes of my farm videos. The Touching Table is popular with fair-goers.
There are more signs over the sheep pens. My potted plants were dug out of the pasture and include a sign about what is in the bucket.
There is always someone demonstrating at the booth. I was glad that I brought my loom this year. It drew a lot of interest and I wove six scarves while I was there.
Speaking of weaving, this is Lucien, who was with the Eureka! Mohair Farm across the aisle from us. He was interested in weaving so I brought the Cricket loom for him to use. I forgot the warping peg, but notice that we found something to use instead. By the next day Lucien had woven off this scarf using a clasped weft technique for his first piece! Yarns in his scarf and mine are locally grown Anderson Ranch yarn and my handspun.
Here is closeup of some of the yarns on display. Farm Club member, Lisa, dyed most of these.
One of the kids’ activities we provide is this sheet for drawing in details on the sheep. Not everyone takes them home.
We are also here for the sheep show. Fortunately Jacob sheep don’t require a lot of fitting, but it is nice to get them cleaned up a bit.
The horns looked pretty good after a scrubbing. This is a ram lamb named Axle.
This is Jana on the right and a less-glad-to-be-there Halcyon. 
The Primitive Breeds show was Saturday afternoon. This is a yearling ram, Meridian Gotham. (Look at those shiny horns.)
Unfortunately there was very little competition this year and I had the only rams. So it’s nice to get a Champion award, but it would have been nice to have other breeders’ sheep there. 
Marina and Betsy helped show. This is the ram lamb class.
Meridian Maybelline was awarded Champion Ewe.
Thanks so much to Betsy and Marina for pitching in and showing sheep. And thanks to Dona for the photos.
Here we are with a pile of awards, including Premier Breeder and Premier Sire.
Winning Champion, even with little competition, means that you take your sheep into the ring on Sunday for the Supreme Champion competition. No, Gotham didn’t shrunk overnight. He was the same size as always. It’s just that those Suffolks are like ponies.
This is the Supreme Champion Ewe competition. 
In between the Supreme Champion Ram and Supreme Champion Ewe competitions they announce the Marketing Award winners. We did pretty well!
Best Marketing Program. Best Program Directed at the Public. Best Signage. 1st place Herdsman. 1st Place Educational Program. 2nd Place Educational Program over all the livestock species during the three weeks of the fair. Can’t ask for more than that!
But there is more! 
Loading up in my new trailer! Oregon here we come in 2019!
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.
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.
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.
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…
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 
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 handwoven Jacob wool goodie bags were ready, filled with locally made or grown products.
The friendly parking attendant was ready.
Sheep were given last minute instructions about behavior. (Karen Lobb from bide a wee Farm in Oregon)
Guest were arriving.
Our first gathering was a welcome by me and then a talk/book reading by 
She read passages from her book, Raw Material, Working Wool in the West, to be published in October. This introduced the attendees to the concept of Fibershed and to Farm Club all at once.
Next it was time for dinner. Farm Club member, Kim, provided background music throughout dinner and we were told how much people enjoyed listening to her.
Most participants led sheep (some willing and some not so much) down the barn aisle…
…but Dona led Rick…
…willingly?
Doris was the recipient of the People’s Choice award.
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.
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.
Mary and Russ organized Project Runway, Jacob Style, our Friday evening entertainment, to be held in the barn.
There was strategy involved in figuring out how to arrange lighting behind the drape for the desired effect.
The extra porta-potty arrived.
Dan scraped behind the barn to create more space for parking.
Then he mowed the most recently grazed pasture. Note hat that matches tractor. That was a belated Father’s Day gift from Chris. It includes the MJ logo on top.
He also trimmed branches in the front so people could see our sign.
Here is the tent all set up. Note to self–when measuring for a tent remember to look up and not just measure the ground.
John is the Rock Star.
We checked teeth to try and figure out the ages of the sheep.
This sheep had a 13 pound fleece. The average for Jacob sheep is 3-6 pounds.
It was a multi-person operation to stuff some of these fleeces into plastic bags.
The usual suspects were there to watch and cheer John on.
Not a bad looking group of ewes after shearing.
The two rams.
After shearing we looked at all the fleeces. The longer fleeces have a break about 4″ in from the outside, but the rest of the fleece seems sound.
It will take some time to work through it all.
As we pulled out staples from some of the fleeces I thought it would be a good idea to get a photo. Susan and Gynna worked on this while we opened up and re-rolled the fleeces.
Note the measurements marked on the sides and down the middles. Weights are below. 
This was a fun day for all of us and a good day for these sheep.
This is a ewe they called Athena.
I think that this is at least a 3-year fleece.
I love the markings on this ewe’s body. I don’t have any information about her.
This is a ewe they called Caliope. She is pretty wild.
Markela, one of the original ewes purchased by this family.
No idea about this ewe…
…or this one. Don’t you love her horns?
Paniota…
…and her fleece.
The lamb named Easter because that is when she was born.
New temporary quarters.
Stay tuned for a Shearing Day post.
Let’s not forget the rams. Tikes on the left and Costa on the right. I think they are yearlings.
I brought Ginny because Michael had thought that we might need a dog to catch the sheep. I had my doubts that we could do much with sheep that had never been worked by a dog and were possibly wild but it was a good excuse to bring Ginny along. She is not a big fan of car rides.
He said that he would be able to get them in the fenced in area with some grain, so we stayed out of sight while he enticed the sheep into the pen.
This is nine ewes and one ewe lamb. Two rams were up the hill in another area.
If you know anything about sheep you’ll see that this ewe is way overdue for shearing.
All but one were in this condition. I wonder if the ewe in full, but not horribly excessive fleece (in the back in this photo) might have had a fleece break a year or more ago, lost that fleece and now has only a year’s growth.
We didn’t get photos of the process but we set up our panels to help catch the sheep. We put halters on the ewes two at a time and brought them to the trailer. Next we got the rams. 
It was a tight fit for those nine adult ewes with as much fleece as probably should have been on 25 sheep.
The rams weren’t much better.
However we did have another mishap.
The first clue I had was the thump/thwack that I heard. Fortunately I was able to pull over in a wide driveway on this windy road (Hwy. 121) and the weather was relatively mild with a breeze because those sheep were really packed in. Fortunately Rick was there because he had the right tools in his truck — I never did find the lug wrench in mine (although now that I think about it, maybe it was under the hood). Fortunately Rick was there to get the lug nuts off because with as much trouble as he had with the last one I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I had made sure before we left that yes, I had paid the AAA membership that was due…but there was no cell service here. Rick replaced the tire with the spare and we lowered the jack. That tire was too low to drive on so Rick jacked up the trailer again, took the tire off, and left in his truck to find somewhere to fill it up. I think he was gone almost an hour before he came back with a fully inflated tire–he had found a group of fire trucks and been able to get the tire filled by the crew.
After getting our hands on these sheep I think that they are in surprisingly good health. They seem to be in decent condition under all that wool and from their teeth I think that they are all four years or under.
There are two with ear tags that indicate a friend’s flock. Those two are docked. None of the others are docked and I think that all of those descended from those two and maybe another that I was told had died. I don’t think that any of those born at this place have ever been shorn. So that’s our first order of business–to find a shearer. Then Dona and I will figure out the next steps.
The wagon worked well for Kasen and had the added benefit of taking all the necessary things like water bottles and the doll.
Meryl and I traded off with the wagon, but part of the point of this walk was for Kirby, wearing her black and pink Nikes, to run with Aunt Meryl.
Eventually Aunt Meryl tired and needed a ride.
Time to go home. Kirby started to pout because she wanted Sawyer’s leash.
I let her take Rusty and all was OK.
