Tag Archives: AGM

Michigan – Days 3-4-5

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I wrote about Day 1-2 in this post.

Sign with JSBS logo that says Annual General Meeting

I got to Michigan on Wednesday. The Annual General Meeting began on Friday.

Handwritten sign to Sheep Barn on a bale of straw.

The meeting was held at the Branch County Fairgrounds in Coldwater, Michigan. First stop was the sheep barn.

Old walking wheel outside the sheep barn with flowers in front.

This old spinning wheel was outside the barn.

Sheep pens in a barn with dozens of Jacob sheep.

It was sure fun to see this many Jacob sheep from different breeders in one place.

Jacob ewe in sheep pen

Notice the ear tags including a CA scrapie tag. This is Meridian Saffron who I sold to a fellow Jacob breeder in 2018. I was able to get her to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival that year. I just found the blog post about that. I wish I could have participated in some of the fun at AGM–that is buying and selling sheep–not possible when I’m flying.

Front of barn with sign that says Barnyard Children.

There are several barns at this fairgrounds. They are labeled sheep, cattle, horses, etc. I was amused by this sign.

Fleeces in bags at wool show with blue and red ribbons.

A wool show was one of the activities at this meeting. Another activity was the sheep show. I don’t have photos of that because I was a judge. I said I’d do it with a partner, not by myself. That was a challenge. I got good feedback, but I don’t want to do it again. Too much stress and it’s difficult to place 10 sheep in a class when they all look pretty good. Fortunately we needed to place only the first four sheep in each class.

Woman with large blanket knitted with gray and white roving.

One of the participants showed me her “arm-knit” blanket made of roving. It weighs 14 pounds!

Text on slide about mutation causing lilac coloring in Jacob sheep

The presentation I was most interested in was that by Gary Anderson about the study being conducted about lilac Jacobs. Gary showed this slide from a 1995 (I think) paper and noted that they said “the causative mutation” instead of “a”. I think I have written a blog post about the current study in which he involved, but I’m not looking for it now. I’m at the gate for my flight home and want to finish this before we board. I did find this post that is related to the study because of the sheep involved I may have to write more later.

Plaque on large rock about the Anderson Farm in Michigan.

Sunday morning I helped with some sheep loading and a little clean up. Then I got a ride with Gary to his farm in Sparta. My flight wasn’t leaving until 7:30 p.m. so Gary gave me a tour of the area. This is a plaque in place at his original family farm.

Large red barn with two silos on green hillside .

The gorgeous barn at that farm.

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.

Estes Park Wool Market – Arrival

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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.

Green Wyoming hills with blue sky and puffy white clouds.

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.

White pick up with aluminum stock trailer parked near grass.

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.

Crochet project with instructions.

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.

Green Wyoming hills with a little blue sky and gray and white clouds. Cattle in the far distance.

More gorgeous scenery. Green grass, yellow and white flowers, blue sky with clouds. Cows at the base of the hills.

Green Wyoming hills with a little blue sky and gray and white clouds.
Green rocky hills with blue sky and clouds. You can barely see snowcapped peaks in the distance.

I think we’re finally in Colorado.

Green plain with snowcapped mountains in the distance. Blue sky with clouds. Two pronghorn antelope in the foreground.

I took several photos of pronghorn, but they most were too far away for the iPhone camera.

Sign inside barn to welcome Jacob breeders. Balloons and check in info on table.

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.

Sheep in pens at fairgrouds.

It didn’t take long to get the sheep fed and watered and settled in.

Bagged fleeces on tables ready for the fleece show.

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.

Judge examining a spotted Jacob fleece.

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.

Getting Ready for AGM

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I just looked back to see where I left off in my blog. Wow! July 16 when we were shearing the Pope Valley Sheep. So much has happened since then but I’ve been way too busy to sort photos and share them. State Fair was a big one and there are sheep stories to write, but now that the major deadlines have come and gone I’ll be working backwards in these events.

Getting ready for JSBA AGM. (What’s AGM? Jacob Sheep Breeders Annual General Meeting, which, about a year ago, I offered to host.) The preparation really started long ago. Farm Club and a few others were on the committee and we met monthly. Around here we started thinking about everything we could do to spruce up the place. Painting the barn led to fixing the barn, etc. But those are photos for another post.

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AGM was Friday through Sunday, August 3-5. On Wednesday the 30 x 40 foot tent was delivered.

While the tent guys were working a flurry of other activity was going on.

IMG_9002              Mary and Russ organized Project Runway, Jacob Style, our Friday evening entertainment, to be held in the barn.IMG_9004                  There was strategy involved in figuring out how to arrange lighting behind the drape for the desired effect.

Lights were hung.

IMG_9029                     The extra porta-potty arrived.DSC_2975                  Dan scraped behind the barn to create more space for parking.DSC_2985

DSC_2983                    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.DSC_2989                  He also trimmed branches in the front so people could see our sign.IMG_9021                 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.