Summer Days

Tomorrow I will have had a full week of recuperation after Linn County Fair. I had a wonderful time at the Fair and did very well. I'll give you a summary.

Sleepy Summer Days

In the 4-H/ FFA breed show I am always competing against myself. Most kids just have market lambs and if they do have a breeding flock its often just ewes to produce market lambs. On rare occasions I do meet another Romney. So as always I was showing against myself, this also means I get a lot of champions and reserves because there is no one else in the Romneys. After all the breed classes there is a big class where all the champion ewes come together and compete for supreme ewe.

Well I didn't have high hopes because it is very hard to win over meat sheep with a wool sheep. The judge was giving her reason about the ewe she chose, who turned out to be a very nice Hampshire. Then the judge often pulls all the reserve champion placing ewes and picks her reserve supreme. But this time sheep didn't she picked another ewe from the champions. You will never guess who she picked....OK I'm sure you guessed...yes she picked one of my wool ewes. She picked Zora my fall ewe lamb who was one of the triplets if you remember from back in November. I was very excited, how could I not be she beat meat sheep and also sheep that were older than her.

Zora, Reserve Supreme Champion Ewe!!!!

That same evening we had showmanship. Showmanship is a competition almost completely judged on the person showing the animal. You do your best to present yourself and your animal in the show ring. As always I brought in one of my wool ewes for showmanship. It makes me stand out among all the meat sheep, but the real reason is that we have more practice showing together so she understand what I'm asking of her and usually is much easier to show off. Ruth got the honor of being my showmanship sheep this year. She was very cooperative and did very well. Together we got Reserve Champion Showman for FFA Advanced sheep.

Reserve Champion FFA Advance Sheep Showman

It also turned out I was going into master showmanship because the boy who got champion was doing the master showmanship with a pig because he also got champion pig showman. Master showmanship is where all the top showman come together and have to show all species of animals. I didn't place with any high award in master showmanship but it was a good experience. Everyone said I did really well,seeing as I have never showed half the animals out there before.

Items I had entered in the static area included 3 fleeces, Calla's Fleece got champion, Ruth's Fleece got reserve, and Annabeth's fleece got a blue, all will be available this fall in our Etsy store. I also entered some photographs, one of which got reserve champion. My socks got champion and my shawl got reserve. Overall it was a very good fair.

Now we have a break before our next big show,the Oregon State Fair.

Jessie Enjoying Her Breakfast

We are having lots of warm summer days and the grass is starting to burn off. Before the fair we brought home the ewes from the neighbors and before we know it it will be breeding season again. We hope you are all having a wonderful summer and are looking forward to seeing some of you at the state fair and later in September at OFFF.

Big Foot Keeping Hydrated