Convention Risers!

No I don’t mean people who are early risers during the ARBA Convention.  I’m talking about those wire squares that keep the rabbits off of the shavings during Convention.

AFLRC will not be renting risers this year.  The club decided to sell the risers over the next two Convention.  All the club risers that will be in Minneapolis are already reserved.   If you reserved with Carol G or Deb L, the risers are supposed to be delivered to the Convention Center on Saturday (but travel could delay until Sunday).

Everyone else that needs risers should plan to bring your own or buy from cage suppliers at the show.

See you all soon!  Safe travels!

Convention Updates

Entries:  Today, October 18 is the last day to enter the ARBA Convention, either as a new exhibitor or add on to your entries.  Yes, the deadline was extended.  Isn’t entering on line wonderful!  I got my entries in by the first deadline, but the offer to allow me to add more was just too tempting. 

Also, mark down next Monday, October 25.  That is the last day to make free changes in class and ear number to your Convention entries.  You can change everything except breed.  Again, love the on-line system!

Banquet:  A very nice banquet at a very reasonable price is planned for Convention.  Be sure to order your tickets for the AFLRC Awards Banquet by October 30.  Its $20 per adult, children under 12, $10.  Send to Deb L.  Her address is in the newest Fuzzy Tales. 

Don’t forget that we are holding an auction during the banquet.  This raises money for the awards at the spring National show.  So please bring items to donate and be prepared to bid (high!).

Convention Fundraisers:  Due to local laws, raffles are not allowed in Minnesota.  Its considered gambling…this makes our normal fundraising activities a bit more complex than normal but never fear!  There will still be items at the AFLRC booth, which will be in a silent auction rather than a raffle.  We did this at Nationals in Ohio and it worked very well.  Please bring donations for the table silent auction.   More updates later in the week……start packing, here we come Minneapolis!

Better with age

Some breeds of rabbits are shown only when they are young. Once they get older or have a litter, they just don't have the same flesh condition. English angoras are generally competitive only until their first coat is removed; subsequent wool is never quite the same texture. Tans tend to have a very short show career, as they lose the "racy" body type as they get older (don't we all become a bit less "racy" with age?).

But some breeds like Fuzzy Lops and Holland Lops, can be shown for several years. In fact, the bucks often aren't competitive seniors until they are at least 1.5 - 2 years old; it takes that long to get a great head on a buck.

Here is a picture of me, Judge Brooke and my doe, AK's Faith after she won Best In Show at Santa Rosa, CA in October 2007. Faith was about 8 mo old and looking very pretty (note she doesn't seem to care much for being held and posing for a camera).
And here we are again, Faith and I with Judge Doug K in Watsonville, CA, yesterday. Faith hadn't attended a show for at least 1 year. I thought she looked good sitting in her cage, so I entered her. Good move....Faith was selected Reserve Best in Show. (note same cranky look on her face, while I look just a bit older with longer hair.).
Here is Faith in a better mood sitting in the sun today. Thanks old girl, keep up the good work!

Oh the things I saw in Ohio

Banquet at the Spaghetti Factory. Yum.

Adorable awards!

Jamie and Jacob

Dawn, Laura and friends

Kathi smiling the day after Nationals.

Congratulations to all!

Oh Oh Ohio!

AFLRC National Show

Hosted by Great Lakes Fuzzy Lop Club

Columbus, OH

Youth:
Best of Breed, Broken Senior Buck, Jamie Fry
Best Opposite of Breed, Broken Junior Doe, Chase Lowe

Best Wool, Jamie Fry

Best Display, Chase Lowe

Best Solid, senior buck, Stephanie Miller
Best Opposite Solid, senio doe, Jamie Fry
Best Broken, senior buck, Jamie Fry
Best Opposite Broken, junior doe, Chase Lowe

Open:
Best of Breed, Solid Senior Buck, Kelsey Stover
Best Opposite of Breed, Solid Senior Doe, Allison Minger

Best Wool, Nicole Schmitt
Best Display, Dawn Guth

Best Solid, senior buck Kelsey Stover
Best Opposite Solid, senior doe, Allison Minger
Best Broken, senior buck, Kelsey Stover
Best Opposite Broken, senior doe, Dawn Guth

Snapshots from Nationals

More tomorrow.......

Just sit still, will ya?

I have a "crop" of young Fuzzy Lop bucks growing up in my barn and decided it was time to take a few photos. The camera was charged, the little boys groomed (well as good as little boys can be groomed!), and I was ready. Below are the best of about 50 pictures that I took. Those little guys are fast!

AK's Keenan hunkers down to the table, sure that I am going to do something awful to him.

AK's Bryce strikes a pose (good boy!).

AK's Reno shows us how its done.

AK's Flyboy revs up his motor and gets ready to wing away...put those ears down kiddo.

It really does take two people to get decent photos of junior Fuzzies. Good luck at the shows and good luck with your juniors.

Silent Auction

AFLRC will be holding a silent auction at the National show, in Columbus, OH. Please bring your donations and "bidding pencil"!

I have heard that entries are coming into the show secretary and the hosting club is making the last minute plans for the show. The National show and a specialty show will be help on Saturday, May 1 with a double all breed show on Sunday May 2.

How the world goes round

I hate to throw away useful stuff. Like Fuzzy Lop wool that comes off during grooming. Of course the trick is--figure out what it is useful for! One day while knitting I realized how much I liked angora yarn. Where do you think that comes from? Rabbits, duh! And I have a whole barn full of them, molting all over the cage wire. Now if I could just get them to molt into a bag. Well that didn't happen; the bunnies still molt everywhere rather than in a neat pile. But I started collecting the wool. My friends started collecting the wool and soon I was spinning wool int yarn and knitting it into useful items, like gloves and scarves. Bingo! I turned something I once threw away into a valuable product. (see http://www.etsy.com/shop/JustASoftie).

So just a short step down this line of crazy talk was the purchase of a drum carder. This is a simple machine used to process the wool before spinning. A carder helps fluff out the wool and blend with different fibers, like sheep wool or alpaca. Or the carder is used to mix colors of fiber, making a different color in the final wool, than the original.

Below is my new Fancy Kitty Kitten Carder (http://www.fancy-kitty.com/carders1.html). The carder is being loaded with two different colors of dyed Fuzzy Lop wool (dying will have to wait for a later post!). You should be able to see both fushia and purple fiber.


The handle of the carder is slowly cranked and the fiber is picked up by the small licker drum and deposited on the larger drum shown here. Pretty, isn't ?

Here is a shot of the small licker drum feeding fiber on to the larger drum.

When finished with the process, the end result is a batt. The one shown below has about 10% natural Fuzzy Lop wool for the fluff factor, mixed with suri alpaca (white), bamboo (blue) and merino wool (pink). The batt itself is gorgeous and hand spinners love to work with these materials.

This batt spun up into a pretty small skein of yarn too, that has a nice "angora" halo and a very soft feel. Don't try to tell me that Fuzzy Lops aren't useful! Well gotta go groom my bunnies--to keep them looking great and to collect wool for spinning!

Adding to the "Herd"

I thought you might enjoy seeing something besides rabbits for a change. I love to knit; that's no secret. So when Muriel asked if I wanted to knit a baby blanket for her new grandson, well I didn't hesitate. And when she threw in a few Jersey Woolys to sweeten the deal, I was all over it. Muriel loves sheep so the pattern to pick was obvious. This baby blanket, has mostly white sheep,

and one black sheep.

And it was finished in plenty of time before baby William arrived. Maybe it wasn't in plenty of time, but at least a couple of hours before he arrived!

Count 'em...1, 2, 3

The California State Convention was this past weekend in Turlock, CA. I was looking forward to the show because 1) I hadn't attended a show for a few weeks; 2) I wasn't judging so could show as many rabbits as I wanted; 3) Kendall was coming too. [Note: I love judging but it just sounded so relaxing to only show, rather than juggle multiple activities. Isn't it funny that I thought a rabbit show would be "relaxing"?]

The show was just as much fun as I imagined for all the above reasons and three more. Kendall and I won BOB American Fuzzy Lop with AK's Noah, a solid senior buck. I won BOB Jersey Wooly with Brian's Zane, a broken otter buck, and Kendall won BOB Thrianta (a first for her) with Kendall's Ruby, a junior doe. In addition, we also won BOSB Fuzzy and Thrianta, and sold the BOSB Jersey Wooly to its new owner who showed her!

On Sunday a double all breed show was held and there were about 50 Fuzzy Lops, a great showing! We had loads of our good friends there including Marian S, Tausha and Christina, Anita R, Gail M, Bob and Kelley T. In the first show Sunday, Marian S won BOB with her lovely solid junior doe and in the second show, Kendall and I won BOB with another solid senior buck.

What a good weekend. Boy am I tired!

Youth Fuzzy Lops Rock!

Rose Garrison and her broken senior doe won youth Best in Show (A) and RBIS (show B) on Saturday Feb 13 at the Sandhills Rabbit Fanciers Valentine's Show, Sanford, NC. North Carolina.

Congratulations to Rose and her doe.

Neither rain nor snow will stop us...well maybe snow

The first weekend of February is a big show weekend in the rabbit fancy world. I missed it all. I was in Indiana for a Board of Trustees meeting at Hanover College. I actually missed that too. I combine these trips with visits to family so Saturday morning I woke up to 5 in of snow. That's hardly a blizzard but it was too much for a small rental car to drive a few miles down a curvy hilly country road to the highway. So instead I spent a nice cozy day knitting with my mom.

In Pennsylvania, there is a huge show the first weekend in February. I heard it was held but started late. Did any of our Fuzzy Lops and their exhibitors make it to the show? Let us hear your stories of Snowmageddan and fuzz!

In California, there were no worries at all of snow. A very nice show was held in Stockton. Winning in the open and youth Fuzzy Lop shows was distributed nicely to several people including Bob & Kelley Tapp, Susie Cederloff, Christina Gillett, and Jenny Henderson. But the big winner is below. New exhibitor Julia won Best in Show with her American Fuzzy Lop senior doe. Congratulations ladies!

An American (Fuzzy Lop) in Japan

The first week in December Melissa Magee and I were invited to judge rabbits by the Nippon Rabbit Club. What an amazing experience! For me, it was even more special because of the gorgeous Fuzzies we found there. There were two shows that weekend; the first one held in Kobe and then a show the next day in Nagoya.


This handsome broken tort buck was selected Reserve in Show by Melissa and Best in Show by me on Sunday, December 6 in Nagoya.

At the show in Kobe, Yumiko won Best Opposite Sex of Breed with her sable point buck.

Best of Breed at the Kobe show was owned by Hiro, shown here working with Melissa for his registrar's license.

The Best of Breed Fuzzy poses with me since Hiro is busy and she is a black doe with a lovely head.

Congratulations to the winners and thank you so much for such a fantastic trip.