Cosumne Gal

Even though it's in another state (Nevada), Fallon is one of the closer shows I attend. It's quicker to get across California, when it's not snowing, than it is to go up and down the loooooong valley. There are two main routes to Fallon from my house. The first is to go east on Hwy. 50 through Placerville, Lake Tahoe, and Carson City. The other way takes you east on I-80 through Auburn, Truckee, and Reno. I used both routes: went to the show on 50 and came back on 80.

I was fortunate to have an assistant this time. An old friend from high school, Max, went with me. Max has several engineering degrees from Stanford, so he got the jobs like figuring out how to make the container of pop-up wipes work properly. They are used to clean the birds' feet in the morning before judging.

Like Carlotta, Max used to show horses. They're both handy assistants because they understand about grooming procedures and can handle animals. It takes someone who won't just turn loose of a squawking chicken and watch it fly for the rafters.

I appreciate driving with a good navigator. Max is a good navigator because he's skilled with his smart phone and its GPS capabilities. Sometimes he'd even look up from his phone to read road signs. Bob's friend Jonathan has similar skills. Both are computer nerds.

I am a jabberbox when I travel with someone else in the car. I love lively conversation and debate. Carlotta and I argue about everything. Bob and I used to have indepth philosophical conversations to and from chicken shows when he was 8. Or he'd sing "99 Bottles of Beer" and drive me nuts. John just told me to shut up, not to talk while he was driving (we didn't often travel together). Max held up his side of the conversation, but whenever I'd ask one of my rhetorical questions, he'd google the question and come up with an answer. That was great!


I took 17 birds to this show: 4 white Old English bantams, 12 Dominique bantams, and a large fowl Ancona pullet. The judge was Donald Barger. Here he is examining one of my Dominiques. Please note the clear barring on the bird's wing...that's a wonderful thing.


Was he calling for advice on how to judge the class?

No, Donald's mom called while he was working. Note to all sons: Donald is a good example, always pick up the phone when your mom calls.


Here is the same bird, #16. By the end of the day he had won Best of Breed, Best RCCL and was Reserve Bantam of the Show. That was fun.

My Ancona pullet won Best Mediterranean. Max and I went to lunch with our old horse show friends Joan and Bill, who live in nearby Yerington (as much as anything in Nevada can be described as nearby) and came over to visit for the day. When we got back to the show room, a photographer was taking the class winners out of their cages and photographing them. On an open table in the middle of an open room. Yikes!

Anconas are quite flighty. I said, "I doubt my Ancona will cooperate. It would be just fine to NOT take her picture." "Oh no," I was told. "The photographer is very good with chickens."

So I found a comfortable seat that was close enough to enjoy the show. There were lots of kids around. I figured that when the bird got loose one of them would catch her. Eventually.

But the photographer really WAS good with the birds. Great, even. He spent time settling them down, then walked back to his camera and shot the pictures.


He got several nice shots of my girl before she took off flying. He caught her in mid-air and walked her back to her cage, talking to her. What a very nice fellow.

Fallon wasn't the first show of the year, but not everyone attends every single show. This was the first time I got to see some of my friends.


Here are Max and I with Kathy and Ryan, two of my favorite chicken show people.

We traveled back from the show on Sunday morning and got home before Bob and his friends were even finished with breakfast. I had barely stepped through the door when I was met with stories about what a bad boy Wesley the cat had been. "Whoa!" I said. "Give me a minute to put this all into perspective and find just the right way to express to you all that I really don't give a shit."

This week is a short one for me. Another chicken show on the weekend, I will be driving all the way to Ventura by myself. In addition to 17 show birds, I need to take as many birds to sell as will fit in the car. It's got me a little strung out trying to get it all organized. Only one show in November, though, so there'll be plenty of time to rest. And catch up on the stories about Wesley.

One more note. Just before I left one of the folks from Davis Ranch brought me this baby Tubby Dove.


They found it on the ground near the Ranch Cafe. I put it in a little carrier and took it to Fallon with me. When I got home, its sibling was waiting. It had also been found on the ground, but had been pecked on the head. It's usually a parent bird that does that. I was surmising that someone may have shot the father (dove hunting season is on) and the mother couldn't feed the babies, so she kicked them out. But yesterday afternoon I found a baby pigeon in the pigeon pen with a similar story. The weather has turned, maybe there's something about that that prompted the babies' parents to abandon them.

Anyway, now there are 3 babies to hand feed and pack along with me. Anna has volunteered to take care of them while I'm in Ventura. She's such a peach.

This has been a really busy month with the chickens. There are shows on 3 of the 4 weekends. Last weekend would have been the free one, but a wonderful opportunity popped up.

There is a fellow in Missouri who is considered by Dominique breeders to be our national expert on the breed, Mark Fields. He literally "wrote the book" on Dominiques. He was available to come out and help assess the birds we've raised in California this year, so we quickly arranged the trip.

"Come on out to California," I told Mark. "It will be a relaxing trip." I picked him up at the airport on Friday morning. The two of us caught and evaluated all of my birds during the day. It was really a chore.

On Saturday, three other breeders brought their birds. Before he left, Mark handled over 150 birds. It was anything BUT relaxing.

This is Chris (left) and Mark examining one of my cockerels.


Debbie drove up from Southern California. It took her 6 hours to get here, we spent 2 hours on her birds, then she loaded them up and drove home. Mark is weighing one of Debbie's birds.


It's very difficult to raise Dominique bantams that are the weight specified in the American Standard of Perfection. They are mostly too big. Some of mine have been waaaaaaayyyy too big. One of my otherwise very good pullets right now is 34 ounces. She's supposed to be 20 ounces.


This is Sara, her daughter Bailey, Debbie with a copy of Mark's book, and Mark. Bailey has been breeding Dom bantams for a couple of years in 4-H and has some good ones. This is a hobby for people of all ages.

Our impromptu workshop was really a benefit to us all. It gave Mark a good idea what's going on with the breed out here on the West Coast, and all of us had a crash course from the master teacher. My head is still reeling with all the information I tried to cram into it. I now know which birds to keep and which to sell. I'll just need to be home for a while so I can pack up the sale birds and ship them off to people who want them.

Mark was kind to us all, but one thing that makes him a valuable teacher is that he doesn't mince words. If a bird has a fault, he points it out. One of his goals was to help everyone improve their birds, so he always had advice on things we could do. In some cases we were able to trade birds with each other, which might make the improvement process a little shorter.

This weekend is another show. I'm washing birds tonight. Some of them had been designated "inferior" but they're in good show condition, so they're going anyway. Bob and Anna are keeping the cats company while I'm gone. I've been trying to learn to use my new iPad mini this week, so maybe I can add something to my blog from the show. Or, more likely, not...because everything requires passwords and I keep forgetting what they are. Passwords are my downfall, my biggest problem with technology.

One last thing, I'll be taking a baby dove to the show, too. He fell out of his nest near the Ranch Cafe and was brought to me to foster. It's not hard to do, but I have to take him with me. Wesley has been predictably bad, I have the baby in a carrier that's locked inside a cage that's in the hatching room with a barrier so Wes can't get in. Every time the baby squeaks, the cats eyeballs rattle around in his head and he goes into hunting mode.

Wish us all luck.

The poultry show at Paso Robles was this past weekend. Paso is about 275 miles from where I live. With the drought, it passes through some of the nastiest-looking areas of California. But my Hawaiian music and just being in the car going somewhere made the trip fast and easy.

There were a lot of plans to make before I left, and I always have to take Wesley into consideration. I set cages up in the den so I could put birds there to dry as I washed them for the show. I left the barriers up that I installed to keep Wes away from the chicks that occupied that room earlier, and that was a good move. It's so hard to stay ahead of that cat.

I've learned not to leave eggs on the counter for even a moment. They roll, you see, and Wes knows that. But sometimes I outsmart myself. I set the eggs on a towel last week while I went to find some empty cartons for them. I covered them with a corner of the towel and secured it with my coffee cup.


Then I got sidetracked and forgot about the eggs. I remembered them instantly when I set something on top of the towel and the eggs cracked. Dang!

Whenever we think we've got Wesley figured out, he comes up with a new trick. Bob stayed over a week or so ago. He slept on the living room couch and went to bed listening to his music with his headphones on. Wesley "fixed" them for him during the night.


Anyway, Bob and Anna and - as it turns out - a bunch of their friends stayed at the house while I was gone for the weekend. They kept an eye on everything and the only casualty was poor Jonathan, Wesley evidently bit his nose sometime during the night. Sigh.

I had a great time at the show, though.

There were a lot of Dominique bantams there. Most were mine (I took 11) but there were also other exhibitors.


One of my pullets was on Champion Row and ended up as Reserve of the RCCL Class. The best part was the judge told me later how much he really liked her.

This was the awards table at the show. My pullet won one of the small boxes.


She can use it for her traveling clothes, or to store her personal belongings. She will be going to more shows.

I also took 7 of my white Old English Game Bantams to sell. Toward the end of the day I still had 3 cockerels left and thought I'd probably have to take them home.


But then a charming young man, about 8 years old, came along with his dad. He wanted the cockerels, he said. His dad and I asked, "Which ONE do you want?" He said, "I want them ALL. One for me and two for my brothers." The dad agreed, and away they went. These cute little birds are great with little kids.

In addition to selling some birds and winning a good prize, I made some new friends. This is Debbie. She is a new Dominique bantam exhibitor. I had a great time visiting with her. She drove up to the show from Southern California.


And these are old and new friends.


The fellow in the white cowboy hat is a good guy, of course. He's Donald. The lady who is waving is Susan. She was pushing a stroller with 3 tiny pet birds on top of it. Those birds sat there peacefully all day long. The fellow with the little boy is Toby from Australia, his wife is wearing a hat in the background. I've known Donald for years, but the others are people I've met through a Facebook poultry fanciers page.

I made the trip to this show with my friend Carlotta the past two years. This year she's working in Tucson and couldn't join me. It's more fun with a friend in the car to chat with, but overall it was a good trip. I'm looking forward to the rest of the show season.

There are 3 young 'uns on the Blawat side of the family. I think they're all keepers.

This is the eldest, Tessa. She's really into chickens.


This is Charlie, he's in the middle. He's learning to ride a pony.


This is the baby, Tommy. He's learning public speaking skills from his grandma Nancy.

Anything he doesn't learn from her, he can pick up from his rabble-rousing mama Jen.


I love this family. Chickens, horses, rabble rousing. All things that are dear to my heart.