Harvest Moon Festival

Today is the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, more commonly known as the Harvest Moon Festival by people outside China. It is on the 15th day of the 8th month on the Lunar calendar. It is a festival celebrating harvest, similar to Thanksgiving in the US.

The 15th day of the 8th month on the Lunar calendar is the day with the brightest full moon during the entire year, thus this festival is also known as the Harvest Moon Festival.This Festival has a legend that includes a rabbit. Not as common as the other names, once a while it is also called the Rabbit Festival.

Thousands of years ago, there were nine suns that scorched the earth day and night continuously. The earth was in a plight of severe drought. A "hero", Hou-Yee, who was proficient in archery shot down eight of the nine suns, as a result he was crowned the king. Then Hou-Yee became a cruel dictator, wanting to live forever. He had miracle medicine made, with the help from a rabbit, for him that he would ingest and then he would live forever. His queen Churn-O, the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, did not want the people to suffer. She ingested all the miracle medicine, became very light and started flying. She took the rabbit with her and landed on the moon. The rabbit, Chinese referred to as "the Jade Rabbit", continuously make medicine in the moon until today. Churn-O and the Jade Rabbit live in the moon happily ever after.

Many years later, a tradition of eating "Moon Cake" was added to this festival. Here is a drawing of flying Chum-O with the Jade Rabbit that I found on a moon cake advertisement.

Rabbit Costume Contest at Watsonville

The RPSCV shows are very much into kids' activities during the show. There are rabbit running contests, kids area for crafts, and the most popular activity is the rabbit costume contest.

Here are photos of some of the dressed up rabbits. The English Lop in the top photo and the Holland Lop at the bottom photo belong to the Cathy's kids.

Doug's New Princess

What's a show without our handsome judge Doug and his French Bulldog family?

Doug's family is expanding. There is a new princess in his kingdom. Little girl Connie has arrived recently.

The first photo shows Doug with Connie.

The second and third photos are Doug holding the little Princess Connie and Queen Ruby. As we know, Ruby is always Doug's favorite, but Connie is trying hard to steal his heart.

Top Honors in A and B

Cathy S. had a wonderful day at Watsonville! She won the top honor of Best In Show in both show A and show B, with two different rabbits.


The top photo shows from left to right Melissa who won Reserve In Show with her Himalayan; Brad from Indiana and the ARBA Executive Director in waiting who picked the top rabbits; Cathy S. with her Best in Show winner a broken Rex.

The second photo is Cathy S. with her white Rex that won Best In Show in show A.

The third photo is Tami S. with her French Lop that won Reserve in Show in show A.

Judges at Watsonville

There were two shows held by RPSCV at Watsonville. Here are the photos of the two judges who judged English Angora.

The top photo shows our prestigious judge Manuel examining a white English Angora. Manuel has been judging for a long time, he is a professor at Sonoma State University. This is his last year teaching before retirement. We hope to see him even more often in shows since he will not have to go to work during the week days. Manuel is also nationally known for his New Zealand. His rabbits have won Group at the convention twice, the chance of his rabbits winning a Best In Show in the near future is very good. He and wife Linda has recently moved into his new wine country property and constructed a state of art barn for his rabbits.

The second photo shows Troy examining a white English Angora. Troy is a brand new judge who has had his license for less than 6 months. He is originally from MN, we don't know him enough to describe his background.

Boys Over Girls

In the Angora breeds, it is common to see the Best of Breed awards going to the does and the bucks receiving the Best Opposite Sex. It is believed that the hormone factor gives the does the advantage in growing the wool. More than half of the points are allocated to wool in the Standard of Perfection.

At the Rabbit Producers of Santa Clara Valley (RPSCV) show at Watsonville yesterday, the boys had their field day in winning over the girls.

Under judge Manuel, Betty's fawn Buck Chu's Fawntana won the Best of Breed. Manuel said that he has the complete package and his wool is in prime. Fawntana is very young, just a little over 7 months old. Though he has won many legs, this is his first time being awarded the Best of Breed.

Under judge Troy, Casey's white buck Casey's Monte took the Best of Breed. Monte has won the Best of Breed a couple other times plus a specialty Best In Show. Troy has judged English Angora twice, once in July and once yesterday. Both times he picked Monte as the best.

In both shows, Casey's beautiful tort doe Casey's Molina took Best Opposite Sex of the breed.

We all had a great time, more photos to come.