Want to Wack a Gofer?

 

 

 

There is a big fresh hole in the middle of the Aisle between the tables for rabbits at the Monterey Fair.

 

There is a little head sticking out!    And there are lots of people walking around the hole and some are taking pictures.

 

It's the county fair, doesn't it remind you of the "Wack a Mole Gofer Game"?   This is a real gofer, not a plastic or stuffed game head.






 

Angora Judging at Monterey Fair

 

 

 

 

In show A, judge Scott W. has a table full of English Angora, Makalya is the table help.






Judge Scott W. comments on the French Angora broken senior doe.


 

In show B, judge Jennifer is working on the white English Angora.

 

Judge Jennifer is placing the three English Angora colored senior does, Pete and Lori and family are at the other side of the judging table.   

 

For a complete list of Angora results, go to

 

http://angorashowresults.blogspot.com/2015/09/september-6-2015-angora-showing-at.html




 

Pete, Lori, Pearl, Chloe and Anna Visit Monterey Fair

 

 

 

 

 

Pete and Lori were English Angora breeders in the 1990s, they are still interested in visiting rabbit shows now and then.  Since moving to Carmel, Monterey Fair is one of their favorite place to visit.   At the fair this year, they have their two daughters Pearl and Chloe plus Anna, an exchange student from China, with them.   They are not as familiar with French Angora as English Angora, they are examining broken French Angora doe Henrietta.

 

 

From left to right are Anna, Chloe, Betty with Donnica and Pearl.



 

Jonathan's Wonderful Summer

 

 

 

Jonathan had a wonderful summer, he went from MO to CA and stayed for three months working with Randy and Allen in various shows and fairs, he also took trip with them to visit many top breeders in CA and in other states.      Jonathan is putting some of his fun photos in a big postcard to share with his friends.




 

More New Yarn

After several days of talking about the Guinness records, let's go back to the basics of the Angora rabbits - wool for spinning.    Betty wishes to share a photo of the new yarn that she spun in the last two weeks.   In this photo, there are five dyed skeins and four skeins of natural color.   Each skein is between 90-120 yards.

Here is a closer look of these 9 skeins of Angora yarn.   

Guinness World Record Experience

 

 

It was an interesting experience and it took quite a bit of effort and help from various people.   Thanks to the Guinness organization for giving me and Franchesca the invitation, my contact person Jenny was great, photographer James was a true professional. 

Thanks to Dr. Pete, Kathi, Jeannie for being the crew members for the record attempt, and thanks to hubby Albert's work in recording, editing, assembling the evidence package, this challenge would not have been successful without his help.  

The scheduled publication date for the 2016 Guinness World Records would be in September 2015. I was asked to keep the record private until the publication date.   It was a long wait of more than a year but eventually all worked out.   It was a joy to see the record in print when the book arrived on September 1;  when the 2016 Guinness official website launched on September 10, it was such a great feeling to see Franchesca's photo as the first photo on the website and that her record is one of the focal points of the campaign.    

 

According to the book and information from my contact, during the 12-month period for this edition of the Guinness World Records, the organization received 39,740 applications, the top five countries where the applications came in were:

USA 12,393

UK 6,892

India 3,253 

Australia 1,904

Canada 1,576

Records included in the 2016 edition: 4,000.

 

Even though Franchesca was invited, I still had to fill out the application forms, thus it is one of 12,393 applications from the USA.     Imagine that out of 39,740 total applications worldwide, Franchesca's photo was selected as the lead photo to appear on the Guinness 2016 website, what an honor!

 

 

 

 

Guinness Record and Professional Photo Shoot, Part 2

It was a very hot day on the day of the photo shoot, if my memory serves me right, it was 94 degrees in the afternoon of September 1, 2014.  

After the "studio" shots done inside our garage, the shoot moves to outdoors.

It was hot and sunny, James is baking in the sun when he took the shots.



James also take shots of Franchesca by herself.

Several of similar shots are loaded onto the computer for selection.

One of these shots ends up in the print version of the 2016 Guinness World Records.






This same picture with our side wall as the background somehow landed on a website of a Chinese news agency.   

James asks to put Franchesca on the lawn to see what she would do.

Franchesca is a great model for still photography but not suited to be an action hero.

After four hours of photo shoot in the 94-degree temperature, both James and I are soaked in sweat.   In case that you are curious, Franchesca was given breaks between setting up with other rabbits acted as stand-in for lighting.