If you are showing lambs to judges at a fair, “you want to find (the lambs’s) spot, like what will help them – in the ring when you’re bracing them, to make them feel more comfortable, you can scratch them behind the ears.”
So says Faith Martinez, 16, of Cebolla.
If you are washing lambs for the judges’ approval, “you really want to get in there and wash them, just for the simple fact that you want them to be clean, and not streaky with dirt. You can see it when it comes to showing.”
If you are shearing lambs for show, “you need them to be very, like, perfect. You want to make sure you get all their crevices, like behind the ears, because sometimes the judge will really get in there in depth and check.”
By the time the Rio Arriba County Fair opens Wednesday (7/25), Martinez will have walked three lambs once a day at midday, fed them twice a day every morning and evening, and filled their water trough three times each day for the past three months.
She also will have baked jam thumbprint cookies, coffee cake, grape turnovers, brown sugar nut rounds, and snickerdoodle cookies.
Martinez has raised and shown lambs at the County Fair as a member of the 4-H Club for nine years, after watching her two older brothers and father raise lambs, and has received multiple awards.
Every year, through the club, students from around the County can work on a project in areas ranging from crafts to shooting sports to agriculture and present what they have produced at the fair.
“You’ll see yourself mature and work with (the animals) throughout the years,” Martinez said about her experience. “When you first get them you’re small and you don’t know what to do, but you’ll start learning. It’s a lot of work but it pays off. It really does.”
Practicing patience
In the past three years she has baked sweets, too, for which she has always placed first.
What baking has taught her, she said, “is a whole lot of patience, let me tell you.”
Starting a month and a half before the competition, Martinez practices her recipes – sifting her flour, testing each ingredient, learning each step with precision.
“There’s a whole lot that goes into it. A lot of people don’t think so, but you have to learn your own techniques for what might make it better. I personally have to do practice runs to see if we need to change temperature, if we need to put it in for longer, if we need to, like, make a few adjustments.”
Raising lambs, too, has required patience of Martinez.
“They’re like kids,” she said. “You have to make sure they’re not eating things they’re not supposed to, make sure they’re not choking, make sure they have food and water, make sure they’re not hurt.”
Martinez, who is taking college classes as she works toward her high school diploma, said, “The plate does get full, but if you just kind of learn how to put everything in order and plan your day out, then it will go smooth.
“Also, don’t let it stress you out. Find something fun that you like to do.”
Loves bug collecting
Kenny Roybal, 19, of La Mesilla, is another member of the 4-H Club who has found something that he likes to do each year for the County Fair – entomology.
Over the past year and a half, he has collected centipedes, bees, beetles, butterflies, flies, mantises, moths, and scorpions, killed each insect by placing it in a jar with rubbing alcohol, and pinned them all to Styrofoam with careful labels in wooden display cases.
“This is what I love,” said Roybal, who currently interns at the East Rio Arriba Soil and Water Conservation District and aspires to work in environmental science.
“I’ve always been a nature-lover, and been interested in wildlife and animals,” he said. “And when I was little I remember seeing these displays, and I wondered, ‘How do they do that? And how does this work?’”
4-H, of which Roybal has been a member for 10 years, gave him the chance to explore this question as a project five years ago and provided him with books that explained how to capture, kill and identify the insects. Since then, he has gathered hundreds.
“I’ve learned more about insects – their habitat, what attracts them,” he said. “I’ve learned to identify a lot of different bugs, I’ve learned how to capture them and when’s a good time during the year or during the day or night for when to go out and catch them. I’ve also learned how to properly put them into displays.”
Trying to inspire
He is the only 4-H member in the County who has consistently chosen to work on an entomology project.
“Hopefully (my) displays inspire other kids to start doing this,” he said.
He is particularly proud of catching butterflies and moths, “because those are the hardest ones to catch, especially the bigger ones. They fly, like, right over you, so you can’t get them.”
And he will not touch centipedes.
“I don’t know why, but that just grosses me out – centipedes for some reason,” he said. “So I caught (a centipede), but I had my mom do it all. Because I just can’t be touching it.”
He finds the insects outside his house and in the mountains during trips with his family.
“Usually I just try to keep an eye out when I’m outside,” Roybal said. “If we go to the mountains fishing or something, then I take a net and stuff just in case. Over here in the more valley desert area you’ll find certain bugs, but if you go to a different part of the state you’ll find completely different ones.”
This year is Roybal’s last as a member of 4-H, but, he said, “I’m going to continue doing (entomology) on my own for the rest of my life.”
At the County Fair, Martinez and Roybal’s months of hard work will be on display for the community – in measured and marked rows of insects, in pie tins and platters of cookies, and in three lambs, sheered and washed, walking before the judges.