ALTAMONT — Jarod Yost loves his sheep.

“I grew up with them. I love all farm animals,” says the 13-year-old on Tuesday, the first day of the Altamont Fair.

Dressed in white, he walks Rose, a black-faced Romney, around the sheep and goat barn. He likes showing Rose to the city kids who come to the fair.

“No matter what, all kids like animals,” he says. “On the inside, they actually do.”

Jarod will be in the eighth grade next month at Mekeel Christian Academy in Schenectady. “Some kids at school laugh at me because I do this,” he says of caring for sheep.

“So many kids don’t realize they like animals until they hold them,” he said.

He goes on, “We see show and product,” referring to the walk he’ll take on Wednesday in the show ring, and the fleece that is being judged at that very moment elsewhere in the barn. But to the city kids, sheep are just interesting animals, he said.

“They’ve never seen a sheep in real life. I walk her around so kids can pat her and take pictures…I was asked if she was pregnant. She’s not. Rose weighs 200 pounds.”

“You don’t give out a girl’s weight,” Jarod’s mother, Heather Rost, admonishes in a playful tone.

Jarod lives with his mother and grandmother, Donna Rost, on a farm in Delanson called Maranatha Acres.

“It’s from the Bible,” says Heather Rost, explaining the name, which means “Our Lord comes.”

The Romney and Lincoln sheep the family raises are more than just a means of producing wool. They center the family, sustaining its members.

Rost, who works as a supervisor at a call center, finds that knitting with the wool she has sheared and spun from her sheep calms her when she has stresses at work. “I can take out my anger on my yarn,” she says with a smile.

Turning more serious, she goes on, “No matter how bad a day is, I can walk in the barn and, when I look in their big, brown eyes, all my cares go away.”

Five years ago, Rost’s father died. “The day he died, we still had to take care of the animals,” she said. She went to the barn and felt comforted.

“I’m telling the sheep, ‘Daddy’s gone.’ They had this look, like, ‘It’s going to be OK. We’ll get through this somehow.’”

And they did.

“They’ve been my strength,” said Rost.

When, after her father died, lambs were born in the middle of March, “It was freezing cold,” she recalled. Her son, before going out to the barn to help with the birthing, grabbed a hat. It was the red hat that his grandfather had always worn.

“Even here at the fair, he’d wear that hat,” said Rost. That night, Josie, a Romney, “just kept staring at my son,” she recalled.

Perhaps Josie saw something of Jarod’s grandfather in him.

“When I wore that hat, we bonded,” said Jarod.

“He can kiss her, touch her ears, pat her stomach. If anyone else does that, she freaks out,” said Rost. “They’re best buds.”

Jarod demonstrated how he could pat Josie as she remained content. He smiled.

Shear judgment

Jarod was nonchalant about Rose’s fleece as it was being judged on Tuesday afternoon. “She usually gets a ribbon,” he said nonchalantly.

Sunny Bixby, a slender, blonde woman with delicate fingers worked her way slowly and carefully down a long table near the barn door. She reached deep into one bag of fleece and then another, fingering the fibers as she marked a score sheet.

Bixby, from Verona, took a course to be a fleece judge but said the best training came from raising 400 sheep. She judges at both state and county fairs.

At Altamont, she gave one to 10 points for each of 10 categories — a perfect score would be 100. She judged the condition of the fleece, its strength and uniformity, as well as the absence of matting and of second cuts.

Bixby also judged the presentation — the overall appearance and cleanliness of the fleece. And, finally, she judged its quality, looking at its length and crimp and how well it fit the characteristics of the breed of sheep from which the fleece came.

Heather Rost described the art of shearing a sheep. One year of growth was gathered in each of the bags that Bixby judged.

“When you shear,” said Rost, “you use the animal’s leverage; you use their weight against them. First you shear the junk wool.”

Wool from the sheep’s belly has hay and manure in it and so is discarded. Leg wool is discarded, too, if it is wet and matted.

“You shear up the sides of the body and then to the neck. When you get to the spinal area, you tip back up and do the other side,” said Rost.

She hurt her back in a car accident and since then has devised a unique method of shearing sheep on a blocking stand, generally used for grooming.

“The judge is looking for consistency from head to butt,” said Rost, “and an even crimp — that locks in the twist when you spin it.” Of a good fleece, she said, “You can take it right from the animal to the spinning wheel…You want to go from fleece to shawl — card it, spin it, wear it.”

Rost learned about raising and shearing sheep from the shepherds at the Altamont Fair’s sheep barn. “In 1996, Pat Canaday hooked me up with Regina Embler and her son, Chris. He mentored me…I do it for the love of it,” she said of raising sheep.

Rost learned how to spin wool from a woman at the Palentine House in Schoharie. Once she spins the wool from her sheep, Rost said, “I can weave with it, knit it, felt it…Our imagination is our endless desire.”

Knitting is her favorite way to use her wool and she has made many pairs of socks and mittens as well as hats. She’s been working on a sweater for 10 years. “I keep ripping it out to get the technique down,” she said. She’s currently knitting a pair of socks for her son.

From sheep to shawl

As Bixby diligently judged the different classes of fleeces, two women seated behind her demonstrated the next step in the process — spinning wool.

Deborah Andersen, of New Scotland, like Rost, raises her own sheep. At 68, she said she has been knitting for 60 years, taught by her mother and grandmother. She has been spinning wool for 30 years.

Andersen is retired from a career of teaching information science at the University at Albany.  Over the years, she enjoyed the balance between her academic career and her work as a spinner and knitter.

“It’s good to use both sides of the brain,” she said, as her spinning wheel whirred. “This is very physical. It gives you a product.”

Her feet, pumping the wheel’s treadle, were clothed in socks she had knit. Andersen said socks are her favorite things to knit. “I don’t have to think about it any more,” she said.

She has three daughters, one son-in-law, one daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.

“They all have socks,” she said.

Next to her, Jane Kaplan was spinning, too. She retired to Guilderland from her work in special education and resumed her career as a weaver, which had been on hiatus for decades.

Kaplan has always been involved in the arts. “I originally studied ballet at Joffrey,” she said. On Tuesday, she was wearing a silver necklace she had made herself.

The glass display case in the front of the barn was filled with her work, exhibiting a wide variety of talent.  A pop-art wall hanging in bright colors was created when Kaplan worked with a famous weaver at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

“I never gave away my floor loom,” said Kaplan. Although it sat idle for years, she would not part with it. “It’s near and dear to my heart,” she said.

Inside the case is a textured twill scarf she wove. And nearby on the floor of the case is a wrap that she both wove and knitted, resembling a kimono; it won a red ribbon. Displayed against the plate glass, hung near the top of the exhibit, looking rather like a stained-glass window, is a delicate lace shawl that Kaplan knit; it won a blue ribbon.

On winning the blue ribbon, Kaplan said, “It’s a really good feeling. It’s an accomplishment.”