Behind the scenes at the county fair

"We're going to fair." It's a phrase that conjures up images of cotton candy, cracker jack, maybe even a Ferris wheel. But for Mason Scott and Josie Hernandez, each of whom will be showing their animals at the Placer County Fair in June, the event has nothing to do with fun and games. For them, this is the culmination of months of hard work: exercising and training their animals, grooming them to perfection and forming a bond with them. All to see if they can auction them off at the end of the day, say goodbye to their animals and then start the process all over again. For Josie, who will graduate from Placer High in a few weeks and who plans to study animal science at Chico State, the work is well worth the effort. In fact, she doesn't really think of it as "work." "It's not really a chore," Hernandez said. "It's more just a lifestyle. I never calculated how much time I spend with my animals; I try to spend as much time as I can with each one, because I really enjoy being around them." Hernandez will be showing two animals at the fair: a lamb, named Teddy; and a steer, named Thunder. She will show them in two categories: showmanship, which measures how well she and the animal work together, and market, which measures the specimen itself: muscle strength, athleticism, overall aesthetic. Each animal will be weighed at the outset and compete with others in his weight class. Hernandez always knew she would work with animals. "All my life I have had animals: dogs, a pony ... I love all my animals. Each one has a different personality and is unique in their own way. I don't really have words to describe how much I love raising and showing animals, but also teaching others about them, too," she said. Hernandez first got involved in FFA, Future Farmers of America, when she was a freshman at Placer High. "FFA really came to me," she said. Hernandez took the agriculture course at Placer and started learning about FFA there. She looked up to the officers running the FFA chapter at school, and wanted to become involved herself. "Never would I have thought that I could follow in those footsteps and become an officer too," Hernandez said. But Hernandez not only ran for and won the election for president of the chapter; this year she led several community service efforts she's proud of: raising money for the survivors of the Camp Fire, packing supplies and donating clothes to Paradise residents, cleaning out and feeding the pens of the animals who were evacuated during the fire and who now "live" in Gridley. "It just really shows how an FFA chapter and community can come together to make a difference." Mason Scott, a freshman at Sierra College will be showing his lamb, Lambs-a-lot, at the Placer County Fair. His experience is similar to Hernandez's. Scott, who wants to teach animal science to high school students, became involved in FFA his freshmen year at Lincoln High. "A couple of my friends were doing FFA and they encouraged me to join," Scott said. "I learned about responsibility, marketing and a bunch of other skills." Scott started showing goats, and then transferred to lambs. (His last three were named "Shirley," "Justice," and "Mercy," a play on the verse from Psalms.) Scott says goats are harder to train than lambs, because they're smarter. But, he says, if he had the space and money, he would love to work with cattle. "That's my first choice," he said. When Scott first bought Lambs-a-lot, she was 6 months old. Now, she's 9 months old. Her home is a pen at his grandparents' home in Lincoln, which he drives to before and after school each day so he can feed, exercise and train her. Part of that training is teaching her not to panic when he walks into the pen, because her immediate impulse is to run laps around the pen — which, come to think of it, isn't so bad for a lamb who needs to build muscle for an upcoming competition. When he first started training Lambs-a-lot, Scott would make her run five laps every morning and evening. Now, she's running 20 laps each visit. And, the laps show. When Scott entered the pen to say hi to Lambs-a-lot, she bolted into a run. After several attempts to lasso her, he was successful. Even then, she put up a fight, dispelling any notion that lambs are weak or innocent. "She definitely has a mind of her own," Scott said. Ultimately, that might be the hardest part of this job: Bonding with an animal and then having to sell it. But, according to Hernandez, it's also one of the most rewarding. "You know that you raised that animal the best you could," she said. "And you gave it a great life."