A very busy month of September, topped off with Emily’s birthday the day after we got back from Glacier Park. We got her a deck chair for sheep! You can back the sheep onto it and they just lay there while you clip their hooves or do whatever else you need to do with them. Of course we sang ‘Happy Birthday’.
We flew out to Glacier park to do a little bit of sight seeing and to meet Patrick after he finished the CDT up at the Canadian border. What a feat, we are so proud of him! Here is the moment we met him close to the ‘Packers Roost’ trail head.
Patrick actually finished the day before up at the Canadian border along Waterton Lake. Here is the actual picture of him at the border.
All during his trek we communicated with him using a Garmin InReach, below is the map with each checkin marking his location.
Here is the picture of him down at the Mexican border where he started.
We were in Glacier for a good two days before meeting Patrick. We went on the classic ‘red bus’ tour up the ‘Going to the Sun’ road, just fantastic sights. We also did a few side hikes, notably to Avalanche Lake, and Virginia Falls. Below are a few pictures.
After much research Emily & Randy picked up their sheep today and they arrived back at the farm. They have been working diligently to clean out the barn and make the run-in shed the primary location for the sheep. Emily stopped mowing the grass around the barn back in July and it has grown quite lush, albeit with lots of chiggers as Patty can attest. They used some of the spare gates and hog panels to make the enclosure and to make a clever, lightweight, easy to move shelter from a hog panel, chain, and tarp.
The sheep are to be used for their wool.
For over a month now Emily has had to feed/water and manage two flocks of hens. The older hens in the big chicken tractor, and the young hens that weren’t laying yet. The reason they were separate was two fold; we didn’t want the older hens picking on the smaller new ones, and the young hens are on a chick starter (high protein) feed as opposed to the lower protein level of the layer feed.
Once the hens had gone up into the tractor for the night we moved them close to the big chicken tractor and proceeded to grab, tag, and put them into the big tractor, one at a time, all 70 of them. The picture below depicts the typical process; Patty grabbed them, Randy tagged them, and me & Emily walked them over to the big chicken tractor.
We hosted Jim’s 60th birthday party at the farm. Jim & Syd took care of all the heavy lifting, tent, catering, tables, chairs, food, etc. I warmed up the pool to a nice 90 degrees!
And of course you must have the happy birthday song!