Wibaux, Montana (State #37)-4B Cottonwood Farm (Cousin Trudy's)

MAY 15-21, 2016

This will be one of those weeks that the kids (nor I) will ever forget. We all had such a wonderful time and got a little taste of life on the farm.

We spent the week with my cousin Trudy who I had not seen in like 25 years and her husband and children (whom I had never met). My Mom and Aunt Judy also flew in! So it was a little bit of a family reunion.

My cousin and her family moved to a 100-year-old farmhouse in Montana about 5 years ago and have been building their homestead since. While not too far from the highway, she is 30+ minutes from the nearest grocery store and over 60 miles from a Wal-Mart!

Those of you who have lived on a farm know that even when there are visitors, the chores of farm life continue on. We were truly excited by this and looked at it as a wonderful learning opportunity.  And I am so happy and proud of how eagerly Jacob and Jordan took part in this.  They both worked so hard!

(Greg driving the tractor)

So first on my kids' agenda was meeting the animals of the farm. They have horses, a donkey, goats, rabbits, chickens, sheep, pigs, dogs and cats. AND all the babies on the farm had just been born! 

Here are Cotton and Tuffy, who were hands down the favorite of my kids. 

They were both recently born and had to be bottle fed. You know Jacob and Jordan jumped at the chance to do this!

Greg got a chance too!

While not a farm animal, the area had an abundance of ring-necked pheasants. They are so pretty! Unfortunately, they like to fly in front of cars and one of them made of few cosmetic changes to the front of our truck. :(

(A nest of pheasant eggs found in the field)

Trudy is SO patient and truly embraced the opportunity to teach Jacob and Jordan (and me) so much. And I really have to share this list of what we learned because it easily demonstrates what we love about learning on the road. It's hands on and not something they will forget so quickly. I'm sure I have missed something but here we go!

What we learned:

• how to use a hoe and the purpose of spreading the “caviar” across the garden

• how tilling is done (by observation)
• how to install trellis into the garden for peas and cucumbers

• how to make rows in the garden

• how to choose which plants to put where. Here, Trudy is giving us a lesson on crop rotation and companion planting

• how to plant the seeds in the ground with the “one for you, one for the birds and one for the ants” idea. We planted peas, spinach, lettuce, and cucumbers

• the importance of mulching to retain water
• how to build a three tiered strawberry planter

• proper use and storage of gardening tools
• what a volunteer plant is
• how yummy FRESH green onions, milk and eggs taste right out of the garden and henhouse

(Jacob after his twentieth glass of milk; 

Just kidding but he REALLY liked it)

• how to care for and feed the chickens
• proper handling of a chicken

• how to check the nests for eggs and then collect them in a basket
• the purpose of a wooden egg in the nests
• the effects of washing and refrigeration on eggs
• how an incubator works and began the process of incubating some eggs
• how to feed the rabbits, horses, goats, sheep, donkey and pigs

• reviewed how to saddle a horse
• the process of tagging a kid's ears
• how to make chips from tortillas
• how to make tortillas from scratch and roll them out

Even with all of that, there was still plenty of time to play games, watch Cousin E at his baseball games,

 swim in the hot tub,

ride horses,

snuggle with Grandma,

watch Cousin O train her horse,

and more!

We also spent one evening away from the farm at Montana's largest state park, Makoshika State Park (Ma-KO'-shi-ka) in Glendive. The name is Lakota and means “badlands”. Over 10 species of dinosaurs have been found here, including Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Our first stop was the Cap Rock Trail. It was a fairly short at 0.5 miles but had so much to look at. It gets its name from the many formations with cap rocks.

There is also a really cool natural bridge formation.

The next hike was on the one-mile Kinney Coulee Trail. There were so many beautiful and fun things to look at around each corner.

It felt as though our time here just flew by!  We were so sad to be leaving.  But the morning before we headed out, we found a little surprise on our front door.  There were a dozen FRESH eggs to take with us, crayons and two coloring books made by Trudy with some fun personal touches!

We all look forward to when we return!  :)

Medora, North Dakota (State #36)-Medora Campground

MAY 13-15, 2016

We finally made it to North Dakota! But our time here was short so we had to pack in the fun rather quickly.

(Painted Canyon near sunset as we drove in)

Both days here would be spent in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The first day we drove from our campsite at Medora Campground a little more than an hour away to the North Unit of the park. The park ranger said it was the most beautiful side and he was right!  (Sadly the pictures never do it enough justice because you just can't see all the different colors in the formations)

 We first stopped at River Bend Overlook and had lunch.

Then checked out the Cannonball Concretions. These were formed when minerals from groundwater cemented together sand grains from a long ago river. Pretty cool, eh?

Then we started off on our hike on the Caprock Coulee Trail. For those wondering (as I was) what a coulee is, it means “a deep ravine”. We saw many beautiful vistas and hiked through several different terrain areas. We started hiking through grassy areas, then across the ridgelines,

and then through a bushy area where we found these funny looking pimple leaves (that's what we called them).

AND THEN.... DUN DUN DUUUN... We came upon a bison while down in a valley. We walked a little closer to the bison to see where he may go and decide if we could continue on the path. What we didn't notice as we were watching the bison ahead, was that four more bison came up behind us and then blocked our way to retreat on the path that we had entered the valley on. Since it was a valley, giving them plenty of room was a little hard to do. Our best choice was to climb up the thick brush covering the walls of the valley and that is what we did.

We made it up high enough and began our next task which was trying to navigate our way back to the trail. That would turn out to be difficult as well but eventually we made it close enough to sneak behind the bison and jump back onto the trail. Phew! 

(The bison finally turned the other direction so that we could get on that trail

 that heads off into the woods to the left)

I'm not sure how we made it through all that brush without a snake bite or becoming tick infested but we did.

The next day we checked out some of the North Unit and then the Painted Canyon Area. Along the roads of the North Unit we saw wild horses,

huge prairie dog towns

and a bison right at the road's edge. It's not so scary from the car! Haha

Then we did a short hike along the Wind Canyon Trail with an awesome view of the Little Missouri River.

At the Painted Canyon area, we went on the Painted Canyon Nature Trail. We were short on time to get back and check out of the campground on time so we moved fast. This is a moderate 0.9 mile trail loop. The first half is non-stop steps down from the rim. So can you guess what the second half is?? That's right, continual steps back up to the rim! Surprisingly, we completed this 45-minute trail in 22 minutes!

We made it back to the campground and pulled out right on time to our next stop just across the border in Wibaux, Montana.