July 2

Hello everyone. You all must be having a busy catch-up-day. Yesterday I went with the farm help group on a ranch tour, a 750 cow beef operation with 12,000 deeded acres plus about 25,000 USFS acres they use in the summer. This is a 4th generation family ranch, the great grandfather homesteaded and had a stagecoach stop, store, post office, and stable with feed for the teams. They are about 2 1/2 hours from here so we made a day of it complete with barbecue and potluck. The rancher's wife raises a flock of sheep for wool and also has about 15 llamas. She dyes the wool, does hand spinning, has a yarn/weaving shop on the ranch, makes saddle pads and vests from felt from her own wool, weaves, makes rugs and all sorts of interesting things. Soon she will be spending a week at her local county fair doing demonstrations and taking some orders. Her yard is a collection of very hardy plants that survive -20 winters and frost any night of the year. She gave up on vegetable gardening. I think she needs a greenhouse. Anyhow, it was an interesting day and now I need to be catching up with weeds and irrigating the garden. Bye for now, have a great day and count your blessings.