Trail and Barbed Wire, Rafting Our Creek Through The Tunnel - Thursday

in ecoTrain3 years ago

Yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far, into the mid 80s, which meant the boys were outside throwing water balloons at each other pretty early in the day. After getting them fed and while they threw balloons I went out and cut back the trail to their bmx area. It gets overgrown so quickly each year and needs regular maintenance to keep is passable. Once I got it all cut back I had the boys toss the cuts into the sheep pen.

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Seriously our apple tree is LOADED with blossoms. This is the best I have seen it in years and I hope they translate to apples. The freeze dryer will be filled with them this Fall if so.

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In the bmx area there was old barbed wire that I have been meaning to roll up for years and never had the real reason to, until now. With the boys playing in the area now I did not want them getting tangled in it or getting hurt by it. It took a while to pull all the stays which I had to untwist by hand. I then was able to roll all the sections up and get them in a pile out of the way.

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J started off clearing the pine needles from the old pavement to make his path easier. Then both boys set to digging in the hillside to move dirt for a little jump.

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The hillside they are digging in is "outburst flood gravels" left from the glacial Lake Missoula flood that created much of this part of the state.

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We waited until @stryeyz got home from work before grabbing the already inflated raft and cameras and heading to the tunnel.
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I went up the tunnel with J first and we rode the creek through the tunnel. It was a bit tricky as I didn't have the raft maximum inflated so my butt drug on the bottom a bit so it wasn't super fast, but it was mellow enough the boys were able to do it by themselves.

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After J and I went @stryeyz and R went. The tunnel ride from the other end is is the slower part. The faster part is near the output of the tunnel where the water depth is a little higher right before spilling over the fall.

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With all of us having tried it we knew the boys would be fine so let them hike up the creek to ride it by themselves. Both of them love it and I have ZERO idea why we never thought of this before. We have lived here 12 years and this is the first time we have done this....

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It's to be 20 degrees cooler today after a storm system moved past this morning leaving a little sprinkling of rain. Luckily it wasn't enough to hurt the blooms on the farm, the problem will be the next couple of nights where we will be back down towards freezing. I have oodles of row covers which will get laid out in the garden to protect all the tiny sprouts that have come up in the last few days but there isn't anything I can do for the trees other than hope.

Today since it will be cold I am not going to plant the tomato starts until Sunday when it will be warmer, I'm going to get the row covers out today and prep them, work with the boys in their bmx area, maybe pull some more of the barbed wire from the hillside, and I am going to get the video hacked together from the tunnel yesterday.


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That looks like a lot of fun, riding thro the tunnel. Glad the boys can find so much fun stuff to do outside. :))

The farm has a wealth of variety that if they can't find anything to keep them occupied outside then something is wrong.

I am still astounded we never thought to float the tunnel in the prior years.