We Bought a Farm: Hike to the top of the Ridge

From left: Grace, Nate, Abigail, Isaac, and Sidge with JB and myself.

Yesterday, JB wanted to go and check our perimeter fence for downed trees. He filled his backpack with tools and decided that it would be fun if we made an adventure of it and took all the kiddos currently at the house.

Hiking to the top of our property is no small feat. It is very steep in spots and without stopping, it will take you a good solid half hour just to get to the top. I have actually only hiked to the top one time before -- shortly after we purchased the property. Sidge did it one time with our friend Shane. But Isaac and Abigail had never been.

Believe it or not, my brother-in-law, Grant, hiked it with his twin two-year-olds in tow two days earlier. Seriously! That guy is amazing when it comes to the outdoors. He inspired me, and I decided it was time to get my other kids to the top. I wasn't ready to bring Hannah yet, but we did convince Abigail and Isaac to join us as well as cousins Grace and Nate. (You never have to convince Sidge -- he is game for anything with the word "adventure" in the title.)

The good news is, we all made it with no injuries. (Scrubs too! He always joins us on hikes!) The bad news is .... there are a LOT of trees that need to be taken care of. JB managed to get one taken care of, but we are going to need a lot more time to remove some of the other ones that have fallen. In addition, there is one section that has a huge compilation of trees down that have obviously been there for much longer than we have owned the property. 

The perimeter fence is a very huge benefit of our property simply because it allows us to have animals on our land without intense fear of predators. We are so fortunate that we have not lost any animals to coyotes or raccoons, and we'd like to keep it that way. We are also hoping to use the perimeter fence to keep our animals in as we begin giving our sheep and pigs more of the run of the property. That will mean maintaining the fence. There is a lot of wind in the area we live in, and there will be a lot of downed trees. 

We had such a great time! I am so proud of all the kids for hiking with minimal complaining. I still cannot believe, when walking our land, that we own this property and these are our woods to hike!