Today was a big day for us as guests of Moon Lake Ranch. In the morning before lunch Kelsey gave us a great tour of the “close” parts of the ranch. We saw sheep and sheep babies, mountain goats and mountain goat babies, and reindeer and reindeer babies. We got a great presentation of a new rig for capturing sheep to cut their toenails – a much better solution than the commercial units which turn the sheep on their sides. We also learned about ORF in sheep and the extensive effort that was needed to eradicate it from that herd. We got a great tour of the Wilderness Lodge, but the sun was getting into the top burning hours so we took a break for lunch and naps (Scott) and email and phone (Tom) and useless screen time (Anthony).
After lunch we got a more extensive ride around the ranch with both Beau and Kelsey, and both of their dogs. We went through the buffalo herds again – there are around 2000 buffalo on the ranch. We saw lots of lakes (Moon, and Twin), herds of elk, and learned about ranching and the problems that ranchers have – weather, feed, etc. No one in our group was volunteering to be a ranch manager or hand, though Anthony was still hoping to maybe get a chance to ride a horse.
After returning from our afternoon ride we learned that Beau and Kelsey had some chores for Anthony back at their ranch. Tom volunteered to go along with Anthony in our jeep so he they could drive back together. Worked out fine, though they were gone longer than expected.
The chore was to get a bottle-fed calf to suckle from a cow that was not his mother. This did not go well as neither calf nor cow were cooperating. Then Anthony got his chance and rode a horse for the first time. This went well, though Anthony said that his legs were more tired after the short horse ride than they would have been from a long run.
Scott got tired of waiting for Anthony and Tom to return, so he put burgers on the grill and leftover potatoes and green beans in the microwave. Tom and Anthony returned just as the burgers were finishing up. The weather was great, and Kelsey and Beau did a very good job of both showing us the ranch and explaining the operation. We hope they are in Pottstown in the future so we can show them underwater robotics and such.