On our way to Ron and Marge's

On our way to Ron and Marge's we stopped at a farm that had trout fishing.  It was a really cute set up with an adorable little house used for storage and a little pond fed by a stream.  They raise the trout themselves and you don't need a fishing license to fish there.  My only complaint was that it was over in about 6 seconds!  You get a cane pole with a rather short line and a hook which they bait for you with a piece of corn.  You toss the line in and about 2 seconds later you catch a trout and just yank it in!

It was a nice shady spot right next to their field of cows and the dogs got to come watch!

It was run by a cute little 17 year old girl who unhooked the fish, gutted and cleaned the fish and everything, she was fearless!

More vacation pics

While we were in South Dakota we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial.  They are making a lot of progress on the giant sculpture and it is quite impressive.  We learned that the man who started the sculpture is the same man who did Mount Rushmore.  Unfortunately he died after only completing the head of the sculpture.  His children have now taken over this huge task and they have more modern equipment to move a lot of rock.

This sculpture is so much bigger than Mount Rushmore!  We found out that all of Mount Rushmore would fit inside the head area!

After we watched their informational video and after looking at the sculpture we got to see some Native Americans play some drums and dance.  They were really good and there was some audience participation!!

                                                                                                                                                                 

Fish are in the pond!

I've been working very hard at getting my pond done.  We have had so much rain that I was unable to work on it for a while and dirt was eroding from around the new upper pond.  It was quite frustrating as I couldn't figure out where all this dirt was going, it was as if it dissolved!  We had great weather this weekend so I took it upon myself to work on protecting the dirt from erosion.  I had to dig a lot of dirt and put it around the upper pond, place rocks around it and they spread wood chips in between the cracks.  I also had to pump out the water from all 4 ponds (2 upper and 2 lower) and bail out every last bit of water because of all the mosquito larvae that was swimming around in there! :/  There was a leak in the new liner that had to be repaired and then more rocks had to be placed inside the pond while it filled with water.

To the left is my nephew Phil who really enjoys the pond and has been helping out a lot!!

Here's the work I've been doing on the new upper pond, it was exhausting!

 My family took pity on me and really helped me out today so that I could put my fish in the pond tonight.

In the above picture you have a full view of the old pond on the right with the new addition on the left and the fish floating in ziploc bags.  I float them in bags with their tank water for about 15 minutes until the temperature of their water becomes the same as the temperature of the pond.  We also place some hiding areas in both of the deepest parts of the ponds so they can escape racoons, cats, or birds of prey. 

Tomorrow I plan on replacing part of the liner for the waterfall on the original falls.  A leak developed as a result of an aggressive mole that caused some settling of the rocks.  I kept trying to repair it but it continued to leak so I decided to remove the old liner and redirect the falls.  I will show more pictures of my progress as time goes on.

I appear to be running out of large rocks!  I guess it's time to pay a visit to friends and family in northern MN in order to collect some more for my project!  I will show more pictures later!!  Thanks for reading!

Bison Behavior

While in South Dakota and North Dakota we noticed that Bison like to make wallows.  They rub themselves on the ground exposing the dry earth which helps them in several ways.  It helps them to shed their winter coat, it coats them with dirt that keeps bugs away and it is also soothing for them as the ground is cool.  Bison also rub against trees a great deal to help them remove their shedding winter coat.  We went up  and explored the wallows and some trees that looked very damaged and here is what we found!

 We found wallows of various sizes with lots of hoof prints and even some Bison fluff laying in them

Be also found a lot of different sized hoof prints as well.

There were plenty of trees that were damaged from the Bison rubbing on them, some were even dead!

And here's the evidence, Bison fuzz!!
We noticed that the Badlands of North Dakota are quite different than the Badlands of South Dakota!  The South Dakota Badlands are quite desolate looking, and the hills (if that's what you want to call them) look like they should be on an alien planet!

We visited part of Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota where they have Wild Horses!

They were so beautiful and majestic looking and some had adorable little colts with them!  There are two other areas of the park that are not connected that I would love to go visit some day. 

Some other sights to see

We went to a Petrified Forest in South Dakota but I have to admit that it looked more like a lot of tree trunks placed along a winding path for you to notice.  They weren't all placed there, there were actually some large fallen trees that were completely petrified and quite impressive!  It was a lovely day, sunny and very windy with a cool breeze and a beautiful forest path to walk through, it was quite nice really.  They also had a very nice rock shop with lots of beautiful specimens for sale.

We also visited a place called Bear Country which is like a zoo but you drive your car through it to observe the wildlife.  There were tons of bears, at least 40 of them and I have to admit I've always been afraid of bears especially while camping (Bear-anoia)!  They didn't look as vicious as I expected though.  We saw lots of animals in the zoo.

 Above is an arctic fox

 Big horned sheep

 Mountain goats

 And of course the bears!  The dogs did not care for any of these animals and barked hysterically!  We realized that we can't take them camping say in the Boundary Waters in MN as they would likely make good bear food.  Tune in tomorrow for more pictures!

Wildlife

Here are some more pictures of my vacation to South Dakota.  If you've never had a chance to visit this State, I highly recommend it!  In Custer State Park they have a Wildlife Loop you can drive where you will get a chance to see all sorts of animals.  There are plenty of Prairie Dog towns, Bison, Antelope, Elk, and they even have Wild Burro that are very friendly!  They come right up to your car and stick their head in the window for some treats!

Here are some pictures of the Bison. Female Bison hang out in big herds with their young and the males are generally solitary until it gets closer to breeding season.  Usually at the end of June or beginning of July males start to gather up a harem for breeding season which is during July/August.  Here are some of the female Bison with their adorable young calves.

 The above picture appears to be one of last years calves with one of this years calves.  Below is a picture of some rather fearless Antelope.                            

 There is a small herd of wild Burro in the park as well.  This cute dark colored one is a baby and the mother is in the photo below.

       They were all about the same size but had very different coats than a horse.  This one had longer scraggly fur and there was even one with a wavy coat about the same length.  They were all so cute and very hungry!! 

In a rather secluded part of the park we saw a small herd of Elk, they have very impressive antlers!

    Be sure to read my blog tomorrow, I will have more vacation pictures for you!!

Vacation!!!

Hey all!  The next few posts will be about my vacation to South Dakota and North Dakota last week!  I love South Dakota, there are so many things to see out there like Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, Bear Country park, many caves, the Badlands, and Devil's Tower!  Our first stop is to see and feed the Prairie Dogs right before you enter the Badlands, this is one of my favorite things to do!  There is a gift shop and you pay 50 cents for a bag of unsalted peanuts for the prairie dogs.  They are kinda skittish at the beginning of the season so they were a bit hesitant to take the peanuts from my hand.  After a little coaxing though, they come up.

They are so adorable, I wish I could take one home!  I know, you are all thinking about Monkey Pox right now, but the prairie dogs that had Monkey Pox where imported from Africa so it is now illegal to import prairie dogs.  You can purchase them from a breeder if you want one as a pet and they are Monkey Pox free!
Our next stop was Custer State Park.  We camped in the Grace Coolidge campground and found out that there was a resident Bison that lived there and in the adjacent prairie across the creek!  We soon found out that the pathway to the creek was THROUGH our campsite!  He was fearless and he didn't seem to care who was there taking his picture or what!  When we first arrived he was hanging out near the resident camper scratching himself on the dumpster and on signs near their camper.

One morning while I was sleeping (in the van and NOT in the tent, I might add) he startled John when he was making breakfast.  John heard a noise looked to his right and the Bison was approaching fast!  He had very little time to run around to the other side of the picnic table to watch the Bison walk through our campsite and cross the creek!  There was maybe 5 or 6 feet between John and the Bison!  Here I am hiding in the van taking his picture as he walks across the street to walk through our campsite!

 This is our picnic table, he just crossed the creek and stopped to take a drink before continuing on his way.

It was pretty terrifying at first but we soon got used to him and just got out of his way and let him walk through!  John named him Bucky Bison!  It was quite the adventure and not what you usually encounter while camping!