IDAHO TRIP

Last week Dave and I went to Idaho. The board that Dave is on, (Producer's Livestock), met in Sun Valley for a meeting. Then we toured a ranch in the area that belongs to one of the board members.  I had no idea there was so much back country in that area.  The mountains seemed endless.  Unfortunately it was very smokey due to all the fires in Idaho and all of the West.  

I really liked the cute old cabin they live in. They only summer up there due to the incredible amount of snow they get. 

We tried to see a band of sheep coming down this canyon. Unfortunately our timing didn't work out.

We drove around some of the range land where they run cattle and sheep.

Next we headed down to the Jerome area where we toured a really large dairy.  It was very interesting.

This is the barn that has the cows that are about ready to calve.  We saw several calves born just while standing there.  

Dairy cows are different than our beef cows. They don't seem to have much of a mothering instinct.  This is good since the babies are almost immediately taken away and put in a separate barn. 

Guess who enjoyed the calf barn?  I think I could have stayed there much longer.

We got to see the milk barn.  These milkers really hustled.

I found the process quite fascinating.

This cow had to peak around the corner to see what we were doing.  The cows just marched into there place, stood still and got milked.  I am sure they liked the relief it gave them. They have gigantic udders.

The milk is piped into huge tanks where it is then loaded into trucks and shipped out.  I think they said they ship about 200,000 pounds of milk every day.  Holy Buckets! 
There are three barns that duplicate the one we toured.  
This dairy was kept so clean.  It was quite impressive.

Next it was on to a nice dinner at beautiful restaurant with a view of the Snake River.  They didn't seem to mind that we all smelled like a dairy.

Nothing like a view of the Snake River Canyon while enjoying a great meal with great people.

The next morning we hung out at the Jerome auction. 

After Dave's meeting and group tours, we decided to take a little side trek of our own and drove to Stanley ID.

The smoke was pretty bad, so seeing the Sawtooth Mountains was kind of hard.  But it was still an amazing site and a beautiful area.

We did some white water rafting.  It was 43 degrees when we started out that morning.  Brr, but not much stops us from having a little fun when we get the chance.

That was great fun although the water was low and there wasn't much in the way of rapids.  I am ready for more next time.

We went to Redfish Lake.  It was gorgeous and the weather had warmed up nicely.

We rented a little boat so we could tour around the lake.  Dave has always wanted a boat and assured me he knew how to drive it..

What a beautiful lake with incredible mountains.

We even tried kayaking. 

What a wonderful trip.