Today was the first 'big' field trip. Mommy took her class up to The Acheron, a hill country sheep station she has been visiting since 1999. I won't go into great detail about the station itself since it was covered in depth in a 2008 blog post. If you are a new reader, or would like to refresh your memory about this station, please go back through the '08 posts and read about them. Some of you will enjoy hearing how the McFaddens are doing. Isla is doing quite well, she is healthy and full of cheer and still maintaining her glorious gardens. Scott seems to have really settled into his position managing the farm quite nicely and his confidence in talking about it has grown. He still has his dad's twinkle in his eye and his ever-ready smile, and has some new business ventures that seem to be coming along nicely. His side business of renting out wool balers has grown, he now has 5 of them and is considering a couple more. He says he will need to get a larger trailer soon if he is to keep delivering and picking them up himself. He is a contract grower for SmartWool and was quite pleased to see that both Mommy and Daddy were wearing SmartWool socks. The other half of his wool is contracted to IceBreaker and New Zealand Merino. He has begun to shift his breed of sheep to a hybrid of his own making by bringing in some sort of ram that Daddy has never heard of. He has been able to make the grade for micron of Merino without the health hassles associated with Merinos on his type of land. Syd is still working the farm. Daddy can remember when he was just a pup, and Scott was first teaching him how to work the yards, now he is taking it easy and making sure all of the young dogs are doing the job right. That's Syd next to me in the top picture, and the next one is me petting Syd in 2008 (we sure have gotten old since then). Scott has what his mother referred to as his 'partner' living with him now! We did not get to meet her and I have forgotten her name, but Isla seemed quite pleased when talking about her... That's about it for updates, I'll leave you with a few more pictures of our visit.
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