Cider Bend-November

 November seemed pretty calm and uneventful on the farm. We had really mild weather for this late in the season, which I'm totally not complaining about.

Random Stuff:

I go out to feed right when the sun is coming up now, so I get to see lots of pretty sunrises. 

The herd of deer that come through each night seemed extra playful out in the field on this particular day. 

I processed the rest of the pumpkins we picked from our garden. My freezer is full of pumpkin puree for the year. I tried a lot of new pumpkin recipes, and we loved them all. 

Pumkin puree!

Pumpkin alfredo; I was skeptical, but this was so good!

Pumpkin butter; we had this on French toast and a few other things.

Pumpkin soup; Mark and I loved this one!

We had the most beautiful sunset! The whole sky looked like fire!

Sometimes I look outside and think my barn looks extra pretty. I always feel so grateful that I get to have all the animals that I do, and that they have such a great place to live.

The trumpet swans are back for the winter!

I did this adorable donkey puzzle!

Goats:

I didn't take a lot of animal pictures this month, but here are the few that I do have.

Roxie and Dolly

Ginger

Donkeys:

They have water, but when I bring a bucket of it in to fill their outside water trough, they must think it's special water, because they stop me and drink the whole bucketful! 😆

Clover is such a gem! When I walk around the barn doing chores, this is what she does. How can I not stop to pet that sweet face!

She is the cutest little thing EVER!

Cows:

I couldn't find the cows in the pasture, so I tried to sneak up on them in the shelter.

Look how cute Ace's nose is when he drinks. I love how it goes up and down.

Opal takes her breakfast very seriously. 😄

Attention starved!

Chickens:

The chickens love when I clean out the fridge!

They also love when we restock the hay in the barn and I scoop up all the hay scraps under the pallets for them.

Cats:

Floof is a huge menace, but we sure love him! 😆

This is what it's like to scrapbook with him around. I put trash in, he takes trash out. 😅

I told my kids that it didn't matter if they weren't here to help us decorate the tree. Floof is gladly stepping in to fill the role.

This has nothing to do with the farm animals, but I wanted my grand kitty, Bean, to have a place on my blog too. 

Stormy is doing great! She is actually starting out the winter the best I've ever seen her look!

I've been trying to get Stormy comfortable coming inside the barn for the longest time. I want her to know that when the temperatures drop dangerously low in the winter, she has a warm place she can go. This is such great progress! She doesn't come in far, and she doesn't stay in for long, but she is at least coming inside finally! Baby steps!

Her buddy Cheddar follows me all around the inside of the barn, so I think watching him has helped her a lot. I feel like if we get any of those crazy -20* nights, she might let me pick her up and bring her inside.

Flora:

We got to babysit a cute rabbit for a week this month. Flora was so fun to have in the barn. I want a rabbit, but Mark thinks they're creepy. 😂

Flora loved Tillie and Fern!

That's it for November. Not too much going on, which is really nice sometimes.

November Adventures

The Fall Creek Beast 

At the beginning of October Ashlee asked if I wanted to run the Fall Creek Beast. I was in no shape to run a hard 50K, but it doesn't take much to talk me into stuff, so of course I said yes! 😆 Four weeks isn't very long to train for a race that's almost 33 miles, and over 6500 ft of vert, but I pushed hard in the time we had to prepare. I've never DNFed a race and I wasn't planning to start with this one. 

The race was so hard, and so fun! It earned its name as a beast for sure! There were 4 of us IFTR ladies running it, and we did pretty dang good!

Ashley-Tricia-Jodi-Ashlee

I had a goal to stay with Ashley and Ashlee for the first 10 miles of the race. We had run this section in training and there was plenty of bear poop, so I didn't want to be by myself in the dark. We all stayed together for the majority of the of the race, which ended up being so fun!

 We had to climb Prospector's Peak in the last few miles of the race. It was BRUTAL! They don't call it the Beast for nothing!

Looking back down Prospector's when I was close to the top.

Ashlee and Ashley heading back down Prospector's with tutus flying. 🙌

1st, 2nd, and 3rd females!

I worked hard to earn that medal, and I'm pretty proud of it!

Cress Creek Area

Ashlee and I ran the Cress Creek area for a little shake out a couple days after the Beast.

Bigelow's X2 & Little Kellys

Joyce and I had a little 'catch up' run up Bigelow's twice and down Little Kellys.

Heart Loop & Biting Goat

I got a bad cold after the Beast, so this was a 10 mile cough fest for me. We have to run mostly in the dark now. We had a pretty sunset for 4 miles, and then we were in the dark for 6 miles. We saw a touch of the northern lights as we were finishing up our run, so that was cool.

Good Enough to Old Tom to Ella's Peak

Ashlee, Becky, and I met a couple of the Blackfoot ladies for a hard run in Pocatello. We did two peaks in 14 miles with almost 5000 ft of vert. It kicked my butt! I'm still getting over my cold, so that didn't help. I loved these new trails though! We started at the Good Enough campground and climbed to the top of Old Tom. That was a dozy of a climb! From there we headed up a peak we didn't know the name of, so we named it Ella, after Ashlee's cute pup. 😁

At the top of Old Tom! We about blew away. 😅
Christina-Wendy-Becky-Tricia-Ashlee

Looking back at Old Tom.

Climbing Ella's Peak.

We made it! This was all of our first time up this one.

Gnarly Climb to Cranky Cowboy to Little Kellys

Mark and I did a 10 miler up in Kellys.

Cute baby cow!

Palisades

A big group of us ran Palisades. The majority of the group did 15 miles, but Mark, Tonya, and I just did 11. I had to be back for a scrapbook thing. On our way back we had two close moose encounters. I rounded a corner and there was one right in front of us on the trail. It didn't have a lot of options on where to go. It flattened it's ears and put it's hackles up. I untriggered my bear spray and we backed up to give it space. She worked her way past us through some bushes and all was well. A couple miles later I ran RIGHT past one. Mark was behind me and Tonya and we heard him go, "Um...Tricia!" There was a moose on the side hill right beside me and I just went right on by without even seeing it. Good thing it was a nice one!

The lower lake.

Tonya-Tricia-Mark

Here's our moose friend after it went up the hill a little ways.

Meadow Creek Loop

Ashlee, Becky, Jodi, and I did the Meadow Creek loop with an Old Meadow detour to give us 14 miles. We had a gorgeous sunrise.

Ashlee-Becky-Jodi-Tricia

Pretty sky!

Ririe Roads

I did a couple runs this month through the good old farm roads of Ririe. 

Bigelow's X3

On Thanksgiving morning, Ashlee, Becky, and I climbed Bigelow's three times. We definitely earned our Thanksgiving dinners!

Ashlee-Tricia-Becky

Black Canyon-Chicken Peak-Big Burns

Ashlee and I did a long, snowy run up Black Canyon and down Big Burns, with a detour up Chicken Peak. I had never been up Chicken Peak before, and I loved it! This was a 16 miler with lots of climbing. It's my longest since the Beast at the beginning of the month.

The sky looked amazing at the start.

A soft pretty sunrise.

A Teton view from the top of Chicken Peak.

The trail was snowy and beautiful.

It was a great month of running!