Palisades Hike Near The Blue Bus

 

Brandon and I hiked the Palisades Trail on Saturday, which is along the Kentucky River, not far from where our blue bus lives.  The online trail guide said this was a heavily trafficked trail, so we were glad for the rainy weather as we knew it would keep sensible folks at home.  We didn't see a single other hiker until the end of the hike and we were back to the parking lot.    

The fall color was just beginning to show, and the trail was nice and wide and clearly marked.  All this hiking we've been doing is making me a trail connoisseur.  This trail had some steep climbs, and because of the rain the rocks were slick, so we were glad we had our hiking sticks.  

Say cheese! 

One of the neatest things about this trail was all the sinkholes.  In places the earth would just gap open, and we could see the exposed rock. 

The upper trail goes very near the top of the rock cliffs near the river.  We could see the forested slopes, the interstate bridge, the old road bridge, and the campground near the base of the cliffs.  

Purple asters were blooming and feeding the bees.  We saw thousands of little paw paw trees growing in the forest under the tall trees.  Someone is working hard to eradicate the bush honeysuckle from this forest, so the understory was open and we could really see the topography, unlike most forests in this part of the world where the honeysuckle clogs the forest so densely you can't see into it very far.  

The lower trail goes right down to the waters edge, so we could enjoy the cliff lines on the opposite bank, which are full of caves and holes.  It would take some serious rock climbing to explore those cliffs.  

The lower trail near the river goes right through a thick stand of stinging nettle.  Cool. 

After hiking over four miles, we were ready to leave the Palisades Trail and visit our bus property for a picnic lunch.  We don't visit as often as we used to, so our gate and footpath to the bus is overgrown.  I like that it isn't likely to attract visitors.  We found the bus just as we left it - shut up tight and no evidence of guest campers.  

The sugar maple trees were starting to glow gold in the sunlight.  We have a lot of bush honeysuckle in our forest.  I like the privacy screen it creates near the road, but it would be nice to cut the bushes around the bus and open up the view a bit.  We talked about tackling that project next fall, but not this year.  

We couldn't go inside the bus because we forgot the key, and we couldn't start a fire in the fire pit because of the rain and wet firewood.  Instead we used our camp stove to heat our lunch, and rested on the bench by the bus and admired our trees and the peaceful sounds of the forest and river.  How cool is it that there's a good hiking trail so close to our bus?!

Overnight on The Trace

We have been enjoying our explorations of the Sheltowee Trace trail.  I'm a fan of geology, and this trail does not disappoint!  

According to the interweb, Sheltowee is pronounced shel-toe-ee.  I always say it wrong, but I've noticed that the folks most familiar to the trail just say "the trace."  The symbol for the trace is a turtle, and the turtle is stenciled on roadways and on little signs nailed to trees all along the trail.  

The trace is mostly in the Daniel Boone National Forest, but parts of it are on private land or on local roadways.  The trail is over three hundred miles long, and we've challenged ourselves to hike the whole thing! 

Not all at one time, which would probably take a month of daily hiking, but doing as much as we can each month until we've hiked it all.  Some folks make it a challenge to hike the whole thing in one calendar year, going on overnight hikes one weekend a month.  This means they have to hike nearly twenty miles a day sometimes!  I don't think we are going to give ourselves a hard deadline, so hopefully we can keep the per day mileage to something more reasonable.  

After all, it's nice to be able to stop and admire the fungi or linger in a pretty spot without worrying that we won't get to camp before dark.   

We've been practicing long hikes for several months now, and this weekend Brandon and I were ready to try our first two-day hike with an over night camp.  We hiked for twelve miles on Saturday, carried everything we needed, slept in a tent on the ground, and hiked for ten miles on Sunday.  And we survived!  My bag weighed twenty-four pounds, and I would feel weightless for the first few steps after taking it off.   

The weather was perfect for hiking, and the forest was vibrant green with splashes of color that promise beautiful fall colors in the days to come.  

Most of the hike was under the forest canopy, but we got one good view of the lake under the fluffy clouds with a picturesque sailboat on the water.  

We saw some cool snakes and so many colorful fungi.  This one is called chicken of the woods, and I'm told it tastes as good a chicken when it's cooked.  

We made it to our chosen campsite with enough daylight to put up our tents and build a fire.  Brandon and I had a brand new tent right out of the package, and had never set it up before, so we were glad not to have to figure it out in the dark.  We sat around the camp fire with our friends and enjoyed some wine and our trail food.  Everything tastes better after a twelve mile hike through the forest.  

We had several groups on horses pass right by our camp site!  Just imagine how many of the comforts of home we could bring hiking if we brought our donkeys to carry our gear.  Why doesn't anyone else think that it is a good idea to bring Rufus?  

Our new tent is very lightweight as it's made mostly of a fine mesh.  The rain fly covers the whole thing and kept us dry during a light rain.  I tossed and turned and ached from all that hiking with a heavy bag.  My butt fat was chilled from sitting on the ground by the fire and I felt the cold radiate from my backside for what felt like hours before I warmed up. My arms would get cold if they were out of the sleeping bag, but when I had them tucked inside I felt wrapped like a mummy!  I really missed my pillows.  Muscle cramps while trapped in a sleeping bag in a small tent are fun too.  I was sure I hadn't slept a wink, but when Brandon told me it was time to get up I couldn't believe the night was over.  Thank goodness.  After a some hot tea and oatmeal, we were packed up and hiking off the soreness.  I was surprised to find that my feet actually felt better on the second day.  

The hike was a wonderful break from real life, and we were so happy to get home to a shower and a long soak in the hot tub.  I'm already looking forward to the next camping adventure.     

The Long Hike with Sack Pie Before Hay Bales

 

Saturday, the day of our longest hike so far, started very early.  I fed the animals and did my morning chores by headlamp, and admired Wendigo's white coat gleaming in the barn light as she scarfed her breakfast and the sky began to lighten as the stars faded.   

Brandon was congratulating us for leaving on time, when we got stopped by a train on the tracks near home.  There's no time for delays when a long and challenging hike is on the schedule!

We arrived on time anyway, and everything about the meet up went according to the plan!  We had our cars situated at the end point, and the six of us were ready to hit the trail before nine in the morning.  My bag weighed fifteen pounds, including over three liters of water and a bottle of coconut water.  

We started our adventure at Laurel Lake, and walked across the Laurel Lake Dam.  

On one side of the dam is the fog covered lake.  There were folks in the water training to scuba dive.  

On the downstream side of the dam, clouds were settled in the deep valley under a blue sky.  This is the side our trail followed - over fourteen miles along the river valleys all the way to Cumberland Falls State Park.  

The trail was challenging, but beautiful.  The last time I hiked this section of the Sheltowee we camped along the way, but this time we wanted to do the whole thing in one day.  

Everyone had smiles in the beginning, despite scrambling over treacherous rocks and tangles of roots in the trail.  

We walked along a short stretch where the rock cliffs are exposed to the sun, and kudzu on the trees creates strange shapes.  

We each found a comfortable rock seat for our lunch break.  Brandon has perfected our trail meal in a bag.  Riced rutabaga cooked with meats and vegetables, and served in a zip lock bag with a plastic spoon.  Somehow this meal has earned it's own trail name, "sack pie."  It is yummier than it sounds!    

This box turtle had brilliant red eyes.  

We could catch glimpses of the river through the trees, and hear the rush of water over boulders.  

Such cool rocks! 

We took a trail detour to visit a water fall and soak our weary feet before making the final trek to Cumberland Falls.  After over fourteen miles of stone and root lined trail, plus multiple sets of stone or wood steps, I didn't even have the energy to take the path to see the falls.  I was pooped!  

I got lots of bites from teeny little ticks, my feet hurt like they were bruised the next day, and my legs were tender to the touch, but that didn't stop us from putting up over a hundred bales of hay on Sunday!  We've been told that the hike we did was just as hard as a twenty-mile section of the Sheltowee in other places, so we should be able to meet the challenge that starts this winter.  We still need to practice two consecutive long hikes.  I can't imagine hiking that hard two days in a row!  

The Shepherd and the Goatherd Go Hiking

I got to spend several weeks out in the woods at night, catching bats.  The photo above is a federally endangered gray bat.  Despite their endangered status, in certain parts of Kentucky and Tennessee where there are lots of caves, we regularly catch gray bats.  In this photo you can see the little metal bracelet that I put on his forearm.  This tag has a number that will be entered into a database, and if anyone in the future finds this bat hanging in a cave, or tangled in their mist-net, they will report the number and we will learn about how far this bat travels.  I think the bats get used the bracelet pretty quick, but I always feel a little guilty about making them wear one.

Despite being very busy with travel for work, things have been happening back at the farm.  We have sheep!  This is our new ewe, named Lamb Chop.  How did we get into the sheep business?  Our experience butchering one of our goats taught us two things.  One, we can definitely butcher an animal and make meat, and two, it would be more worth the effort if the animal was meatier.  Katahdin sheep were recommended by our vet because they shed their wool, usually give birth out on the field with no problems, and aren't prone to parasite problems.   Plus they are little butterballs and make good meat.

This is our ram, Pistol Pete.  He's a big boy already, at only five months old.  He and Lamb Chop are hopefully the foundation of our flock.  

I have always been the driving force behind the goats.  Brandon is tolerant and supportive - building fences and shelter and taking care of them while I'm gone, but he has never thought they were worth the effort if it wasn't for my enjoyment of having them.  The sheep are different.  Brandon has an enthusiasm for these sheep that he never had for the goats.  He made all the arrangement for getting them, subdivided the pasture with electric fencing so he can rotate their grazing, buys and mixes grain to supplement their feed, and checks on them daily.  He's the shepherd and I'm the goatherd.  

We've been hiking every chance we can get.  We're practicing for some serious overnight hikes we plan to take every month starting in January.  Since June, we've hiked approximately 47 miles.  

It's been so nice to have something to do with our friends that is outside, where we can keep our distance from each other.  

Kentucky has so many great hiking trails.  Some of them have pretty stone arches.  

And mushrooms!  Hiking with mushroom hunting enthusiasts means we get to see lots of pretty fungi. 

Chicken of the woods.  

Cauliflower mushroom. 

Trails near swimming holes are perfect during the summer.  Laurel Lake always feels like home to me.

Although hiking in my bathing suit resulted in poison ivy on my leg.  Between the time spent outside for work, hiking in the forests on the weekends, and fighting through the weeds in the garden, my skin has been itchy from bug bites or poison ivy all summer!  

This year was the first zucchini and spaghetti squash harvest since we've been at the farm.  The weeds and the squash vine borers have taken their tole, but not before I was able to get a harvest.  There are green beans on the vine, waiting to be picked.  

We sold some of the goats, including Little Buck.  It was hardest to part with him, but I needed to reduce the herd size and I didn't like making little inbred babies.  Little Buck was purchased by a local man who is starting a herd and was grateful to find a nice buck.  Donnie is now my only buck, and he is with Peaches and Little Buck's daughter, Newnoo, so they can make more kids.  I still have the River Brothers too.  Brandon was amazed that anyone wanted to buy the goats he put on craigslist.  They sold within the day, especially Peaches' little bucklings, that were only two months old.  After making enough money selling the goats to buy his new ram lamb, Brandon was suddenly more enthusiastic about the goats too!  

The goats have been relocated to the new fence down in the woods.  Brandon built them a small shelter.  Five goats is easier for me to manage on walks.  With my set up, the goats stay healthiest if I let them out of their small pasture regularly so they can browse.  

The new goat pasture is full of honeysuckle vines and shrubs, and they are quickly eating every leaf.  When I let them out for their daily walk, they eat my green bean vines.   Doh!