Giant Goose Ranch

Today was our scheduled day to tour the Giant Goose Ranch in Canton, IL. This place is over 800 acres with over 50 lakes. It is managed by Herman Brothers pond management and owned by the Hermans. The largest lake is over 2 and a half miles long, 121 acres 80 feet deep. They would like to put up an equestrian campground with permanent stalls in the future but today we were looking at the trails. Oh my does this property have trails, trails up and down hills, along side lakes, beautiful views, flat areas for a good gallop and tree lined trails that can be ridden 2 or 3 abreast. We decided that we are going to have to bring the horses out first to explore more of the land. Beth took us on the mule but some places horses would have been better.

 This place was named Giant Goose Ranch for a reason, every lake had many many nesting boxes with many couples of wild Canadian Geese pairs. Most of the goslings have now hatched and everywhere we went there were pairs of geese with sometimes 12 or 13 goslings in between the pair.

One Gander got pretty upset with us, his mate and goslings came swimming up for a handout and he didn't like it AT ALL. Who know geese had long pink tongues.

 We were given the 2 hour tour and still didn't see all the property. We drove in to Canton and ate lunch at the Asian buffet. That was delicious and only $7.50 each. We stopped at the Old School Center on the way home to show mom the devastation as she had only seen pictures. It is far worse to see it with ones own eyes. Dan is still waiting for the fire Marshall to finish the investigation so he can be cleared to start the demolition. As soon as we made it back to the farm, Emily and I teased Eliza and Holly and thankfully both mares said emphatically, "no." All the horses on this farm were de-wormed then Holly and her filly were loaded into the trailer with pregnant Prissy and pregnant Indy and Emily hauled them to Middle Grove while I drove to Big R's in Pekin for more beet pulp then Aldi's for groceries. When Emily arrived back here she noticed Eliza's filly was getting too hot so turned the air conditioning on in the barn and brought Eliza and her filly inside. When I arrived she was still hot so both were hosed down with cold water then taken back inside. Thank goodness for air conditioning. It was 91, sunny and humid.
We had to take 2 cars to church tonight, with Joan's family now back from Haiti they fill a van and the rest of us fill a car. Joan is actually back in Haiti trying desperately to get Mackenson and Berlica's adoption paper work done so they can be brought home in time for the wedding. They have been trying to get these children adopted for a long time.