Today we traveled from Bakersfield, CA to Las Vegas, NV to go home! Throughout the trip we learned a lot about different and similar production systems that we are accustomed to in the Midwest. Overall, we all had a great time meeting and talking with the producers. Everyone we met was so passionate about what they raised and also willing to teach us their operation, which was awesome to see!
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We began our morning in Fresno, California where we grabbed breakfast round nine and hit the road for a 45-minute drive to Stratford, California where we visited Ryan, who raised sheep for grazing on land that also had solar panels. The energy created from the solar panels is sent down to Los Angeles. The sheep were there on pasture way before the solar panels were put in and Ryan bought the farm from his parents in 2009. With California’s very hot and dry weather the panels allow for dripping that creates strips of grass for the sheep to graze. Ryan’s operation had about 2,100 acres of a rotation that was going and the field of panels that we saw today had 457 lambs on 460 ewes. These solar panels were made for a variety of reasons; those being, a good height for workers to make repairs, for mowers to move under them and especially the sheep to do their grazing. Sheep are the only animal “designed” for this height of panel because they can move under it and won’t destroy them comp
Today we traveled from Modesto to Yosemite National Park and arrived at about 10 am. We were able to walk around for a few hours before our tour started at 2 o’clock. Our tour was 2 hours long and we were able to learn how Yosemite was created. Where Yosemite is located, once used to be an ocean. The North American plate then shifted over top of the Pacific plate and that is when magma rose to form a volcanic range. Now, when those went dormant they eroded to the west and the rock became exposed and solidified. Some fun facts: -1855 was the first tour given -1958 was the first rock climb at a Yosemite and it took 40 days to climb to the top -the fastest rock climb to the top was 1 hour and 58 min long -one of the waterfalls is 2,425 ft tall which is the tallest in North America -the highest point is over 7,500 ft above sea level After our tour ended at 4 we headed to Fresno to stay at our next hotel.