THE NEXT CHAPTER

by DucksGuffeyWellington

The Wellington GGR Garden has now been passed on to its new caretakers. We’ve closed the sale on the house & property there, and the buyers will be taking over. Our address is no longer on Shoofly Lane. It’s being deleted permanently from many databases. We’re now in Guffey for the next chapter! The move is good, but bittersweet.

We enjoyed our little “oasis”, the home, the view, the birds singing, the quiet. Tim put a lot of work into the home and property over the 28 years he was there, and it showed. He had a lot more invested in the property, and a lot more memories than I did, but I have a lot of fond memories as well. (I was there just under seven years.)

We each look back on many good times, but the best part is that we know we are moving on, *TO* something that will be equally as good, or better. We have a lot of work to do, building our new home and garden, and we are excited to get to it.  

The garden will wait until 2016 or 2017, as we have way too much to do for now. However, a dozen ducklings have been ordered, and will arrive the week of June 1. Again, we will get a straight run, will fatten up the drakes 16-20 weeks for dinner, and save the hens as layers. We may keep a drake for breeding purposes, but will decide that later.  This year we are getting a mix of Golden Cascades and White Appleyard.  The Appleyards will be more for eating, and just because white ducklings are so cute. The Golden Cascades will mainly be our layers. 

Congrats to the new buyers, and we wish you well!

WE DID IT!

by Mountain Gaitway

Laurie has a beautiful Down Syndrome great-nephew named Charlie. When Charlie does something that he is especially proud of he smiles from ear-to-ear, raises his hands and proclaims “I did it!”.

<Missing Photo Goes Here>

You can just feel the accomplishment!

Well, we feel like doing “a Charlie”. We moved all our possessions, closed on the house, loaded up the horses and cat, left Wellington for the last time and arrived at our new Golden Gaits Ranch yesterday (Thursday, April 23, 2015).

WE DID IT!
We’re living in the RV and starting to make plans to build the house. There’s SO much to do, but it’s a huge relief to just be here and not have to run back and forth (200 miles each way) anymore. 
Tim still has to finish out working for HP (thru the end of May) and then will be retired. He will be working on finishing the barn, getting people lined up to start excavation on the house, fencing for the horses, etc. 
Laurie is busy unpacking and organizing the RV as efficiently as possible, doing address change stuff, getting new bank account set up, etc. She ordered new ducklings which we will be receiving the 1st week of June. Of course, she will be making plans and starting on the new garden as time permits. 
We are so truly grateful to our Father for the years we had at the place in Wellington. We are also grateful for this new chapter near Guffey, CO. We are looking forward to learning more about His Kingdom, forming relationships with new neighbors and seeing what Father has in mind for us here. We know that this whole thing isn’t about us, it’s about our Father and what He is doing not only in our lives but in the lives of others whose paths we will cross. 

I guess it would be more honest to give God the glory and to say:

 

HE DID IT!

UNHAPPY WITH THE “HAPPY HOUSE” PROCESS

by Mountain Gaitway

In a previous post, we mentioned that we had found a local company to engineer our Happy House using SIPs. Unfortunately, our experience with this company has not been very happy. They are frequently not responsive when we need questions answered or have to supply something to Park County for the permitting process. In addition, Tim has spent a lot of time reviewing their plans and finding mistakes that need to be corrected. We noticed that they can’t seem to keep a secretary to answer the phone. We always get their voice mail when we call. Their office is in storage facility behind a locked gate. You can’t just drop by and expect to find someone there who will open the gate and let you in. The owner/engineer just went thru a divorce and is living at the office in the storage facility. There are just a lot of warning flags about this company that we wish we had paid attention to earlier.

This is all really unfortunate, because we really liked the engineer and thought he had a lot of great ideas. When we tried to express our concerns to him, his response (when he got around to responding) was essentially to blow us off. He would not admit that their quality was inadequate even though Tim has pointed out multiple mistakes that they had to correct on their plans. And he said he had been trying (for several months) to hire an engineer to improve the responsiveness but hasn’t yet done so. And he actually wrote this: “You will feel better when the commotion you are personally going through is resolved.” So, he essentially said that I was the one with the problem. In psycho-babble, I think they refer to this as displacing blame. One more thing, I initially expressed my concerns in an email and suggested that we get together to talk these thru. He responded that he preferred to write instead of actually talk. How’s that for personal customer service?

Another impact of this has been that the Park County planning inspector is now on “high alert” to anything related to this company. He spends extra time going thru their plans and the required on site inspections are done with a very critical eye. This is just making matters more difficult for us.

We have stated that this new adventure is something that God has led us into. And we have been amazed by the way things have all seemed to come together and work out so well. This is our first real negative experience on this journey. It certainly hasn’t shaken our confidence in God’s leading, but it does force us to keep pressing forward by faith and trying to figure out how to graciously deal with challenging relationships and to see what our Father wants us to learn from experiences like this.

We know it will all work out in the end. I guess if the journey was too easy, there wouldn’t be as much of a sense of accomplishment when we get to the end.

BTW, if this post seems to have a bit of different “flavor” to it, it’s because Tim wrote this one 🙂 .

LEAVING SOON

by GuffeyWellington

Soon we will be leaving our Golden Gaits Ranch in Wellington. My next post will probably be from our new GGR in Guffey! We close on the sale of the house April 23. It’s a bittersweet move, as we will be leaving behind all that we’ve done here on the property for the garden and horses and house. Looking around, we’ve done a lot (mostly Tim!). He’s done a lot to make it a well-functioning ranch and garden. However, we look forward to building our new home in Guffey and developing the grounds for the horses, garden and new ducks!  Here’s a shot of the new property as it is at this time, with a rendering of the “Happy House” as it will sit on the knoll, with the barn at the left and the RV (our temporary tiny house) on the right.

GOODBYE, WELLINGTON — HELLO, GUFFEY!

NORTHERN BOBWHITES

by WellingtonWildlife

This past winter we saw quite a few of these Northern Bobwhites here in Wellington.  According to the map of their range, they are a bit out of their territory here, but there has been a covey of about a dozen of them running around our yard, and other neighbors have noticed them, too.  They are funny, fat birds, similar to quail.  It’s amazing how close we (or the horses) can get to them before they scamper or fly away. The past few days, we’ve heard them calling their unique call.  LISTEN HERE AND READ  It’s been fun watching them this year, I will miss them in Guffey!  (But, in Guffey there are lots of Pinon Jays and Mountain Bluebirds!)

HAPPY HOUSE AND BARN

by Mountain Gaitway

Things have been moving right along as we proceed with our move to Guffey.  The main part of the barn is done, and Tim is now working on the extension at the side, which will be our storage area for our furniture while we build the house. The sale of the house on Shoofly continues to move along smoothly. We’ve gotten an extension on the closing date, which will now be April 23. That will give us an extra weekend plus a few days, to finish our storage area and move our stuff.

Storage/Workshop area extension on the West side of the barn.

Tim has been working on the foundation for the storage/workshop extension (and I’ve been helping!).  We passed the interim county inspection on that. Now Tim has some more work to finish the floor before we get the panels for the walls and roof installed.

We are using SIP’s for these (same as for the house), which are being prepared by a local company and will be installed by them. Hopefully, everything will be done in time to move! Installing the SIPs on this area should be great practice prior to building the house.

Last week we spent about 5 days at the property, and enjoyed our time there. Since our phones only work in the RV, near the internet router, we’ve gotten in the habit of using the walkie-talkies for communicating from the barn to the RV. Whatever works!

Here’s a shot of the property with the barn, the RV, and a sketch of the future “Happy House” on its spot at the top of the hill. This was taken pretty much from the east side, looking to the west, maybe WNW.

I’ve been sick with a cold the past 4 days, and now Tim’s got it. We’ve been doing a lot of sitting around not doing much, and with so much to do, it’s kind of hard! Now that I’m better, we’re gonna go into a higher gear and get packing.  We’ll live with minimal stuff and out of boxes until we get things moved. (Good luck with that, Laurie!)

MUH-DEE

by GuffeyMountain Gaitway

Yesterday we went to the NEW Golden Gaits Ranch, and discovered one of the not-so-nice attributes of living in Guffey. During spring melt it is extremely muddy! It had snowed, then warmed up. The weather yesterday was sunny and beautiful, reaching 65 degrees. But, the streets were quite muddy, with lots of puddles and gooshy spots to dodge. Everyone’s cars are a mess. The mud there is quite slippery and sticky. Just one small disadvantage that will take some getting used to.

The main part of the barn is completed, and photos will follow soon.

IN CONTRACT

by Mountain GaitwayWellington

Wahooo!  Just five days after listing the house, we are in contract for the sale. We received two offers, and the one we’ve accepted is a very good one. There are no contingencies, and we were offered a good price. 🙂  The closing date is scheduled for April 17th, so we’ve got lots of work to do!

HOUSE FOR SALE

by Mountain GaitwayWellington
Panoramic shot of our property in Wellington

Our house is on the market! It went “live” on the MLS on Thursday (the 26th), and already we’ve had 8 showings, two of which have been repeats. There is another repeat showing scheduled for today. Our realtor believes we may have a couple of offers by the end of the day. It’s an exciting time; unique and a bit stressful. We aren’t terribly stressed, in that we know God has our best interests in mind and we are in His care. But, with so many things up in the air, we don’t quite know what to think or what to do with ourselves. The house is cleaned, spic & span. I don’t want to mess it up, so we can leave quickly when a call comes for a showing.

The real estate business is a conundrum. There are so many expectations and procedures and rules of engagement, many of which just don’t fit our way of doing things or our values. We prefer personal interactions with the people we’re selling to, rather than the third party protocol with agent interference. In the real estate business, it’s a horrible thing for the homeowner-seller to be present at showings or to get to know the buyer in the process. It’s hard for us not to be able to show the house and share tidbits about why we did what we did, how the surroundings work for us, etc. We’d love to know about the potential buyers and what they’d like to do here. We’d just like to know how God is fitting this together both for us and for them. We’d like them to know how we’ve prepare this place for the next steward of it. Perhaps we will be able to have some personal interaction, but not if left to the real estate world.

There.  I have vented.

GOD IS IN THIS

by GuffeyMountain Gaitway

Again we are in awe as we see God’s hand in this move to Guffey. Clearly He wants us there, and soon. It is amazing to look back and see where we are now in this process which began for us in July, when we weren’t even looking for this change in our lives. When we went on that first vacation to Guffey, it was just a vacation. We had no idea it where it would lead. We still don’t know the plans God has for us there, but He will show us soon enough. We are seeking Him and His Kingdom, and all we want to do is to fit in to it as He desires, like a puzzle piece to complete the picture. It’s not just about us–it’s about how God wants to use us in His Kingdom. And we know that in addition to fulfilling His purpose, we will be satisfied.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)

Time after time we have sailed through details that could have taken much more time than they did. Yesterday, on our way to take some things to the property, we dropped by the Park County Building Department to drop off plans for the extensions Tim will be adding to the barn, along with the application for a permit. We expected to receive the permit in about a week, but within an hour we were out of there with the permit completed and in hand! It was amazing that everyone in there seemed to drop whatever they were doing and took time out to work with us. Dana, Audrey, Lynn and Mike were awesome!

The main part of the barn, which the builders are currently working on, may be done in a week or so, but with bad weather on the horizon, we’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, Tim can order the materials he needs to build the extensions. One extension is merely a roof/lean-to type area where the horses can get out of the weather. The other will be a well-insulated and rodent-proof storage area for our furniture and things we won’t be able to use until the house is built. As soon as the storage area is completed, we’ll be able to move more and more stuff down, and when we make the final move we’ll have a cozy place for all of it. Tim has three weeks of vacation until he leaves HP on May 31. He can use some of this time to build the additions. Additionally, he can work for HP while there and be “Tim the Toolman” in the afternoons.

The house goes on the market tomorrow, and we are confident it will sell quickly. Since the “Coming Soon” sign went up, several cars have driven down the lane slowly, peering at the house, property and view. Our agent has already received many calls and emails requesting information.

We thank God for all He has done to lead us through this process!