blog posts

SIX BABY DUCKS
We’ve just added six new ducklings to our ranch. Hatched Tuesday, August 4th, they arrived here this morning. Cute as always, read more about them and why we decided to get a

Winter at the Ranch
It’s winter now and along with it brings a welcome slower pace, a time to relax and reflect as we begin to plan the upcoming year. The photo above shows our one
2025-A Banner Year
The 2025 garden was a great success. We’re calling it a “Banner” year! We grew some new things (sunchokes) and had great harvests from some of the old stand-bys such as onions

Top Tips
I got a question recently from someone planning to start a high elevation garden, wondering about some tips I might offer. That, along with a presentation I did for a local group

2024 :: NEW SQUASH-PUMPKIN PATCH
Now that we have our freeze dryer to preserve more veggies, we’ve decided we can grow more food. We’ve made some changes to our garden plans to accommodate more of the things

Christmas 2024
It’s Christmastime, and here at the Bratten’s “Good News Ranch” we have a couple of new traditions we are enjoying to celebrate the good news of the coming of the Christ. First

JUST A QUICKIE
Squash Patch: New for 2024 As it may be obvious, this website hasn’t been updated in quite some time. I tend to do updates in the fall & winter, when I have
MAY IN THE ROCKIES
It’s the first part of May here in the Rockies, the weather is warming up, and it seems like time to get out planting! Note the key words, “seems like.” It sure

REMINISCING
We used to have a couple of blogs prior to this website, which were hosted on Blogger. One, “Golden Gaits Garden”, was started at our former home in Wellington (2009) when we

HAMMING IT UP
To say we’ve been “hamming it up” doesn’t mean we’ve just been goofy. We’ve been hamming on the radio, adding to our collection of ham radio equipment, adding to our collection of