THE NEXT CHAPTER

by with No Comment 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!

LEAVING SOON

by with No Comment 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 with No Comment 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!)

HOUSE FOR SALE

by with No Comment 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.

MOVING FORWARD

by with No Comment Mountain GaitwayWellington
Now that the barn is well along the way and we’ll have a place to store things while we work on the new house, we’re putting the Wellington house on the market.    After debating whether to try to sell it ourselves or use a real estate agent, we decided it would likely sell much faster with the marketing an agent will provide, and we won’t have to deal with all the paperwork, etc. 
We interviewed a couple of different agents to get a feel for them, their marketing plans and suggested listing price. It was interesting that both agents we interviewed came very close in their suggested selling price–good confirmation to us that we would price it in a good range for selling. Both agents indicated to us that we should be in a good position to sell quickly. There isn’t much inventory of horse properties like ours, and a lot of demand. Apparently there have been “bidding wars” on some properties like ours, and some have sold recently for more than the listing price. Maybe ours will fit that category! The way things have been going for us, we won’t be surprised at all if it sells right away. We plan to be ready to move by April 15th if everything goes that fast.
Either of these agents would have been a good choice, but we had to choose one. We decided on listing with Tom Hoffner, with C3, in Fort Collins, who presented an extensive marketing plan and other services available through his company. He seems excited to have this listing, and we’ve been happy with his work so far. 
The listing goes live on the MLS on Thursday, the 26th. I’ll pass along that info when it’s online. Yesterday, Tom put up a couple of “Coming Soon” signs out on the roads leading to our house, and already several cars have driven down our lane or stopped by the sign, presumably to write down Tom’s phone number.  One agent stopped by with her client wanting a preview, but we won’t be giving anyone an unfair advantage by allowing them to preview prior to listing.  We expect there will be several showings over the coming weekend, and will stay out of the house much of the time. (Weather permitting, we will go to Guffey.)
We spent the week cleaning and removing clutter in preparation for the photographer, who was here yesterday morning, both inside and out. A “stager” came Wednesday to offer suggestions as to how to set up the home for marketing photos, so we did most of what she suggested, to show off the home, rather than the furniture or decorating style. In addition to the indoor shots, he took several aerial shots from a tall tripod, 50′ up. Clouds were rolling in, and we couldn’t view Longs Peak, but the view should show the possibilities for a better day, and there are several shots including the horses in the pastures. He even got a video showing them running from the back to the front pasture–we look forward to seeing how that turned out.
I have the coming week to do more deep cleaning inside cabinets, drawers, closets, utility room and storage room prior to having people poke around and look inside. I anticipate another long week of cleaning. I figure if everything is super-clean it’ll make a difference. (It would matter to me!) While I’m at it, I’ll begin packing up stuff for storage and putting things aside to sell or donate to Habitat. It’ll be good to get a head start toward getting ready to move. 

2015 BREAK FROM GARDENING

by with No Comment Garden-WellingtonGuffeyWellington

I’ve been getting catalogs and emails from several of the seed companies I’ve ordered from in the past, and it’s sure tempting to take a look! Normally this time of year I’d be spending hours planning my garden and deciding which seed varieties I’d like to try. Not this year! 

Even  before we decided to buy our new property we had decided to take a break from gardening in 2015, our seventh year of gardening. It seemed an appropriate time for both ourselves and our soil to rest and replenish. As it has turned out, yes, the soil is resting, we are resting from gardening projects, but not exactly resting! We are now busy planning for our new home and our move to Guffey this spring.

Today we are at the property, staying in our new (temporary) future home, the RV. Tim’s project for the weekend is to put skirting around the bottom to protect it from freezing. It’s nice to be here, and we sure look forward to being here permanently!

THE ROAD AHEAD

by with No Comment GuffeyWellington
We are now making plans to change our lifestyle by eliminating a great deal of our stuff, eventually selling our home and moving to the mountains.  We are now in contract to purchase a lot near Guffey, Colorado, where we intend to build a small home where we will retire.  We will be Golden Gaits Ranch, Guffey.  (GGRG)

 
We visited the area on a recent vacation, and “fell in love with” the land there.  This “trip” truly did begin a new path for us, as we immediately began to consider moving to this location.  It’s at about 9000 feet, where the summer temperatures never go above 85 degrees.  Wahoo!  We both dislike hot weather.  Considered a “banana belt” by nearby locals, there should be equal to less snow there than what we experience here, and a great deal less wind in addition to the lack of hot temps.
 
In the next weeks and months we will begin working on our timeline of how we’d like to proceed. This is bare land.  We will need electricity (which is already there), a well, septic,  fencing, barn, workshop, garden, probably ducks or chickens, and a home–more or less in that order!  We are purchasing a fifth-wheel that we plan to live in for 1-2 years while we build.  Prior to our actual move there, we will visit on weekends and vacations to both work and relax.  Eventually, we’ll sell our current home and make the move, maybe in 1 1/2 to 2 years.
 
For the home, we plan to build something small and energy efficient.  We want to keep our accumulation and retention of stuff to a bare minimum.  Living in the RV while we build should be quite an experience, and help us get accustomed to that new kind of lifestyle.  We may build a yurt, if we can get county approval; or if not, another circular, open type of structure.  We’re thinking of a small living space with a basement for storage & work space that won’t need to be heated all the time.
 
I’m thinking I may start a new blog to document the process.  If I do that I’ll post the address here.  I don’t want to just talk about the building and moving process, but include some of our thought process and how this all fits in with our desire to “seek first the Kingdom of God”.  That is really our goal in this change, and we really want to follow Jesus and the life God wants for us.

KK + Zadie

by with One Comment CrittersWellington

We’re having lots of fun with Zadie, the new dog.  It’s especially fun watching her get acquainted with the cat, KK.  I think KK is the boss.  She doesn’t let Zadie have a chance to chase her.  She just sits still, while Zadie runs around her and pounces like she’s trying to get KK to play.  KK glares at her, occasionally hisses or swats toward Zadie (no contact). Yesterday at one point, they were laying on the floor

about a foot apart, when KK s-l-o-w-l-y reached her paw out and touched Zadie’s paw.  They will be friends soon, I think.

This morning I got a couple of shots of the two of them together.  Cute pair, eh?  As these photos were taken, KK chased after Zadie a bit…Zadie made a run for it.  Cats rule, I guess.

New Addition

by with No Comment CrittersWellington

 We have a new family member!

Zadie is about 10 months old, an Australian Shepherd-Husky mix.  She weighs in at 35 pounds and is about 19″ tall at the withers.

We had to put down our Lucky dog a little over a month ago due to poor health.  At first we thought we would not get another dog, but as time went on, we just wanted to fill the gap.  We began looking around on Craigslist and the Humane Society websites and finally found our match.

Zadie’s former owner is planning to move to apartment life and just couldn’t keep her.  She brought Zadie here this morning, and Zadie had a great time experiencing lots of room to run!

She got acquainted with the horses, the cat, and even the ducks!  (We will need to
keep her away from the ducks until she
learns to give them a little more respect!)
We think she and KK (the cat) will become good buddies soon.

We look forward to many years of enjoyment together.  She’s not only cute, but a pleasure to have around.