We’ve wanted to keep track of all that’s been happening in our lives, and the changes we are making as we move to our Mountain Gaitway. Yes, I know I’ve misspelled “gateway”. The change was prompted by our gaited horses…kind of a play on words.
In July 2014, we vacationed in the area of Guffey, Colorado, and “fell in love” with the area. We’ve been in lots of places with our horses, but we felt this was the most beautiful and the best riding. We just plain liked it there. We began looking at properties for sale, and (Iong story, short…) purchased 40 acres at 9,000 feet elevation. It’s in the subdivision, Pike Trails Ranches, in Guffey, CO. Here’s our property below, and as the caption reads, this trip did touch our souls, and the journey has just begun.
We really feel that God has chosen this place for us, and has led us to it. We don’t exactly know what His purpose is, but we are following His lead to go there, just as Abraham obediently left his home, not knowing what the outcome would be. We are now making plans to sell our current home (outside of Fort Collins), move to the new property, and build a new, much smaller and more modest home. We want to get rid of extra, unnecessary “stuff” and learn to get by with fewer things. As the saying goes, “The best things in life aren’t things.”
Our main goal is to follow Jesus, seek His Kingdom, and serve others along the way. As Tim has stated on our website, Listen To Him, our “Statement of Belief” is merely, We believe everything that Jesus taught and modeled. That sums it up. Every issue we face, we go to the Gospels and see how Jesus would respond. And we want to approach this move in the same way. We want to always remember that we are stewards of the land and the resources He gives us, and to treat them respectfully.
We believe this new place will be a gateway to new things for us, as well as for the people in our future; hence, the name “Mountain Gaitway”. The property will be our new “Golden Gaits Ranch“, the same name as our former GGR. All three horses will be with us, with plenty of room to roam and graze. We’ll have “KK” the cat, and will eventually get some ducks. We’ll have plenty of south-facing space for a vegetable garden, and will grow whatever we can at that elevation.
Tim retires May 31, 2015, so at this point we plan to move to the property around June 1 (+/-), depending on when the house sells and other details. Between now and then, we’ll get a well drilled & septic put in, build a barn, fence the property, and do as much as we can to move the belongings we plan to keep. We need to clean up our current house and get it ready to sell, too. We’ve purchased a nice, used fifth wheel RV to live in while we build, which may be a year or more. It’s a dandy little “tiny house” for us to live in, and quite comfortable.
We’ve moved the RV to the property, and already have electricity and internet. We have already visited frequently, taking the horses and the cat along with us. With the internet connection, Tim is able to work from there, so it makes it easy to stay there for extended weekends. When we are there, it feels like “home”, and we have a hard time wanting to return to Wellington. We sold our ducks, to make it easier to go back and forth without getting someone to feed them (we will get more later). Tim has built a shed for us to keep a few supplies in (it’s behind the trailer in the photo), and the cat gets to sleep in it at night. Last week we had our driveway put in, as well as a pad where we’ll build the barn. We’ve made arrangements to have the barn built, and it will probably be built around the first of the year, to the left of the horses above. The house will be on the hill above the horses. Unless something changes, we’re thinking of a round home, very open, with almost everything in one big living area. Tim will do most of the building himself, and I’ll help as much as I can.
That should bring us up to date in a nutshell. In future posts, I’ll try to fill in some of the background and how God has led us to make this move.
For more info on our Wellington Golden Gaits Ranch and garden, see the Golden Gaits Garden blog.
