Rancho Text

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Since about the time we got married (1977) my wife, Jean, and I have talked about buying a piece of land somewhere. We kept looking for the perfect deal: forest, creek, isolated but accessible, 2 cents/acre; you know the dream. We almost did it a couple of times but the road was too bad, or the price was too high, or something.
We moved to Colorado from Maryland. Sara was away at college. Joshua had 2 more years of high school so we lived in a house that wasn't so far out of town that there was no school. We had the idea that we might move farther out when Josh graduated. In 1999, Jean started looking at rural properties. We both worked in Colorado Springs so that was the fixed point in our search. We couldn't really look to the west of town. For one thing, the mountain property is way too expensive for us. It's also intensely subdivided and covenented - the horsey set isn't fond of "real" livestock. For another thing, I would dread the idea of driving up and down Ute Pass in the winter.
Whether we had good reasons or not, we looked to the east., out on the prairie. We found 280 acres just outside of Calhan, about 30 miles from the Springs. From a recreational perspective, our place is pretty pathetic. It's shaped like a tetris piece with one tree near the middle (if there is a middle). From a goat's point of view, however, it couldn't be better. There are coyotes occasionally but they're not really a threat except with small kids. There are no lions or bears (as there would be in the mountains). There is plenty of grass and lots of variety. They'd probably prefer some rocky escarpments to "bound" on but all in all, it's a good goat ranch.

So, ok, we bought the ranch. My first worry was water. If we had to go too deep, we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything else. We sweated where to put the well (i.e., house): not too close to the road, not so far that it would be prohibitive to bring in electricity. I hired a "witch" to tell me where, in the general vicinity we picked, we should drill. Now, it's not that I really believe this old coot could actually feel (as he claimed) the water through a copper pipe as he drove around in a Dodge pickup. On the other hand, he was a retired well digger who had seen productive holes and dry holes all over El Paso County for the last 50 years. He had to have a better idea of where to drill than I did, no matter what he was holding in his hand! I drilled where he told me to and got water at 250 feet. That was a relief.

After the well was in place, everything else more or less happened like clockwork. There was a bit of unpleasantness with liens and lawyers but let's not go into that now. By June-2000, we had a barn, a house (well, a trailer really but quite nice), a deck, electricity, propane, septic system, and water. Jean was out of town attending school. Joshua was working nights so I hardly saw him. I took the dogs and moved in.

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