Spend the first day in the new house moving in the kitchen and cleaning everything.

Now that six months to a year of getting used to a new house starts. We legally own the place, but is doesn't belong to us yet. We need to make friends with this new house and learn the lay of the land.

I have to get back to packing now. Maybe offline for a few days. We are getting satellite Internet. See you then with some new photos.

Moving blows.

We closed on the property today!

It's exciting but also anticlimactic in a way. We have been searching for this place for over two years now. Kelly thinks she and her dad have looked at about 125 horse properties in Colorado. They would track down the good, the bad and the really ugly while I was at work then I would come see the cream of the crop.

Now what do we do? We got really good at looking. We were aces at reading the MLS listings and weeding out the bad seeds right away. Learned about A1 and large animal zoning. We had looking figured out.

Feels almost like the day after we got married. Everything was leading up to that one day. Then the next day comes and you have to keep on going.

We are going to have a GREAT time.

Here is a picture of the place. That's our Grandma and our friend Ian from a showing a few weeks ago.

Every human being needs some kind of activity that they do just to do. Not something they get paid for, or do for their spouse, or do because they feel like they have to do it. Something that is fun.

Some people play golf, others go shopping, a lot of us get drunk. My friend Eric likes to shoot clay discs with a gun.

We all see guns in movies and on TV and think we know guns. We don't.

Guns don't sound like they do in movies. When guns are used in a crime, witnesses often say they thought the gunfire was kids playing with fireworks. Even shotgun rounds (like the one in the picture) only sound like big ol' firecrackers until you're right next to them.

I went with Eric to give it a try and find out what a real gun feels like. It's a very satisfying when you hit a clay and it explodes in midair. It's shocking and not like you expect and a LOT of fun.

How can you tell you live out in boondocks? When you are talking with your wife and you realize you are going to need MORE THAN ONE shotgun. That's how.

With the black bears and mountain lions in our new area, we realized we will need to have one shotgun in the house and another shotgun in barn.

City Life is for sissies.

--al·pac·a.
A domesticated South American mammal (Lama pacos), related to the llama and having fine, long wool.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
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So...the Missus and I are going to ranch alpacas. Why alpacas you ask? Easy! You do not have to kill them.

Yes, we both love grilling, roasting, baking...heck, just about any way you want cook dead animals, we'll eat them. But these are animals that other people have killed and put under shiny plastic at the market. My wife gets attached in an afternoon to the stray dog that we stick in the backyard until the owner is found, so there is NO WAY we could spend a year or more raising an animal to end up "doing it in."

Is this hypocritical? YOU BETCHA and we are totally okay with that. Besides, how could you whack a face like this?

Here's the barn.





This is our backyard. Kind of small, but we'll get by.

My wife and I are going to become Country Mice.

We're going to:
Grow a crop (to keep our Ag zoning and the smokin' tax breaks that come with).
Have our horses in the backyard.
Wake up to elk and bears wandering across our 10 acre backyard.
Build fences.
Help out with the cattle drives on the working ranch that is our neighbor.
Make friends with the retired brahma bull, with horns as long as my arm, wandering around the other neighbor's yard.

Yeehaw!