Female Pheasant Seeking Male Companionship

Sometime around Thanksgiving we started noticing a large bird hanging around our birdfeeders. About the size of a small chicken, the bird would show up nearly every morning. We checked out our bird guides and realized what we had was a female ring-necked pheasant. She was an absolutely beautiful bird with iridescent bronze colored feathers. As the days passed she has become more and more friendly finally getting to the point where she would “come” when called. She never walks anywhere but rather races from point to point or explodes in flight. We named her Phoebe for no reason other than the name seemed to go with “pheasant”.


We can’t imagine where she came from though I heard a rumor that a pair of pheasants was seen last fall on Verdemont Road. If that was Phoebe she must have become separated from her mate or he died. As the crow flies, Verdemont is only a couple of miles from our place.

It can be several days after a snow before she shows up. I suspect she has trouble with the deep snow until it is firm enough for her to walk on top of. We’ve never really figured out where she is when she’s not here but I’ll bet she lives in the heavy brush along the creek. It is nearly perfect pheasant habitat.

As the days get longer and we get closer to spring I wonder if she will stay here or start looking for a new mate. I’m not sure how to find a male pheasant for her. Maybe I could put a listing on Craig’s List – female pheasant seeking male companionship. That should bring the crazies out of the woodwork.

From Fleur Creek Farm

Stories in the Snow

One of my favorite past times in winter is to take an early morning walk just after fresh snow has fallen. This week I headed out early following my old route west towards Trails End Ranch and the National Forest. It wasn’t long before I found myself following a path that others had used in the last hour or so.

The first set of tracks was from my old friend, Bob. Actually Bob is a bobcat that I rarely see in person. His tracks came out from our stallion’s pasture along South Brush Creek. I chuckled at the fact that he was using my old trail to get around – it’s always easier to walk in someone else’s tracks in the snow. He continued on for at least a quarter of a mile until he drifted off the trail back into the woods. Bobcat tracks always seem so purposeful, not like Wiley’s.

Shortly after Bob left my trail, I picked up Wiley’s trail. As you might imagine, Wiley is a coyote. Wiley is definitely the alpha male in the area judging from the size of his footprints and his numerous markings. In the course of 2 miles, he marked at least 4 or 5 spots, some on the trail and some just off. As we continued along, his tracks would veer off the trail as if he was checking on something, then re-join the trail heading west.

After about three quarters of a mile, Wiley was joined by another coyote, then another. Near the end of my walk there was an interesting sight in the snow. It was obvious that another coyote had joined the group. This coyote must have been very submissive because I could see where the animal had laid down in the snow in front of Wiley. There was some scuffling and then they all continued to the irrigation culvert to see if the rabbit who lives in there was home.

It was time for me to head home and get to work. But before I left I took one more look at the stories in the snow and reminded myself just how amazing this all was.

From Fleur Creek Farm.

The Old Homesteaders Cabin

The old homesteader’s cabin on this place was originally built by Jacob Miller sometime around 1880. As a part of the “proving up” process under his homesteader’s deed, he was required to improve his 160 acres of land. In addition to the cabin, Jacob filed on two water rights, fenced his homestead and probably raised cattle and hay. I don’t know how long he lived here but he eventually sold to a member of the early Berry clan.

From what we have learned the original cabin was attached to a small barn. The barn is long gone but the cabin still stands on the banks of South Brush Creek. Other than occasional recreational use, I don’t think the cabin had any human inhabitants until we moved in full time in May of 2001. It was our most primitive home yet, all 270 square feet of it. Initially it lacked power and running water. We added a simple electric power source (actually an electric cord running under the door) in the fall of 2001 and a well in the summer of 2002 though water still has to be hauled in buckets as no actual plumbing exists in the cabin.

The cabin was our home for 2 ½ years while Don built our new small home. Once we moved into the house, the cabin became a workshop allowing Don the space and comfort to spend the next six years building bathroom and kitchen cabinets and all the trim necessary to turn our house into a home.

Then this fall the old cabin was pressed into a new service as we transformed its simple space into a place to ship the products from my brother-in-law’s company (Geomangear). Suddenly we were getting weekly UPS inventory shipments and sending out daily packages to customers around the world. Jacob Miller could not have imagined the future his little cabin would have. In fact I couldn’t have imagined it either. Our wonderful little cabin has sheltered us, provided a workspace and now gives us a place to make a living.

From Fleur Creek Farm

New Fangled Electric Fence

This year in an effort to better manage the grazing in our pasture and to prevent grazing in the wetlands, we installed a new style of electrified fencing along the west side of our meadow. Up to now we have tried to use a temporary style of electric fencing only to have it torn up multiple times per week by passing elk. We decided it was time to come up with a better design that would stand up to elk activity, keep the cattle where they belonged, be safe for our horses, and wouldn’t require constant repair.


After studying many different examples and talking with a variety of people who probably knew a lot more than we did about fencing (just to name one subject), we designed a fence that has high visibility which helps the elk and horses see it, is flexible so that if the elk do hit it the fence posts allow the fence to bend down to the ground and bounce back up, and was simple enough to build by the two of us without the use of heavy equipment. The last factor was really important since all the materials had to be hand carried over 1500 feet across boggy ground. Anyone who has built standard wire fencing with heavy wooden and steel fence posts can appreciate this aspect.


The fencing system is based on the use of Powerflex posts which are a polypropylene (70%) and wood (30%) composite. These innovative posts have a greater strength, lighter weight and superior flexibility compared with steel posts or inexpensive plastic step-in posts.

The electrical charge is carried by a poly-braid rope that is a safe alternative to hi-tensile wire. This rope has a breaking strength of over 1300 pounds. Because it is composed of two strands of ¼” polyester rope, one black and one white, it has a high visibility factor no matter what the background (green pasture or snow) which is important for wildlife and horses. We use a solar charger to apply the electrical charge.

We built the fence with the posts spaced approximately 30 feet apart and two wires spaced at 18” and 30” from the ground. This spacing allows deer and elk to easily jump the fence reducing the potential for entanglement that often occurs with 4 and 5 wire steel fencing. In addition, three gate openings were included in the fence in locations of recurring wildlife movement. We leave these openings be left open during the non-grazing season to allow for ease of movement by deer and elk.

We have completed our first grazing season and I must admit I am pleased with how well the new fence functioned. It did everything we needed it to do – kept the cattle out of the wetlands, kept the elk from flattening posts and dragging the wires off in all directions, and kept the horses from killing themselves on a new fence line. The next test will be the winter season that can drag a fence down to the ground. I’ll report back in the spring on how that went.

We were very fortunate to receive some funding to design and construct the fence so thanks to the Colorado Natural Areas Program of the Colorado State Parks and the Grazing Land Conservation Initiative for financial assistance.

From Fleur Creek Farm

Self Un-employed

You may have noticed that my weekly blogs have turned into occasional blogs. Or maybe you didn’t. As is the history of rural Colorado we in the bust part of a boom and bust cycle. These cycles have occurred pretty much since whites began inhabiting the West and while they often are based in real estate, they affect many other parts of the economy. What started as a downward slide of the general economy has finally taken most us with it.

We have been limping along since September 2008 by cutting back, dipping into meager saving, and did I mention, cutting back. Such is the nature of those of us who make our living by someone else spending money. Since we left our government jobs in 1993, we have tried to make a living on our own. By staying flexible and constantly looking for opportunities, we have been able to get by. Some years have been pretty good and some not so good but overall we have made enough to survive in this rural and distant location.

The last year has been the most difficult we have faced since leaving “real jobs” with a regular paycheck, employer paid health insurance, retirement plans, and normal working hours. To make a living we usually have three or four different endeavors going at once hoping that the diversity would balance the income stream out some. One by one they have slowed down and then disappeared. At the end of September we had finally earned our way to 50% of the poverty level.

Just when we were starting to wonder if we had finally reached the end of this trail another opportunity arrived. A small business owned by a family member is actually flourishing and they needed help handling the order shipping. It is a bit of a challenge from this rural location but we are making it work and we are even able to hire a neighbor to help out. We put in ten hours a day, seven days a week. Who knows what the future holds for this small business but for now we are thankful for the opportunity.

People always wonder how we make a living in paradise. When asked, I tell them we are self un-employed. It seems the best description of our situation.

From Fleur Creek Farm

Firewood

One of our most difficult chores of the year is firewood. Since we heat AND cook with wood we need to have at least four cords to be ready for the winter. The task gets harder each year as we age and the wood seems to get heavier.

We have a pretty decent system of firewood collection and try to get started in May with the goal to done by the end of August. It never works out that way but that’s the plan. We hitch our small Kubota tractor to a 4’ by 6’ wagon and head to the woods. We cut trees that are either already down on the ground or standing dead ones that aren’t home to cavity nesting birds. Don blocks up the trees and I load the wagon with the blocks. Most of our firewood cutting is done on our property but we do occasionally cut wood on an adjoining neighbor’ property. He gets his property cleaned up and we get wood.

Once home with our load, Don splits it and I stack it in the woodshed. Don used to split all our wood by hand but reality finally took hold last year and we bought a gas-powered log splitter. Wow, why didn’t we do that a long time ago?

It takes about four wagon loads to make a cord of wood. Our plan is to cut a wagon load each week from May through August; sixteen weeks will yield four cords. This year we found ourselves in September and with only about half of the wood we needed. We made a concerted effort to cut twice per week and in a fit of desperation we ordered some wood from a local woodsman. There is nothing worse than going into winter without a full woodshed.

Now, as I look out, the woodshed is full and there is even a big stack outside covered with a tarp.

Our main firewood is aspen. We like aspen because it burns clean without crudding up the chimney as quickly as the pine does. As it is we clean the chimney once during the winter and then at the end of the season. Because we use a wood cookstove as our heat and cooking source, cleaning is a bit of a chore. There are numerous baffles and other nooks where fly ash and creosote like to hide. Cleaning the chimney and stove is a two hour process from start to finish. And of course the stove has to be cool when we clean it so we usually do it first thing in the morning.

Each year we also cut a cord or so of oak to supplement the aspen. Oak is by far the best firewood and we use it for overnight or on baking day. It produces a long, steady heat that is perfect when you need to control the oven temperature closely. In Colorado, the only source of oak is our native Gambel oak. More of a large, shrubby bush than a tree, none the less, it makes great firewood and rarely needs splitting (a plus).

We have used a wood cookstove as our sole source of cooking for more than sixteen years. It actually didn’t take long to figure out how best to use it and we can now handle about any cooking chore. In fact Don bakes all our breads using a sourdough starter he created more than a decade ago. More about that in another blog issue.

As the wood goes through the cookstove it produces a lot of ash. We keep two metal covered cans for ash collection. We use the ash in the gardens, on the pastures and spread it in the forest to recycle the nutrients back to the earth.


It’s mid-October and I think we are now ready.


From Fleur Creek Farm

Remembering My Dad

My father would have been 95 this coming Tuesday but sadly I lost him more than 12 years ago. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of him and how I came to this life and this place because of him.

His Morse family ancestors arrived in America from England in 1635. They settled in the New England area and many remain there to this day. My grandfather loved rural settings and moved his family to a farm where his children were involved in the everyday chores of the place. I’m not sure my father was all that fond of farm life in general but there is no question that he loved the outdoors and spent much of his time hunting, fishing and exploring. Of the five sons, he was probably the one most connected to the natural world.

I am always amazed at the accomplishments of my father and his four brothers considering their rather simple upbringing. Though suffering through a case of tuberculosis while he was in high school, he went on to earn is PhD in microbiology and spent his professional career studying the disease that plagued him as a child. His older brother became a chemical engineer and worked on the Manhattan Project; another brother became a bio-geneticist and part of a Nobel prize winning team; another brother became a pharmacist; and the youngest brother became a science teacher.

My father entered the military and fought in World War II. Because of his medical specialty, in 1953 he was assigned to the Army medical research center in Denver. He couldn’t have been more pleased knowing that the wonders of Colorado were awaiting him. After many years away from the woods and the streams he began to hunt and fish again and when I was old enough, he included me in his outdoor trips.

In the mid-60s my family bought a little piece of land on the Blue River in Summit County and built a small cabin. It became our vacation retreat and hunting camp long before Colorado became the vacation spot and retirement location for millions.

I could tell that my dad was happy when we purchased our first rural property in 1978. I think his favorite part of the place was the chicken coop – he remembered the turkeys that his family had raised so long ago. At our second place he helped us build the livestock sheds. His health was failing when we arrived at our third place (and our first in the Valley). He was only able to visit a couple of times but I could sense that he felt we had achieved something he had always wanted – a permanent home in the high country.

He passed away in 1997 while living in Colorado Springs. We spread his ashes on Pikes Peak where my mom could view the Peak through her living room window. Today, I see Pikes Peak from our meadow and I can often feel his presence looking down on our home – our fourth rural home. He never saw this place in person, or at least I don’t think he did.

Our little place on South Brush Creek was homesteaded in 1880 by Jacob Miller. In researching our property’s past I learned that Jacob died on the exact day my father was born. Maybe my father had been here before.

From Fleur Creek Farm