A sheep pasture looks different after a full season of rotation and ours definitely looks night and day different, especially with the non-existent rainfall we experienced. As we close out our first season moving sheep through grass this summer, we have been paying closer attention to the plants that show up. Some are harmless. Some are useful indicators of soil pressure. Some are a nuisance. A few deserve quick action because they can affect fleece, forage quality, or animal

Among working on the house and getting our livestock in order this year, we also went hog wild with a garden this spring. I admit, we haven't been the best about weed management, and at times it could have looked prettier, but it definitely gave us an exciting harvest and a lot of learnings for next year! With August wrapping up, now feels like the perfect time to reflect on what worked and didn't work in the garden so we can start dreaming up next year's plans. Colorado's Gr

This month, we are excited to introduce three new faces on the ranch: Bugsy, Midnight, and Astrid. Our new Icelandic sheep! They have spent about a month in quarantine, settling in, getting used to our routines, and giving us time to watch them closely before they meet the rest of the flock. If you follow us on Instagram or if I saw you in person, thank you for the ultimate name suggestions for these cute faces! Adding wool sheep is a new step for us. Our existing flock cons

never thought I'd literally be counting sheep before bed Well, if you are one of the cars that frequently pass our ranch & corral on our county road, you would have seen that we have quite a few new additions to the ranch! We recently invested in a nice flock of sheep. I figured I’d dedicate an entire post to them as they continue to impress me as our first official foray into livestock, other than my horse and chickens. Prepare yourselves for a brain dump on all things sheep

Celebrating the one year anniversary of the ranch! Dear us, You’re getting ready to close on your major ranch renovation. A property that fits your budget, has enough good bones to make it your own, and that you both love after that first tour (despite all the eye sores). You are about to take on the largest, unending to-do list and project of your lives. I know you’re excited for this dream to come true and you are more than capable of making this happen. If I could give som

Three months of updates in a single post Apologies. I really can’t tell you exactly where the time went or what I did with it, but it is suddenly March and I’ve been told I’m overdue for a ranch renovation update. Let’s get started… Renovating while living real life means accepting that progress happens at different speeds. We know exactly where we’re going, but getting there requires juggling a dozen tasks simultaneously rather than checking them off one by one. It’s messy,

We're halfway there, woahhh, livin' on a prayer “Drumroll, please.” I think I’ll save that subtitle until we finish the remaining small details and it is 100% complete. We’ve made enough progress for a SOLID update on the kitchen renovation, so that is what I’m sharing today. Here is where it started: 81 sq ft of kitchen that was very tight and very sticky. It had three layers of peel and stick tile for the floor, grimy cabinets, mice issues, and fake brick. It needed a total

the story of a true mouser This is the story of a small barn cat that showed up at the right time. Dash was born under the front porch with five littermates. There were three tuxedo kittens and three long-haired black cats. We had no idea there were cats living under there when we initially toured the place. We found them the second week after we purchased the farmhouse when pulling into the driveway one day. The whole group was extremely skittish and did not want to be appro

a Facebook marketplace find that needed a village to fix it First of all, I didn’t expect we’d need or buy a tractor in the first three months of owning the Ranch, but we pretty immediately decided “ope” we are definitely going to need one of those. Let’s back up a little, though. My mom’s side of the family takes a bit of pride in tractors, specifically the red ones, due to my Poppy (my grandpa) working on tractors all his life and ensuring we all knew that International Har

three months of raising chickens for the first time Before we even moved into our new house, I decided we should order chickens. Starting a flock has been on my to-do for quite some time. So long, in fact, that the promise to eventually get them was in our wedding vows. So what does one do when they finally have a place for them? Get them! I make a ton of lists. One of the lists that lives on my phone is an “ideal flock” based on all of the research I’ve done. The list I came

a bit of grossness, true grit, and soon to be glory When we got the keys to the house, we knew the first phase of renovation was going to be heavy in cleaning and ripping out the old. This place was covered in grime and splattered stains everywhere. Yep, gross. Below is a walk-through of what the original house looked like and everything we know about it, to date. One thing to note, we are doing the majority of this renovation ourselves or with the help of family & friends. T

how we snapped up a small slice of Colorado and what we plan to do with it The last 6 months have honestly been a blur. I’ve been meaning to keep notes, but as you can imagine things moved quickly and renovation on our house began immediately so that we could make it a bit more livable before we moved in. We like to say we jumped off the deep end. What led us to the plunge? My husband and I have been married 6 years now and having some land has always been a dream of ours. We