I know I'm a few days early but after seeing the Academy's graduation on the news and those F-16 Thunderbird's I couldn't resist. I have served three F-16 squadrons as a Munitions Systems Specialist (or Ammo troop for short) at Hill AFB Utah with the title of honor grad and nominated for Airman of the year. There is no more amazing power and beautiful sound than a Fighter jet, whether at idle or full after-burn. I dream of sitting in one again. They are amazingly smaller than a Geo Metro on the inside but much better built :p and have more switches and knobs than a recording studio. Those beasts are so loud that you need ear protection even while at idle. I am fortunate enough to have been in a Black Hawk Helicopter, even a foot ball field sized C-5 plane in one of the photos below. Been up close and personal with a B-52 bomber, F-15 fighters, A-6 intruder tank killers, SR-21 Blackbird, F-4 Phantoms, AWAC spy planes, and so many others. I have built up sidewinder missiles, Cluster bombs, bunker busters, laser guided bombs, trained on Nuclear weapons (never seen one in Utah) and so much firepower that would take me forever to list.
I am a very patriotic man and see every military member, enlistee or family of the military as my brothers and people I will always respect. It truly is a brotherhood and that is why we moved to the Springs. I wish I could still be a service member to this day. I would love to do the work I used to do, preferably as a civilian for the sole reason of being able to stay with family. My career field at the time was sending us to Korea for a year straight and at the time we were serving 6 month rotations in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and many other crazy places even way back then. I hated the idea of coming home to see my son a year older than the last time I saw him. He was one of the main reasons I gave it all up. There just isn't many bomb building jobs in the civilian world and after many construction jobs, I landed here - this time as my next favorite job... A Farmer.
I was one of the few lucky ones that ended up staying state side somehow. I joined just after Desert Storm in the Air Force and served under President Clinton. Diana lived a long time military life with her father that served in the Air Force also way longer than me as a two star general. He was the man in charge of the whole base in Warner Robins Georgia and also served as a Fighter Pilot. My late Grandfather also served in the Air Force and my father is a Vietnam Veteran as a helicopter gunner in the Army. The military life is just in our blood. I hope my son doesn't have to lead this hard life especially in the state our country is in but I will respect what the military can teach him should he decide to serve this great nation. No matter who is in charge or the state of our country, this will always be a great nation created by the people who fight to preserve it. We give our deepest respect to warriors past and present. Never loose the spirit. Once you have served, you never can. It's just in your blood. God bless America and the sacrifices of all citizens past. Only in this country could I have had such an amazing experience at such a young age of 19.
Click the photos below for a larger photo gallery and please watch for the captions at the bottom. Happy Memorial Day ! I don't get to talk about it much so please excuse the short novel. I'm going to leave out the gory details no one likes to talk about anyway. Hard to believe we're both farmers now living a simpler and still hard life but not as hard as serving the country in the most dangerous way.
~Ken~
I was just looking through some old pictures and thought why not share a little bit about our story of how we ended up here in a wild twist of fate. I originally grew up in Denver and worked mostly in the mountains of Conifer, Bailey, and Evergreen as a subcontractor installing telephone lines. Skipping ahead, I then joined the Air Force and worked on a Flight Line of F-16's building bombs and missiles to load on the fighters. (I will save that stuff for a memorial day post) After my military career I decided to take a chance and move to Florida with dreams of living like a beach bum and I did for ten years living in the land of bugs and dripping humidity while working for the county water department. I think we been to almost every beach up the entire west coast of Florida. After a while I really started missing the mountains. I used to camp in Granby for weeks at a time when I was younger and never wanted to leave back to the city. Florida soon started to get old and my job was eating at me everyday having the biggest jerk of a boss where you could never do anything right in his eyes. The only job I have not been appreciated at, by the way.
While working there I started using my G.I. bill to go to school for computer networking. While I really excelled at the courses, making the national deans list for a high GPA , I started to realize I just couldn't have a job being trapped indoors. I've always worked outside. During this period, my favorite band Nine inch Nails... as you can tell with my goofy Durango decked out with NIN emblems :D woo hoo :p was touring and I was traveling all over to see them play at all the close venues. There was a fan club forum called the Spiral for the band and this is how I met my Love. Turns out Diana is a big fan too and we just hit it off through the computer like so many do these days. The only trick was she lived on the other side of the state in Orlando while I was in Tampa. This didn't stop us. It was love at first text lol.. and first sight. For almost a year we would take turns driving 2 hours across the state to spend weekends together. Diana was already an animal person. She worked at Discovery Cove training dolphins and working with all sorts of weird animals.
After hitting every theme park, beach, concerts, clubs, cold springs, horse back rides and you name it ... we did it all, I decided to take her back to my home and show her the mountains. She's always been a flat lander candy butt southern girl that never would cuss.... unless I really ticked her off of course :p It's probably coming when she sees I called her a candy butt :D
It was then after coming back to what felt like home (the mountains) and Diana just loving the massive change of scenery (if you haven't seen Hanging Lake, you have to!) that we started talking about moving away from the jobs we grew to hate and the state that we conquered together leaving nothing more to see. We even hit monster truck rallys and demolition derbys. Plus we really liked the idea of not having to drive so far to see each other all the time so it was time to move in together. There was no way I was going back to Denver. I hated it there. I thought we would go to Colorado Springs where there are so many like minded military people here and I thought I was a shoe in for a job on any of the bases. Big mistake : ( We started in a town home rental close to the Academy and after a year throwing my resume at every job imaginable, I only got two interviews. There is nothing worse that trying to fake wanting to work for a low paying and low excitement job when all you want is to earn a paycheck. One interview was even with the water company in Pueblo doing the exact same thing I did for 7 years in Florida. Needless to say I think there was some good ol boy system at play since the interview was a failure. I really didn't want to move to Pueblo anyhow so looking back now, I'm glad I got shot down. The piercings did come out and tattoos covered for the interviews ; ) I figure I'm keeping them until I'm forced to grow up someday.
After well over 100 applications I finally realized it's just not going to happen. There goes the retirement funds from my county work. Diana and I decided to take a chance and try to create our own job and we found this great foreclosure with 35 acres for the bones of a new start. You see there just isn't any Dolphins to train in Colorado nor is their any need for a missile builder .... unless you're al qaeda. Now things are getting better this year on the farm but I have to admit we have shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears. Most of which was Diana beating me like an orphaned Ginger when I've had my straight jacket moments. (A lot of those moments are caused by the ridiculous winds here)
We had to sell Diana's "Bat mobile" sports car as I called it because that thing wouldn't even move in an inch of snow. It's stuck in the mud at her dads house in Georgia in the photos. I gotta admit it was such a cool car you just want to lick the steering wheel and drive with your head out the sunroof. It's a Infinity G35 and it cost me a $240 speeding ticket because you just didn't feel like it was moving that fast. I stopped licking the steering wheel. Trading the bat mobile in I think was the first time I seen Diana cry.... Well almost. She still has a Nissan but it's a chicken yellow Exterra with a six banger.
We faced way more problems which I rather not think about while building our "Lil" farm but it always still feels worth it even with the long hours and small profit. And whoa you should see the look on family's face when you say your going to be a farmer :O We do understand that it's far from easy or everyone would be doing it. I just don't have it in me to give up to easily and I know we will do great in time. Turd herding isn't the most glamorous job and our gag reflexes have improved over time :p There is no way I could do it all without my hunny. She's keeping her farm hand strong.
The next photo you can see our Ferret trying to escape back to Florida up the screen door. The house really needed a lot of work and if you have been here you already know that nice wood floor in the pictures still isn't done and I don't know when it will ever get done. I'm always building nice animal houses while us animals get splinters in out feet. We totally gutted it, painted everything inside and out. There is still a lot to finish it but It's no rush since we got the main stuff done good enough for now. Something breaks pretty much everyday here.
We finally put the house work aside and started on the farm work. In the photo below you can see a shed that is cut in half. We had to do that to get it home with two trips in our tiny trailer. (Don't tell.. we moved it at night so nobody was on the road out here in danger. lmao) That was one heavy ball busting.. slam them up in your throat shed. This was a Craigs List purchase with the purpose of being our very first chicken coop. We started with just 17 chickens which have since multiplied to at least 100 different birds now. The black Australorp in the photo was our smallest Australorp and she was such a great bird. We named her Lil Bit and something was wrong with her. She stayed small and never laid a single egg in about a year. One day she just dropped dead in the yard and shortly after we decided to name the farm after her and it also went with our business plan to do a little bit of everything so not to put all our eggs in one basket (no pun intended). If one thing fails (like our newbie bad luck getting goats pregnant) we would have other products to fall back on.
We actually thought about Alpacas in the beginning but we just couldn't figure out how you can make any money with them. The final pictures are of the barn when it was a work in progress and the two baby goats were our very first goats. We really need to make some of the start up cost back and if we plan everything out just right next year should be an even better year.
Wow... I didn't know I was so long winded... I'm going to stop typing now and make sure I didn't rub the letters off the keys :p
~Ken~
You have to check out the first video. Millie's son and daughter were both sleeping with their eyes open an hour after they were born. It scared us at first and they haven't done it since. I wish we recorded more, it was hilarious.
The second video is our turkeys being lil "turkeys." They are the most friendly birds and are always following me around and in my business. It really sucks because your dinner isn't supposed to like you. They are the best. We're hoping to keep a breeding pair of the midget whites that we have.
The third video is the baby ducks going outside to meet their mom and dad for the first time. (the white Pekings) I never would have guessed it would have gone this way. The adults were scared to death of the babies for the longest time as if they had fangs or something. Bunch of woos-es.
The fourth video is the baby ducks being shown the kiddie pool and one flailing around like a turtle on its back. They eventually graduated to the big kid pond and made friends with mom and dad.
~Ken~
Ever see a chicken come out to greet you only to get rolled like a flipped car across the ground and have to run to catch it? Me either. Not until today. While after two years I just thought we were getting used to the winds but they are starting to take their toll and I now know why nobody lives out here. The problem is the winds in one day cause days of work to repair everything. Ever see those picture perfect farms that are so lush and green and so peaceful looking? Where are these places? Sign me up.
We have been battling tumbleweeds for the last four months. They been around so long they have become a part of me. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have to clear a mile of electric fencing from them at least once a week. The problem is they bend the METAL wires somehow either stretching them, making them touch together or just snap. You can see my boy helping me clear the fence today in the wind. Why in the wind? It’s easier than trying to trailer them off to the end of the property or burn them. Trust me... I done both. The wind helps carry them away until the wind decides to blow back the other direction the next day. The wind also sand blasts your face. While great for your complexion it does a number on the eyeballs needing Q-tips to get the mud balls out of the corner of your eyes. We have a lot of fence to fix tomorrow just so our goats can roam. We’re making a Christmas tree out of them next year, since they bring such love to the farm.
You can see in some of the pictures below of the damage from just today. The photos don’t show it all. The sand drifts are like a day at the beach. After living 10 years in Florida I just wish we had the ocean to go with them. The great thing about sand drifts and no tractor means our shovels will get more use. Unlike the snow drifts the sand takes some back ache to go away.
The wind is blowing this evening just as hard as it was this morning and I hear snow is now coming after it was just 80 degrees in our house last night. The test of patience is going to come here in a half hour when I try to board up the windows on the goat barn in the wind on a ladder; I took the windows off yesterday for the goats. Still need to finish the barn windows. Speaking of barns… I been so busy making room for goat babies that I haven’t had time to work on our chicken coop eye sore in the picture below. Being naive we thought to our selves what a great idea to make an extension to the coop with a green house style roof for the winter. The chickens love it. However plastic don’t last more than 3 months out here. If the wind doesn’t get it, the dryness will crack it much like me on the verge of needing a straight jacket. Not even an easy up top tarp like you see at the farmers markets lasts. We have been patching this Doctor Seus looking thing every wind storm just trying to buy time until we can build it better.
All I have to say about the propane tank below that must weigh thousands of pounds is this isn’t the first time we have to call the propane company to come back and straighten it. In an effort to make this paragraph look bigger, get used to thrift stores. Nice clothes have a short life span in this line of work. Forget about personal hygiene. There is no time for it and you just end up covered in poo anyway. It’s been so long since I have had a haircut I’m starting to look like a 30 year old Justin Bieber with a beard.
We finally got a good deal on some hay bales shown in the pictures. Not thinking of just how heavy they are (1,000lbs) I didn’t give much thought of how to un roll them. As I stood there picking away at one of them this morning to feed the goats with a trash bag trying to rip out of my hands as I watch and worry about the rocking carport flipping over on me, I ended up looking like Santa clause covered in hay with a bag of food over my shoulders. I’m going to someday hook a chain to them and flip them up right so I can unroll them.
The multiple power outages have been wonderful while you’re trying to incubate chickens. Not to mention there is no water for the animals when you’re on a well. That’s all I have to say about that.
Being a farm of two people with the weekend help of our teenager it gets real hard when you spend all your time trying to keep a clean farm, plus fix and prepare for weather. This leaves little time for actually selling product. Now I’m starting to see why people stray from farming. Please don’t get mad at the farmers markets for the higher prices. Small farms really have to work hard at it and I could go on with more of the daily troubles but I might end up writing a book. While I just had to rant today, something tomorrow will make me forget the bad and love what were doing. I always have to remember that there is always someone out there with harder times than many of us and we are just grateful to have what we have. We work our butts off for it sometimes breaking our butts. Thank you for reading my dissertation of the day.
Please Note... no chickens were harmed in the photo with the red flipped over coop. I was going to incorporate that into some new duck housing and none of them use it. After I piece it back together I guess I need mobile home tie down straps too. Good thing I figured that out before it became a house.
~Ken~
I have been an Ammo troop in the Military and I have ran telephone trenches in the mountains for 7 years and I gotta say that Farming by far is soooooo hard. Their is no way I could do it without Diana and not loose my mind. She's in Alabama for the week and it's not until these moments that you realize just how much your partner does. I'm so beaten up and tired. I gotta admit that I probably would have quit by now if i had to do it all alone. My son is so lucky He's spending spring break with his mom in Denver or he would be just as bruised as me. Diana is one tough girl. P.s. on a whole other note... Timeline sucks.. I want our Facebook back .
Oh yeah... and in typical guy fashion I almost killed her plants despite the list she left for me to remind me. If you are seeing this Diana. They lived so let me live
So frustrating. We have had to make so many returns on so many things and most of which were made in China. The most recent and the one that is causing a dirty vocabulary to rise out past my dental work has been our kitchen sink. The last auction we went too we found a counter top with a really nice and tall faucet attached to it. Originally this was planned to be our chicken processing table. A month later our kitchen faucet was leaking all over so we decided to clean up and pull off that "new" faucet. After gaining a stiff neck and a tight squeeze I got it all hooked up with nice new steel hoses as well. The faucet had NO water pressure. I seen dogs pee more than what was coming out of it even with the aerator off.
Weeks later we then went to Home Depot and bought a $30 faucet and went through the whole process again. It worked great.............. for a month. Now it too is leaking in weird places that can't be fixed. So now were going to try and return it and just pay for a more expensive one, only to go through the whole process again. We have had one new thing bought from stores one after another... All being the cheapest ones and breaking. It really isn't worth the headache or time. It makes me mad that this stuff has been what makes it into our stores.
I've been looking at the new changes that Facebook is going to make us all change over to and it compelled me to write a lil about it. I don’t mean to blow my own horn but I went to school for two years to study computer networking in the time Vista was being designed. In that time I was getting almost straight A’s getting scholarship offers, a member of a fraternity, and even offered a trip to China for a technology expo. I built my first computer… piece by piece and learned how to hack satellite before even going to school. I learned how to write hexadecimal code only to get excited when the satellite company knocked it out so I could do it again. (shhh. Don’t tell :p) I really didn’t care to watch it but just wanted to see if I could do it. A divorce side tracked me and I haven’t been back to school since. I think I just realized I couldn’t be trapped in a cubicle. I just wanted to share that I’m not computer illiterate and wonder if I’m just getting old (I’m still too young for that) So I guess I just haven’t kept up with changing technology.
Now I do appreciate what social networking has done to connect people and also promote a business. And I also don’t know how we did it before with no internet. The world is now at your finger tips educating more people than ever. One thing I remember in school was a teacher saying “If you build a site that people can’t understand in five minutes, it’s not going to be very successful.” Facebook is doing this with the changeover to timeline. Being a farmer, I don’t have the time to figure out new product changes. Many busy people out there don’t have the time either.
I am guilty of not trying long enough or hard enough and know I’m going to have to. I have tried Twitter a few times trying to make sense of that mess and in a matter of minute’s frustration sets in and I easily give up. Diana is the Twitter master so she works with that while I just blog on our website. I see this problem with some of the older farmers we meet as well. If it was just easier to make sense out of all the different social media sites, it could greatly increase their business. I’m sure I will figure it all out in time if I ever get more inside time but by then I’m sure more changes are going to happen. Some of the changes are a good thing for us but they just got to realize that they are the college grads and they may have to dumb it down a lil.
~ Ken ~
Over the years I have been noticing my boy has had a slight hunch back that has been getting worse. The boy is only 15 years old and he now measures out at 6 foot 1 inch even with the curve making me look like the little kid. I wanted to put this out there for parents to look for.
In the first photo you can see a slight curve which is mild scoliosis. In the side view picture is the bad curve called Shore-man's Kyphosis. We think this all developed since he grew so crazy fast and even wears bigger boots and clothes than me. He is going to go through surgery in June at the Children's Hospital in Aurora. They have been great to us and have assured us the operating doctor is ranked number 1 in the state.
They are going to have to cut is back open along his spine and put in pins and rods to straighten him out. The pins and rods will always stay in. They also said he shouldn't have any restrictions once he heals and adjusts. He's going to be in the hospital for five days.
I may be overly worried but you cant help that when making these sorts of decisions for your children. He's the best boy and even is on the honor roll and helps out around the farm. Messing with someones spine really makes me nervous and I pray that everything goes perfect and doesn't cause any future problems for my "little" buddy. (I have to look up to talk to the giant) He's only going to be even taller after the surgery. And if you havent guessed, finding pants for the bean stalk is impossible.
~Ken~
We bought this last winter from home depot and I thought I would share an energy saving tip. Instead of blowing that hot air from the dryer outside this thing holds water in the bottom to catch the lint. It does add some humidity to the area but that's not such a bad thing here. It works and we really can feel it adding some extra heat. Can't remember what it cost but I know it was pretty cheap.
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