Life Transplanet

Today as part of my Leadership Weld County class we learned about the agriculture and natural resources in Weld County.

The day started with a professional impersonator of Warren Monfort, the trailblazer of our community who started the “pen-feeding” of cattle that has now become the norm. He talked about how he got interested in doing it and the millions and millions of dollars that were made in this business. He barely skimmed the surface of the problems that it caused (causes), but it was still quite a fascinating story of determination. We also learned about Greeley’s role in water rights in all of Colorado and what we will need to do to hold all the water in the future (possible reservoir projects on the horizon).

From these two discussions, I put together something that no one really addressed. They talked about the fact that feeding cattle requires a lot of corn and silage and how corn is a very water intensive crop. Then, the next speaker talked about our lack of water on these dryland plains. It seemed rather strange that here we have a species of animal (actually buffaloes roamed freely here for a long time too) that loves to roam around and eat dryland grasses but yet we decided to create at least two problems where there was one perfect solution (no need to water, and the cows would pasture and stay healthier).

After these presentations we went to a dairy farm called Cozy Cow Dairy in Windsor. It was so sweet. You could tell that the woman who gave the presentation really loved her cows. She even painted a mural of them in the tour room! After we saw a milking demonstration we tasted their milk which is a mixture of Holstein and Jersey milk and some cheese curds. They were both excellent!

The next stop was at an oil rig. I have never been to an oil rig before. It was noisy and windy and dirty, and I don’t think I could ever work there, but it was pretty interesting how they do it all. We even had to wear hard hats like real workers!

Me and Jamie at the oil rig

Next up was very close to my heart of course because of my own chickens. We toured Morning Fresh Eggs in Platteville. They are a producer of Eggland’s Best Eggs, if you’ve ever seen those commercials. The factory was very clean at least in the part that we were allowed to see, and they had a lot of reasons why factory farming of eggs is great. I, as you could probably surmise, completely disagree, and this is in fact one of the reasons we got our own backyard hens.

But it was still interesting to see what it would take to raise over 1.6 million chickens indoors…again, what a waste because here is an animal that loves to peck around, play outside, take dust baths and roost at night. Instead we have turned them into nothing more than production units that get to live to 104 weeks (2 years). Reminds me a little of the Matrix. Let me say it again so you can wrap your mind around this: One and a half million chickens…holy cow (or chicken) that’s larger than Denver if that were people! And they said that each person on average eats about 5 eggs a week in both whole egg form or in cakes, ice creams, and other products. That would be about what one happy hen in your backyard could produce for you! Why do we feel like we have to make factories out of everything?! Even the easiest, best solutions turn into problems when we try to force living things into factory mass production systems.

Just check out the sheer number of eggs in this video I took:

We also got to talk with a local farmer about his vegetable farming experience. Overall, the whole day was quite fascinating and probably the most important to learn about in terms of Weld County’s heritage. I was certainly happy to get home to find three healthy speckled and not so standardized eggs in the girls’ nesting box. It helped confirm for me all the reasons we garden and raise chickens and in general utilize our own natural (human) resources as much as possible.

We found some old gift cards that we had totally forgotten about as we were cleaning out some drawers (in anticipation of moving). One was for an icecream shop. We decided to get an ice cream cake (cause they are really good!). The lady at the counter asked us if we wanted anything written on it.

Well….Sure! Since you asked.

Have a Nice Life in Puerto Rico!

Now we just need some people to help us eat it…any takers?

We have been looking at all kinds of property listings and trying to imagine living at them. Its tough because pictures just don’t do anything justice. When I find a listing that I know we could afford and try to picture myself moving and living there….I get some mixed feelings. The only way I can describe it is that this is “life”. I am feeling life. I am not used to that.

I have spent most of my working life (10yrs) in front of a computer screen. I think it has screwed with my emotions/perceptions quite a bit. I’ve lived a comfortable life. When I think about moving to Puerto Rico I have no clue what so ever what it will be like and I am not used to that. Its exciting!

I am used to knowing what the weather will be, how long my drive will take, what my day will consist of, what I will eat for lunch/dinner, what time I’ll go to bed and what time it will all start again the next day. It must be what my dog’s life is like in some ways.

I got some pictures of a property that is for sale, here is one of them:

Sleeping off the side of a cliff scares the living crap out of me when I think about it. LoL It seems that a lot of places are built like this in PR. Something about it seems unsettling in my mind. I want to go inside and jump around to make sure its sturdy! A friend of mine brought this up to me when I sent him the picture. He lives the same life for the most part that I do so maybe we are just fraidy cats?

When we go down to Puerto Rico for this trip, we would also like to get a few things lined up with a Puerto Rican mortgage company. We had looked into Pentagon Federal when we had the offer in on the place in Lares, but they charge even just to fill out the application. Are there any other mortgage companies you might recommend? From reading CA2PR’s blog, it sounds like Banco Popular is not very good to work with even though it is the largest bank on the island. How is Western Bank? Any other mortgage companies that you trust?

This is one thing that makes moving so far away so difficult. We have a lot of connections here including a few friends in the mortgage industry. Their banks are national, but for some reason they don’t extend to Puerto Rico -poo. Anything we should be aware of that is different in the mortgage process? I would like to get preapproved and lined up before we leave from the trip. Another thing to do!! So much to cram into one week! We must keep telling ourselves, this is a property trip, not a vacation, but somehow it’s not sinking in!

A while ago when I was searching the Internet for an image for the post I wrote about the 1950s and 60s in Puerto Rico and the Mad Men style of advertising, I found this really cool old 50’s Puerto Rican Souvenir handkerchief. I could just imagine it belonging to some sophisticated lady back in those days. So I sent the link to Britton and he just blew me off. So I forgot about it. Then at Christmastime, I found this little envelope in the mail. We don’t really exchange gifts too much, so I just thought it was a letter or bill, and so I opened it in front of Britton. It was the hanky! Britton said he had to act like he didn’t care, so I wouldn’t know that he was getting it for me. It made me feel so happy. How something so small could mean so much…

Anyway, I wanted to get it framed so we would have it as wall art. It took us forever to find a frame that would fit it, but finally we found a square frame for it. Last night we put it together. I think it turned out really well and I am excited to hang it in our house in Puerto Rico (when we have one that is)