We got home yesterday after a torturous day of travel (red eye and 2 lay-overs) to a jungle of our own at our house in Greeley. All of the plants had filled in the front area and the grass was overgrown especially in the backyard where it gets lots of fertilizer in the form of chicken poop. Of course, this “jungle” is nothing compared to the one we just left, but it was kind of nice coming home to Colorado in full summer bloom…made it feel a little bit more inviting than had we come back to negative 20 degree weather.
Colorado Flowers
Colorado Flowers filled to the brim
In comparison, I have to remember we left plant life and vegetation that looked more like this:
Puerto Rico Sea Grapes
Puerto Rico Flamboyan Tree in Bloom
Tall Grass in Backyard in Greeley
Tall Grass in Puerto Rico
Ok, so there’s really no comparison there.
Britton with Machete and a King Palm if I’m not mistaken
We’ve never needed a machete to walk through our backyard in Greeley, but we definitely did in Puerto Rico! 🙂
We also don’t have a beach with a defunct nuclear power plant (Domes Beach) in Greeley -ha
We are feeling bittersweet about being back in Colorado knowing that there is a whole other world in Puerto Rico just waiting for us to get back to it…but we have so many ideas on how to make it an awesome property that we have to work and save a little more money to get down there for good. It’s kind of nice being back to all the comforts of home and this new perspective will help us make our home there even more comfortable. In the mean time, we’ll enjoy the Colorado summer and the miniature jungles that come with it.
We’ve been having fun trying to gather all the fruit on the property. The most obvious to try and collect are the coconuts…but they are also the hardest to get and to open. Here’s a video of Britton versus the coconut (and mango).
The baby chicks aren’t really babies anymore and really don’t belong in a (human) house all day long. So, we’ve been letting them spend most days in the greenhouse when we are at work and then we take them in at night since it can still be down in the high 30s at night
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This weekend, though, it was such a nice day that we decided to let them out in the main yard. We weren’t sure how the big chickens would treat them, and I was (am) a little overprotective of them. They are still only about 5 weeks old. But they are looking little miniature chickens now already! They grow so fast!
The chickens were much more interested in their food than they were in the chicks themselves. It does look as though we have one that will be competing with Henrietta as the top chicken. She is the barred rock (black and white one) in the video. She is still being told who’s the boss of the yard, but it will be interesting to see how that pans out as she gets bigger.
Also, here are a few pictures from around the yard. This weekend we finally got some nice weather -it has been so windy for all of April.
I had to do some work out in Northeastern Colorado. So after I got done with my work, Britton and I were able to hang out in the Sterling, CO area. Sterling is about 100 miles away from Greeley. It is such a strange place. Going there was almost like traveling in a time machine. Everything seemed outdated and like we were revisiting the 80’s. From the music on the radios to the furnishings and style of the hotel, everything around you made you think you’d stepped back in time.
Northeastern Colorado is more like Kansas and Nebraska than what most people would first think of when they think Colorado. For people who are unfamiliar with Colorado, the first thing they think of is skiing and the mountains, which is half our state. The other half is prairie lands. For hundreds of miles it is nothing but sage brush and tumbleweeds. If you drive from Nebraska into Colorado, you wouldn’t even see the mountains in the distance until you hit Greeley -and some of them are 14,000 feet high!
So going out there was quite the experience. Driving is a breeze, if anything it can be too monotonous and boring as there are few cars and few turns. Here are a few pictures (click to enlarge) of our mini-adventure to Sterling and into Northeastern Colorado to give you a feel for the area:
Lots of Windmills -many were functional to water cattle
A long neglected weathered old barn on the other side of the railroad tracks
The biggest variation in topography were a few softly rolling hills
Huge Grain Silos show what most people do out there
All the chemical fertilizers used in the (conventional) farming have caused some unwanted consequences, such as nitrates in the water. This can cause major health problems, especially for what they call “blue babies”.
A huge feedlot outside of Greeley near Kersey
Raising cattle and bison makes a lot of sense out on this dryland prairie because they will eat the dry grasses that nothing else can. However this easy solution -grazing animals on acres of grassland- is turned into a problem when condensed into feedlot operations where all the waste is concentrated. In the olden days, cowboys were used to round up the cattle on these grasslands. Now they have shifted into this feedlot system instead. This requires extensive feed inputs in the form mainly of (subsidized) corn. Corn, unlike this prairie grassland, is highly water intensive. The close proximity of the animals and the fact that they are standing in their waste also causes them to get sick more often. So, they are given prophylactic antibiotics in their feed, which in turn the general public soon eats.
With all the open space out here in Northeastern Colorado and little rainfall, using this water-intensive and condensed system seems completely counter-intuitive. This un-natural, and ultimately unhealthy system only runs on food (corn) subsidies and (cheap) petroleum. If you ask where all the real cowboys have gone, here’s your answer.
Long ribbons of empty road unfold in front of you
Grain prices -wheat, corn, millet
This bumper sticker is reflective of the thoughts on beef in this region: Eat Beef: The West wasn’t won on salad.
A visual reminder that all of this is currently possible only because of fossil fuels. It will be interesting to see how agricultural areas like Northeastern Colorado adapt -or possibly revert back to the tried and true ways- when fuel prices rise
We went out to eat at a place in Sterling called TJ Bummers. They had lots of old antiques including this old tractor out front. It reminded us of the way it must have been out here in the wild west days.
Overall, it was a nice trip. Going to Northeastern Colorado is not generally thought of as a destination in Colorado, but it is a reminder of what a large part of Colorado is all about. Agriculture is a vital part of our Colorado economy and if you ever want to see that up close and personal, this is the area you should visit.
