Elk Creek Ranch/Gardens

Seven years ago,when I was 35, I did something, which now, seems not very original, I left my husband of 15 years. It's a big complex story with lots of reasons, but one of the bigest reasons was that I had dreams that I wanted to live, dreams that he didn't want to live with me. 

Sure, for a long time we were living our dreams. We had lived on 360 acres in an old log cabin with out running water, minimal electricity and just a wood stove for heat for 7 years. It was a big old horse ranch that over looked the Continental Divide. That was a big dream for sure when we were first together. We learned to live a simple way. Every day was chop wood and haul water. 

We built greenhouses from lodge pole pine logs and salvaged windows and raised bed gardens from scrap wood we found. We had an out door shower that used hauled and heated up water from the Elk Creek irrigation ditch that ran throughout the property. We caretook the horses and chickens, the dogs and cats, feed the hummingbirds in the summer, cut 15 cords of wood when the snow had melted and we could get the early 80s F150 back on the ranch's  logging roads and v then plowed the snow in the winter. 

 I grew dozen of kinds of heirloom tomatoes on that ranch at 9,200' in the  raised beds of 100% 2 + yr old composted horse manure (from the horses we care took, who ate the hay we grew, cut, raked, put up in the barn and hauled out on sleds in knee deep snow in the winter) and never had a bad insect... In the raised beds, in perfect patchwork squares, I grew every weird kind of lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and mustard green I could fit. Spring peas would grow intertwined on old scalloped edged wire fences along the irrigation ditch and tubers and root vegetables grew in sandy deep dark soil. It has been over 7 years now since I've had a garden of my own, it used to be such a big part of my life... It's going to take some time to get my soil just right... I am hoping to head up to the ranch tomorrow and get a few buckets of Annie's muck pile to add to my new garden's soil... Sort of like a yeast starter for bread that you never let die. I drew out my garden plan on squared grid paper last night with my seed packets all around me... This will be so small in comparison to the scale of what I used to do, but it's a beginning. I am reminded of that Christine Kane song 'She Don't Like Roses' that says : she wants a garden| a little bit of land to put her hands in. 

 And then the next dream was to own  our own house.. So .we bought an old 1875 farmhouse about 30 minutes out of town. When we moved from the ranch, we took down the biggest of our greenhouses and moved it to  back of our new-to-us farmhouse. We even hauled all the soil in our gardens from the ranch because to us, not only was it expensive to replace, but it was like gold. I went completely nuts planning the gardens every winter. Seed catalogs were prized possessions. I spent more money than I should have ordering heirloom seeds, starter plants and organic seed starting mix. Coming from 9,200' at the ranch to about 7,800 at our new place, it meant a longer growing season. Our new green house was bigger. We made it for starting seeds and then as a hot house for growing tomatoes, peppers and things that thrived in the heat. 

But I wasn't just a thirty something backyard gardener, I was also a singer songwriter with one album under my belt and dreams of playing music and seeing the world. After two years of making the farmhouse picture perfect, ready for the magzine shoot (incase they ever came knocking- they never did), I realized that I still had many more dreams to live. Dreams of my own that my husband didn't share. It didn't help that I had been sleeping on the couch for years, either. 

So in the last seven years, since I left our marriage and our beautiful farmhouse, I have made many of my  dreams come true. I lived in Venice, California, bought a surf board and tried to learn to surf. I traveled alone for 2 months  with a mountain dulcimer all over Thailand and Indonesia. I landed in the artistic community of Lyons,CO.  I've played some big and some small stages, made my second album that I am very proud of. Started a community music night at a local venue that helped to fundraise thousands of dollars for things like the Japanese Earthquake/ Tsunami. The Haiti Hurricane, Hurricane Sandy, Colorado Wild Fires and more. I was even presented an e-chievement award from the radio show e Town for my community service. I've also since fallen in love with another mountain man in another mountain town. We have summitted 14,000' mountains, ice climbed frozen water falls, back packed, hiked, backcountry skied deep powder, and white water rafted raging rivers. Still with all that adventure, something's been missing :  My love of a simpler life, watching things grow from seed and being quiet.