A New Vision

Ranch: A very large farm in the western U.S. or Canada, where cows, horses or sheep are kept. (Macmillan dictionary)

Blog: A biographical web log: a type of diary on a website that is changed regularly, to give the latest news. The page usually contains someone’s personal opinions, comments and experiences. (Macmillan dictionary)

Ranchblog: A blog about living on a ranch from someone who has never lived on a ranch in the country and never thought she would even consider it. (My own definition)

Poshranch: A quasi-ranch where the amenities are plenty, but the land is usable for things mentioned in the ranch definition (or similar).

Why ranch? Why blog? Why ranchblog? Never really thought about writing too much before (besides school papers) and I have a lot of thoughts about this big change coming up. I wanted to keep a record of my thoughts and maybe, just maybe, one person might find this interesting. If not, it will be my own personal record.

The thought of moving to a plot of land in Wyoming never occurred to me until recently. Growing up, when we drove through Wyoming on a road trip, my mother used to say ‘Wyoming doesn’t even exist.’ (Check out this link: https://kgab.com/evidence-found-may-prove-wyoming-might-actually-exist-satire). As the least populous state (at least at the time of this writing, and probably will never change), when people think of Wyoming they probably think of vast acres of land, cowboys and cows. Nothing else. No stores, no cars, no people. Just cowboys and animals.

When we met with a real estate agent in Cheyenne, we were thinking to ourselves ‘who wants to live here?’ and ‘doesn’t the wind blow all the time?’ and ‘what’s that smell?’ Actually we weren’t really thinking what’s that smell, that is what we asked ourselves frequently about the town we’re coming from, Longmont, Colorado (manure, weed when the plants are harvested and the wind blows just right) . As far as the other questions, we decided WE wanted to live there and yes the wind DOES blow all the time (more about that later).

Then we found the perfect home on 5.6 acres. Plenty of land for a greenhouse (a MUST in a cold climate), animals and lots of stuff. A spacious walkout basement for the grandparents and plenty of space on the other two levels for kids and hobbies. One son, Brenden, decided the driveway and outbuilding were big enough for a go-kart track and showed me pictures of adult go-karts. Adult go-karts? Is that really a thing? Apparently, yes. But are they safe?? Do they require helmets?? Of course, mom is always thinking about safety. And that remains to be seen.

So….we put an offer on the house and it went under contract. Nervous excitement and bittersweet feelings about what we would be leaving behind were at the forefront of our minds. As of today’s writing, we are just awaiting our closing and exchange of funds. Then the move and selling of our current home begins. I decided to start this blog to record my thoughts and experiences moving to a totally different lifestyle from the one I’m so used to.

If you made it to this point, I want to thank you for reading my very first blog post ever. 😊😊