Colorado to Nebraska: Part 2- Movin' On

Leaving Montrose, Colorado wasn't easy.  We put our heart and souls into our home.  We gutted and remodeled the house, and built the corrals and barn from the ground up.  We built our business there, we established Rocking R Red Angus, and our high altitude herd.  

 

It was years of work, and leaving that was probably my hardest moment.  I raised my babies in that house, we had countless family holidays, the memories are endless.  And of course the friendships made.  

 

It all happened so quickly, we were set to close on our Montrose home in just over a month.  I looked at Dan, and said you're insane! Ha! We have to pack this house up in a month, go to the Vegas competition for a week in between, and move out prior to Christmas.  

 

But our motto is and always has been, Everything Happens for a Reason.

 

So, we bit the bullet, packed it up into a large storage unit and moved into a tiny home.  Because calving season was about to start and we were able to lease our ground through the spring.  Time to start calving!

(Thank goodness rodeo had taught us to live in tight quarters, as we do most weekends, but man we missed having a couch! ha)

 

A few months later, we sold our Gunnison ranch.  Which meant, more packing, and more moving. Oh the stuff, it was endless!  I didn't know how we were going to make a move happen.  

 

By this time, we were keeping an open mind in case anything else came on the market, but Nebraska was on our mind.  We just couldn't stop thinking about Nebraska.  Even though, it was such new territory to us.  We were used to irrigation, and dry land farming is completely foreign.  But we could have an all in one operation.  No trucking would be involved and the facilities were great.  

 

Plus, there are opportunities for our kids, which is a big deal for us.  We aren't so far from town that makes life extremely difficult.  And of course, we needed to be around rodeo!  

It was time to plan for the move!  We aren't just moving stuff, we are moving a ranch!  We had to plan it all perfectly.  It started with the moving truck, to make sure all our stuff got here.  And of course that didn't happen in just one truck, thank goodness for amazing friends who drove 8 hours and multiple trailers.  We love you all and could never had made this happen without you, you know who you are!!

 

The animals.  Oh the trucks we needed to make this happen, and to make it all work out.  Minimal stress, was our top priority for all the animals; cattle, calves, and horses.  We had to plan that we had horses to gather and load the trucks, but then make it to Nebraska before the cattle pots.  That way we could make sure they were put into proper corrals or pastures.  Plus remember, we were just finishing up with calving season, so we traveled with very young calves.  Mamas and babies had to be put into seperate areas on the trucks, to make sure no one got trampled.  

 

To say we were worried is an understatement.  But thank god, they all made it!  Our next concern was that the mama cows would remember which calf was theirs and pair up properly.   Everyone is doing really well.  The mama cows definitely had some stress on them, and made sure their calves were given the proper nutrition.  But all seem to be bouncing back and enjoying the ample amount of room.  

 

Next, we needed our equipment.  More stuff!  You can't feed without a tractor, and all the implements to go with it.  We are finally getting our last truck loads of equipment, this has been a process.  We are almost there, a few more trailer loads of miscellaneous stuff, and I think we will be pretty close to complete.  Plus some of our yearling cattle still back in Montrose.  

 

I would say we are getting settled.  You never buy a ranch without knowing a lot of work is going to be put in.  So we are fixing fence, setting up pens as we want, cleaning up junk, and the list goes on!  But, it's new to us, it's our livelihood, and we are excited to make Nebraska our home.  It's going to take time to be everything we want, but that's life, and we'll make it happen.