Farm and Family

 Our travel plans this summer were determined in advance by the announcement of an upcoming wedding.  Our granddaughter, Tatum and her fiancé Jonah, decided they would be married July 16th in Colorado.  That immediately sent us looking for a place to stay not far from Loveland.  Found a VRBO in the small town Berthoud that would accommodate 6 people, enough for us and our daughter's family.

Let's just say it was a bit quirky!  Originally built in1930, you could tell the house had been added onto at least twice.  Walking on the carpet or hardwood floors revealed the floor underneath was not quite level.  After gaining access to the lockbox we discovered there was a side door not locked at all (the lock was broken)! We were greeted with a moo by a friendly cow once we got out of the truck.  Hello country living!

Nice kitchen area, but it didn't have a complete set of silverware for 6 people.  Not enough plates for more than one meal either.  We ran the dishwasher after each meal to avoid buying paper plates.  Don and Glen had no problem cooking breakfast one morning.  The host had provided bacon, eggs and Italian sausage.

I've never seen such huge pieces of bacon before!  It may have come from one of the pigs raised by the caretaker who lived on the property in a converted garage.

However, on the plus side it was super quiet and we never heard any of the various animals that were behind the house and on both sides of it!  There was quite a variety of animals: mother cows with their calves, laying hens, hens for meat, turkeys, lots of goats, hogs and a new set of piglets.  Fun to watch, but I sure wouldn't want to take care of all those animals.

The Jersey cow was quite friendly and she was the one who greeted us the first day.

Polka dotted pigs!

The caretaker told us that these types of hens will reach 4-5 lbs within 8 weeks on the organic diet he feeds to them.  One large chest freezer on the house was full of processed chickens.  They were plump!

This is a view from the second story bedroom showing the deck area with a pond behind it   The cows sure enjoyed this spot on the property, and then we saw the calves lying so near the pond that it seemed they were half in the water.

Below is the picture of the back of the property which snuggled right up to the Little Thompson River.

With all it's oddities, this still was a nice place to spend a week with family.