Gator Farm – Sand Dunes 2016

May 27, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

I mentioned in my other Sand Dunes post that we went to the Alligator Farm located about 15 minutes away. The history of this place revolves around the hot springs that are present and capable of supporting this sort of gator-friendly environment. They have over 300 gators there and lots of rescued reptiles that live happy lives.

One of the most hysterical things we learned is that earlier on the day we visited, the farm had run out of bananas. Apparently, the turtles were rioting in anger since they didn’t have any bananas to eat. It was hysterical – who knew little turtles had such big attitudes. The running joke for the rest of our visit was – ‘DO YOU HAVE AN UPDATE ON THE BANANAS?’ It was a great place and we got to see a lot of very amazing reptiles in the San Luis Valley!

27206760485_8e7ff899e7_b — they look like they are telling each other jokes.

27227043425_5fca448f82_b — come on! come stand by us!

26620325524_87c58b0b68_b — i’m gonna save this for our engagement announcements if the day ever comes (haha!)

27138194321_b39476b450_b — there was a clear sign that said ‘don’t put your finger in i bite!’ but the bird looked so friendly…..

27207082975_4260ac29e5_b — this way to gator town!

Here is the full history from Colorado Gator Farm:

Erwin and Lynne Young moved from Post, Texas to Alamosa, Colorado in September, 1974 with their four children, Mark, Mike, Sherri, and Jay. Erwin learned of the geothermal water resources available in the Valley and wanted to grow Tilapia, an African perch that requires warm water and is very good to eat.

In 1977 they purchased the 80 acre farm that is now Colorado Gators Reptile Park. It wasn’t until 1987 that they purchased 100 baby alligators to dispose of dead fish and the remains of filleted fish.

Those baby gators grew quickly in the warm geothermal water (87° F) and the locals wanted to see them, so we opened to the public in 1990. Soon we were in the spotlight of many media programs and articles. Individuals with overgrown alligators and other reptiles such as large pythons, tortoises, iguanas, and more started dropping them off with us.

We have become a sanctuary for unwanted exotic pets and we care for them as best we can. We display them for the public to understand the dangers in owning these pets and we take them to schools for educational programs.

Diabetes Ride – Tour De Cure 2016

May 26, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 1 Comment

Some of you may remember my Diabetes ride last year, well, it’s that time again to start fundraising!

21049360103_f46a69a972_b — at mile 20 on then 2015 tour de cure.

The Tour de Cure is a GREAT event to ride to raise money to help fund diabetes research. Each year they raise over $29 Million to support the American Diabetes Association.

Why do I ride?

Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 2.15.44 PM

I ride for my grandpa Dan DeNeice. He had Type 2 Diabetes as a result of always being a huge (tall/250lb+) guy. He did make radical changes later in his life and got moving by riding his road bike all over the neighborhood. But, the great changes he made were too late for some things and he struggled with complications from Diabetes in his last years and sadly passed away in 2007 from heart failure. His absence has always been felt in our family and I wish that I would have gotten the time to ride more with him. I ride for him because I know if this race had been around when he was healthy he would have kicked everyone’s butt. Coincidentally, the first Tour de Cure took place in 2007 and that year the ADA received $13 Million from riders. I ride for him, because I don’t want anyone else in my family or yours to get their life cut short or diminished by having Type 2 Diabetes. I strongly support advocacy and education in the hopes that others can make the changes before it’s too late for them.

And….well you also guessed it. I NEED YOUR SUPPORT! I’ve set a goal to raise $750 in order to ride the race. That means I need to raise it all to be allowed to burn out 50k in late September! You can donate on my page here if you would like.

You may wonder where your money goes – well ADA does a great job prioritizing the money raised from Tour de Cure – take a look!

RESEARCH

Since the American Diabetes Association launched its Research Programs in 1952, it has funded nearly 4,500 research projects, investing more than $700 million in diabetes research.

In 2014 alone, the Association funded 376 new and continuing research grants and made nearly $30 million in diabetes research funding available through its four major grant programs: the Core Research Program, the Pathway to Stop Diabetes? Program, Research Co-Support, and Collaborative Targeted Research. These funds supported 364 investigators at 143 leading academic research institutions across the U.S.

INFORMATION

The Association provides the public and health care professionals with the most up-to-date information to help take a stand against diabetes through our Center for Information and Community Support (1-800-DIABETES) and two web sites, www.diabetes.org and www.stopdiabetes.com, as well as via consumer and professional books and periodicals. The organization has offices in communities across the country and serves the public through a multitude of programs and activities including American Diabetes Association Expos, Diabetes Camps, and outreach to high-risk populations through its Por tu Familia, Live Empowered! and Native American initiatives. In 2014, 5,400 youth attended one of the 50 Association Camps hosted in 24 states.

ADVOCACY

The Association fights on behalf of the diabetes community to increase federal funding for diabetes research and programs, improve comprehensive health care and insurance coverage, and to end discrimination against people with diabetes. Explore the Advocacy section on our main ADA website and learn what is being done on a local and national level to support people with diabetes, and also learn how you can get involved in those efforts.

I had a great time at the event last year, riding solo – BUT this year I get to ride the 50 with my uncle! I’ll again be riding on my single speed KHS and I’m super excited. This year I am changing up the race location – I’ll be riding the Parker Tour de Cure instead of the Boulder/Ft. Collins Tour de Cure.

I’ll be updating here as I train, and prep for the race. I can’t wait!

And if you would like Donate here!

Alien Sightings at the Dunes

May 25, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

About 20 minutes from the Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley, sits a UFO observatory deck. There have been 111 UFO sightings since the official UFO observation deck has been installed and there are references to UFO sightings in the area as far back as the 1600s. I certainly don’t think we are the only beings in the universe – but it’s always interested me that the little green dudes love desert areas in CO and NM. You’ll remember our trip to Roswell last year – the dude is a huge alien fan so we naturally had to stop here.

The owner was a very nice gal and explained to us all the interesting things about the property and some unusual activity and notable sightings. If anything they had one of the best views of the mountains in all of the valley. No wonder the green men love it there.

27206757695_ceca8a9296_b — amazing view from the observatory deck

27172588936_0b582b9182_c — the vortex garden where people leave trinkets for energy (the dude is eating gator jerky – no respect for the vortex)

26600066414_b9545eda74_c — babes and aliens – no big deal.

27206504385_b291cd798d_b — the dude and his people.

The Great Sand Dunes

May 24, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

This weekend we kicked off the camping season at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It’s only a 4 hour drive from Denver and has great campground accommodations. Although the wind was pretty brutal from 10am-8pm we were able to secure or tents and venture off to do some fun stuff. We visited the Colorado Alligator Farm and a UFO observation point. It was a great weekend and I am very excited for the 3 other trips we have planned throughout the summer!

27138195451_faea243f1b_c

27129982172_bcb0c43fc6_c — the dude and i on top the dunes

27205826385_e00ab6bfbf_c — he hiked barefoot!

26951752870_274982350a_c — none of us wore shoes

27205826215_daf3ebdc56_b — a view from the top

27206497255_318d8f47d3_c — enjoying the view with some coffee

26601331203_124f505383_c — roasting wieners

26932361580_8699af3f7b_c — dusk campsite

27207482935_7880d8da2c_c — roasting dinner

26951761010_ceea591234_b

What do you grow in your garden?

April 5, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

For the first time ever, I have space for a garden! So of course, I’m embarking on full homesteading! My dream come true – You know two summers ago I got to help my buddies at IGLOO – Sustainability Group plant their garden so I’m so excited to have my own! Here are the tentative plans for this upcoming season.

Space:

We will locate 2 – 4x8ft garden beds on the west side of our house which gets full sun exposure. We also know this part was used as a ‘garden’ before and was not used for some weird renter parking lot*. We also know that if we have success and want to expand forward we can do so on this portion of the house. Further, I HATE grass – so using the space would be not only beautiful, but help make less wasted lawn space. Sorry Lois, I know you are sad you raised someone who doesn’t love a green grass yard as much as you ;). *see photo below

What Will We Grow?

Cold Season Crops:

Beets, Kale, Cilantro, Broccolini (tiny broccoli!)

Warm Season Crops:

Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Hot Peppers, Zucchini, Cucumber, Chives, Rosemary, etc. herbs.

Materials:

We are going to be using Douglas Fir wood for the beds (not Cedar due to small savings in cost). Yes, we will probably have to replace these in 5-10 years, but oh well – who knows what our garden will look like in 5-10 years anyways.

We are going to install a drip irrigation system on each bed that will be attached to a spigot timer. We will also install some PVC frames for UV/Shade/Hail protection covering. Since it is Colorado this is a must not only for our location of the beds in full sun, but also for those freak hail storms that can ruin months of work in one afternoon.

We plan on getting underway with the garden on April 30th so expect a mapped out update for grid placement in the beds before then!

Of course I’ll also start my SCOBY/Kombucha up again and possibly dabble in some mushrooms if not too intensive.

Some other cool things will be all the canning, cooking/recipes – that will follow this summer/fall.

Anyways – any tips or advice to this newbie are MORE than welcome. Can’t wait to share what I discover. What do you grow in your garden?

Farm House Update: Week 3

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 1 Comment

Well, we are 3 weeks underway of getting the farmhouse – livable.

Here are the things we have done:

removed all bathrooms that were not supposed to be there
re-did the main bathroom on the first floor
removed all debris from the yard/house
starting painting
hung window treatments
got all new appliances
installed new well system
installed washer & dryer
repaired all rusted windows
removed paint from all window sills
installed new furnace and water heater

It’s been A LOT of work. Thankfully, Lois has been a huge help with most of these items – the yard looks 1000% better due to her. On the days we were able to tackle things together it felt like we got a lot more done than I would have ever imagined. My Pops has been a major help in figuring out what we can/can’t do electrical wise and prepping for Connelly Power Co to jump in on some things. We still can’t live there until we resolve the electrical issue for the water pump/well system. That is the most frustrating part, since we really can’t live there without water, but everything will be easier to work on, continue to deal with once we live there. Right now, every moment over there has to be utilized 100% so I think I speak for everyone, but I’m tired. I love working on the house and it is really rewarding and exciting, but it’s just hard to not have a bathroom to use there, or water to use – and it’s hard to drive back and forth to our apartment in Broomfield (30 minutes away). Eh, but why am I bitching? I fought super hard to do all this – just at a different pace I think, but oh well in a months time or less it won’t feel ‘so close, yet so far’. Plus, a lot of the things I had planned on spacing out over 2 years will now just be done. So when we do move in we can literally just start enjoying it instead of prolonging some of this fun.

Moving forward I’ll being doing more ‘before and after’ shots on our progress – now that there are some really impressive ‘afters’!

Thanks again, Lois, Pops, Uncle Mark (MD Services – my HVAC/plumbing hero), Aunt Lori, and everyone else in their virtual support so far in helping us get this fixer upper livable!

Here are some photos of the recent happenings:

25951383470_2778cec84b_c — Lois cleaned up the front yard and what a difference! So clean and pretty!

25574083020_e5e35b43d9_c — just some of the yard debris we cleaned up – broken glass/car parts?

26034230246_805e2f10ff_c — it’s the simple things although it is still un-used due to no water at the house.

26176438466_8454730390_c — Leopold was in love with the house – and so cute on his house tour.

25599736173_031a6b4142_c — A sight for sore eyes – new well jet pump and tank (note no longer in the crawl space under the stairs).

25945618002_508297bf89_c — ‘oily beau hunk’ installs my cellular ikea blinds also Sixteen Candles joke.

26034229176_fbc0d6782d_c — new washer and dryer – thanks pops and cym!

26012789156_5d68275597_c — window sill- i’m blue da bo dee ba de dow…..

25929529920_bc93c84f3d_c — look at the sexy new copper plumbing for my washroom…. rawwwr!

25764461400_0a8b7c7708_c — before: yard cage for former tenants that didn’t pay rent…..

26202533165_f704ab80b2_c — after: bunny coop/chicken larvae den removed. just a nice space for appropriate plants.

J Cole at Red Rocks

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Last night I got to check out J Cole at Red Rocks. The venue is of course one of the best in the world, but J Cole was actually a top notch performer. He said his goal was to make Red Rocks feel intimate and somehow he was able to do that with witty storytelling and great songs to perform for us. He played his entire 2014 Forest Drive album and one or two older songs ‘from day one.’ Apparently that is a huge statement in hip hop ‘from day one’… BUT it seriously was a great show I had a blast.

Tour de Cure – Colorado August 2015

August 15, 2015August 17, 2015 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

A few months ago, I decided to ride in the Tour de Cure, a bike event for the American Diabetes Association. I wished my grandfather who loved riding and also had diabetes knew about this cause when he was alive because I would have LOVED to ride with him.

At first, I signed up for the 100 mile century ride. I started training doing several 30 mile rides and about a month before the event I decided I had no interested in riding 100 miles. I felt kind of like a weenie for backing down, but I’m privileged enough to work with Iron Man competitors, marathon crazies and overall excessive exercise folks. They were instrumental in me realizing that I have no desire to go that far- I don’t want nor do I need a geared bike (which I would have for this ride), I didn’t have the time to train properly and safely – it just isn’t the time in my life for this distance. Also training for and riding the 100 miles alone just didn’t really seem like something I was looking forward to. I planned at first to train and ride with some friends, but life is busy so the training never happened together and to be honest I lost my mojo in pursuing this solo.

So I backed off the mileage to the easy 50 ride. It took place today and boy was it the right choice to ride 50km. I didn’t wear any special gear, no padded pants, no clips/shoes, no gears! I happily rode my favorite bike ever – Yoshi the KHS single speed I bought last year. I’m so happy I rode for me and for the cause. Plus I rode 34 miles in 2:04! I was really happy with that. Plus I had lots of encouragement from other riders (as I passed them!) because they were blown away that I rode the ride with no gears!

I raised $620 – blowing my $200 goal out of the water! So so happy with everyone’s generosity and kindness. Anyways, next year I think I’ll organize a group to join that are riding and training together, since it would have been even more fun to ride with some homies.

Waterton Canyon Half Marathon

March 30, 2015 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Sunday me and my favorite tattooer Alisha Rice decided we should go for a hike. After looking at her hike book we both agreed on doing a 7.4 mile hike that neither of us had ever done. This one actually ended up taking us to the dam where all of Denver’s drinking water comes from! The dude and Alisha’s rad little boy joined in and off we hiked. At about mile 5 we realized that we were indeed en route to hike a half marathon. Accidental awesome achievement – that’s how we roll.

No More Flying Solo

March 24, 2015 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Here’s my personal feelings blog about my move. I am so happy to be in Colorado I’m so happy to have a wonderful job that I absolutely already just love so much and I’m so thankful to be here with the dude and my family. All that being said I don’t know what to do about not being alone anymore. The hardest challenge for me is not having 85% of my time alone right now. At work in Chicago even there wasn’t that much social interaction and that was the only social interaction that I was having. Occasionally I would meet up with my good friends and we would go to dinner but we all have busy lives and even though I had all that alone time I was busy with crafting or lifting. Now being in Colorado I feel like it’s a Catch-22 because I have all the people that I always wanted to be around when I was in Chicago, but now it is not instinctive to hang out with people. I do everything alone even though I’m living back here because it’s like my mind hasn’t adjusted. Also I now work at a place where I have meetings for almost half my day and then am able to complete things with a lot of peoples collaboration and input and guidance and constantly touching base with people. I hope that I’m able to find that balance of feeling like I’m giving enough to my friends and giving enough to myself and being in a healthy relationship with the dude and currently living at my moms. There’s a lot of adjustment in my life and I feel good. But I know that I need to realize that I’m not alone anymore I don’t have to do everything by myself anymore.I guess it sounds like a silly problems to complain about but I definitely am trying to overcome this transition from being basically secluded in a giant city to being surrounded by all the people that I constantly talked to you in my alone time. Anyways my codependency has made me feel obligated to write this post because I feel like I am leaving a lot of people out of my life and it’s not on purpose I just don’t know how to manage my time yet. I guess if you’re a friend and you’re really want to make plans with me in advance (like a week in advance) that’s best, then I can better handle and fit things into my life. I don’t know how to do spur of the moment hang outs anymore and I don’t know how to on a whim call somebody up and go do something because for the past 2 1/2 years I have had no one to do these things with aside from the dude and we had totally opposite schedules in Chicago because of our work. So moral of the story,bbottom line blah blah – I’m sorry that I am not reaching out to more people and making more things happen right now socially, but with your help hopefully I will figure out this balance of actually having my friends and family in the same city.