I sit alone on my couch in the wee, dark hours of the morning, not long after we were notified that our lease agreements for the Chico will not be renewed at the end of its term, December 31, 2024. It is a watershed turn in our family and Ranchlands’ journey. I am thinking of how all of us at Ranchlands are struggling with the decision the State Land Board Commissioners handed down on the Chico’s future, the memory still raw. How we gathered afterwards in a big circle, with all the people who came in support of us, tears and hugs expressing what words could not. The Chico is the only home that my kids can clearly remember and also the home of a passionate group of young apprentices. It is a place where thousands came to visit and left changed in some way. It is also the home of our company, the founding ranch and headquarters for all Ranchlands operations.

The Chico is where everything started. It has been the foundation of what we are today.

I am fighting the pull to go down endless, messy rabbit holes of self-centered reasoning and pity, but it would be a waste of time, I think, serving more as a means to quell my feelings of sadness and hurt. But as I bob through these herculean waves, the Chico pulls me back to what really matters. As it always has. It washes these feelings away, telling me they don’t matter, and instead pushes me to think back about the things that have mattered so much, and for which we are so thankful. So many things that I should be eternally thankful for instead of how I am feeling. The memories come slowly at first then flood over me. They are endless.

The Chico’s expansive high prairie is life-giving, and I wrap it around me like a shawl. This world of grass and wild animals has provided for us all even when it stopped raining, resilient like the box turtle in the eastern sand pastures—moving slowly, retracting into itself to endure hard times. The prairie has been a great teacher, showing me that I have to live the questions I need answers to, rather than assuming I know the answers.

I remember with such vividness the feeling of “life-giving” the Chico gave me when I walked out of my door that first November morning in 1999 after moving onto the ranch. I stopped mid-step, caught by all that land, rolling all the way to the horizon. I grew to know the trails of the ranch so well, as I crisscrossed it with Duke, Tess, Julie or Grace straddling my horse behind me, their little arms hugging my waist. Then later in the day, unloading them beside a pool of water, way out in a pasture, to play and swim in the heat of the afternoon—a respite from the hard, endless trot. How can one put a value on something so precious?

Living life on the Chico was a celebration of living, bringing so many good people together. So many bonds of friendships were forged. One time, Duke Beardsley and I rode straight into a raging winter storm, running our horses as fast as we could straight into a wall of blowing sleet and snow, the sting on our faces burning like fire, making us want to go even more so it’d burn harder. A big, big smile came over me, as he said, “…faster, faster.” And all the countless trots, the entire ranch crew bunched up on horses in a group weaving through the hidden draws and sand dunes, and how these rides melded us into a tight knit group, talking and laughing as we went, oblivious of the morning darkness changing into daylight around us. The afternoon lulls when we stood around talking together, like when one of us was trimming a horse, or changing the oil in a bike. Even though there were always a million things to do, we would just hang out, as if we had all the time in the world.

I think of all the guests who came to stay on the ranch and participate in the day-to-day work—people from all over the country and overseas, who kept coming back over the years and have become good friends. The artists, art shows, concerts, field days and potlucks brought an entirely different group of people from our region to the ranch, but also forged friendships and gave people the chance to see inside a real ranch.

Family memories from this place are endless, like Tess’s wedding vision that had me hanging for days from the cottonwood branches in Bell Park, stringing light sculptures. The storm that almost blew away Duke and Madi’s wedding party. That day hurrying from the Chico pasture branding upon hearing that Woods, our first grandbaby boy, had hit the ground in Alamosa. And today the five little rascals running around the ranch like wild animals. I remember my dad in his late years, who’d sit at the chutes when we were working cattle, at total peace just watching and carving on a stick. And Ruth, my mom, who would just sit smiling by herself basking in the total freedom she felt when she visited the ranch. And later, spreading their ashes under the big cottonwood tree in the Vega pasture. Yes, the Chico is holy ground to me and my family. No words can express the profoundness of how the Chico has impacted our life together.

The ranch was a place where I changed, where so many people changed. I remember the exact moment when, as a ranch apprentice, Nick’s walk changed from wandering here and there to a trot taking him in a straight line as fast as he could go, a different person suddenly in his journey into ranching.

The bird banding station that we established in 2000 is the second oldest in Colorado. Besides generating reams of data about songbirds, it provided school children the chance to hold a bird in their hand as it was released from capture. I can see scores of school buses coming down the main road full of kids every spring and fall, coming to the ranch to see what only before was in their imagination—cowboys!

The big brandings every spring where we’d hold hundreds of cattle around a water trough way out on the prairie, and the way it taught so many of how to work together through the mayhem of dust, bawling cattle, ropes and running calves. So many young people learned the art of moving intentionally through a herd on horseback, the art of throwing a loop around a calf without it even knowing it had been roped. But above all, how these times completely absorbed us all—as if we were the only people alive in this world. Being there doing what we were doing was something every one of us wanted above anything anywhere.

I remember the life-sucking droughts that taught me that no matter how close to the edge we were, or how grave or sad or unfair it all seemed, we would survive. And come out the other end stronger, even though I sometimes had to kid myself out of bed in the morning. I was energized by the feeling of knowing that I had no choice, and that is what made me realize that I was not going to let anything stop me.

I do not think it is coincidental that Thanksgiving has come at this challenging time. Even though our hearts are heavy as we move to the next phase, we are thankful for the amazing experience of living on the Chico. And even though it is daunting to think about how we will go about finding another ranch like it, this holiday is a reminder that it is by giving thanks that we are able to live with grace, giving us closure and guidance down a pathway of healing and hope. For this was a magical gift.