Yesterday I started thinking about the many people who move here only for the summer, and miss all of this in the winter…
I love a good snowy day…
Winter living north of the Spanish Peaks!
photographs of southern Colorado – Spanish Peaks Country
Marijuana as Medicine in Southern Colorado
I have to admire Alexis Bortell, a 12-year-old girl who is spearheading a campaign to legalize medical marijuana across our country. She and her family had no choice but to move from Texas to Colorado to find adequate treatment for her severe epilepsy. Now, her family and a handful of others are suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), demanding “cannabis for the treatment of their illnesses, diseases and medical conditions.” Ever since Alexis began her cannabis treatment, she has been seizure-free for 974 days.
Living west of Walsenburg Colorado, 50 miles from the New Mexico border for over three years now, I have met a number of parents who have found it necessary to move here just to get adequate treatment for their children. These people had to leave behind good jobs and perhaps even their health insurance to find ways to keep their children alive and healthy.
It has been interesting to observe the combination of citizens here who support the availability of cannabis for medical purposes, versus those whom we now call “CAVES”: “Citizens Against Virtually Everything.”
The most exciting development for Huerfano County, our “orphan” county with around 6,000 souls, has been in the tiny town of La Veta Colorado. WEED, Inc. announced in July, that it recently acquired Sangre AT, LLC (dba “Sangre AgroTech”), with plans to open a Sangre Bioscience Center, investing over $1,000,000 in Colorado Medicinal Cannabis Industry.
Sangre AgroTech then chose La Veta for their new research facility whose mission is: “To create a genomics-based Cannabis breeding program that will produce new, genetically-enhanced strains of Cannabis which express the desired plant characteristics for the treatment of disease…”
“At Sangre AgroTech, we are focused on the development and application of cannabis-derived compounds for the treatment of human disease. Targeting cannabis-derived molecules which stimulate the endocannabinoid system, we are developing the required scientifically-valid and evidence-based cannabis strains for the production of disease-specific medicines. Yes, medicines.”
Picture this. A town of less than a thousand people, nestled right next to the Spanish Peaks of southern Colorado, just attracted millions of dollars worth of research money, and all for the good of mankind. Why? Because the head of this new company, thought this area is the perfect place to live! He got that right! We are so excited about this new local development! They plan is hire at least half of their employees locally, keeping jobs down here, which is great, considering our county has the highest unemployment rate in the state.
Buying a Home in Rural Southern Colorado
I have always found real estate interesting. I suppose it’s a part of my natural nosiness. I like to see how others live and what they choose. Mike knows the construction trade inside and out. That’s why we went with a friend to look at a small property yesterday. She wanted to get our opinion on a darling little ranchette not too far away from us.
This property is relatively new, well-built, nicely detailed inside and landscaped, with great views of Greenhorn Mountain and the distant Sangre de Cristos.
Buying in rural markets is so different than cities. Be sure and check what the property’s access is to water, electricity, phone service, and what kind of heating and septic system it has. This cute little ranch on a few acres has a giant garage and studio space, fully fenced, but it does not have access to water on the property. Most city people can’t even imagine that! Water will have to be trucked in.
The good news about properties down here? The cost is about one quarter of what they might cost up north, near any metro area. I can see this property being priced at $500,000 to $600,000 if it was anywhere near the Denver/Boulder metro area. Access to jobs is everything in real estate.
The realtor informed us that sellers here usually have to accept contingencies on sales. Their average time on the market is about one year. We see many come down here, buy a house on impulse, and then need to sell a year or two later. Yes it is amazingly beautiful here in the spring, summer and fall, but the winters are so WINDY and can seem very long with most city distractions (restaurants, shopping, etc.) at least an hour away.
The truth is, most have no idea how or if they will adjust to rural life. My advice? Make sure you like spending a lot of time alone or are on the same page completely with your life partner. You need to get along very well in these circumstances. Make sure you enjoy nature, things like bird watching, plants, hiking, biking and lots of silence. If you have little appreciation for clean air, morning silence, amazing sunrises and sunsets and a pristine natural setting, don’t buy a rural home, especially if you crave any sort of human-based distractions.
Our house being built in 2014 -2015
Mike and I left suburbia in 2014, after living in cities for most of our lives. We wanted to try out solar living with spectacular views of Sangre de Cristo mountains. We moved here to live close to nature, to try out passive solar living, and to build the kind of home we chose to live in for the rest of our lives. We came in search of a far more quiet, peaceful, healthy and inexpensive lifestyle than cities could offer us. We have received so much more… Would you like to know how we ended up here? The ups and downs of our year-long building process? My fears in our first year here? Why we love it so much now?
Please send me an e-mail to order your own copy — Laura Lee: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com
Best Boomer Bloggers: Fall 2017 Edition
Wow, autumn really crept up on me this year! One day it was summer and then boom, it was fall, and most of the beautiful leaves were almost gone! I’m not sure how that happened. It must be that whole time flies as we get older thing. Is everybody ready for winter, because it is just around the corner. We already had our first hard frost a couple weeks ago here at 7,000 feet in Colorado, and Oktoberfest is long over. It must be time for me to host another edition of the Best of Boomer Blogs!
First I would like to welcome a new member to our group. Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski. Rebecca sees herself as “a purveyor of all things fun and a die-hard foodie. I love to travel and write from anywhere on the planet I happen to land, even if it’s my own backyard in Los Angeles. One of my favorite areas of the world to travel are the historic cities and countrysides of Europe.” For her first presentation here, from her blog BabyBoomster.com she says:
Taking care of our vision over 50 is particularly important even if you don’t wear glasses or contacts. There are hidden diseases that are age-related that can easily be prevented. I include products and services to keep your eyes healthy and bright.
Next up, Meryl is worried that she might be impacting Broadway. I’ll let her explain: A minor problem Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting faced this past week, made her think there might be something wrong with her. Could she have bad karma? She’s not sure what that is, but she might have it. Read about her dilemma in Bad Karma?
Carol Cassara, over at Heart Mind Soul, noticed a different kind of stress this week: Sometimes social media can create more stress than we might have ever imagined. Part of that stress is our tendency to want to respond to every comment, every post that rings our chimes. Carol Cassara has a great suggestion for making life more peaceful.
On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about the importance of getting your medications checked each year. Although Oct. 21, was “Check Your Meds’ Day,” it’s important to take all of your medications – including prescription and over-the-counter medication, plus vitamins and other dietary supplements – to a pharmacist or physician for a “brown-bag” review. That allows them to check for potential harmful drug interactions and possibly eliminate unnecessary drugs.
Fellow blogger Tom Sightings says, sometimes retirement doesn’t play out exactly the way we envisioned when we were younger. Retirement is a destination, but it is also a journey, and with any journey it makes sense to stop and review where we’ve been and where we’re going. So check out Tom’s 5 Questions to Ask Yourself After You Retire. Go see if you’re on track to realize your own retirement dreams.
Now for a word from our sponsor:
I have been struggling lately with various expected and unexpected problems. As it turns out, even when you are happily retired, the problems just keep coming!
Luckily the beautiful sunrises and sunsets keep coming too…
This is your brain on drugs, prescription drugs… After a few days of very strange brain sensations and a few wild hallucinations (both visual and auditory!), I’m finally starting to feel ‘normal.’ I’ve been struggling with the extreme brain craziness of withdrawal from Paxil, which I really cannot recommend to anyone!
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 