Author: Bill Radford

We’ve outlined 20 distinct neighborhoods, each with its own character and unique attributes. Let The Gazette’s experts be your guide. — Where the prairie meets the forest lies a treat for anglers, equestrians, hikers and more. Homestead Ranch Regional Park is a 450-acre property at the edge of Black Forest that includes a stocked, spring-fed pond;…

It’s goodbye to The Country Life. Not farewell to life in the country – I’ll still be in the Falcon area with my wife and our menagerie of a horse, a blind mule, two goats, two rabbits, two ducks, 11 chickens, two dogs, two cats and two parrots. But this column has reached its end.…

Consider it a dance, of sorts, between horse, rider and steer. It’s cattle sorting, in which two pens are connected in the middle by an opening, forming a figure eight; two riders on horseback work to drive a group of steers from one pen to the other. The trick is that the steers are numbered…

There is a beauty in horses, Susan Kamlan says, that she always has loved. But she didn’t have any real experience with horses until age 11. Her family had moved from Japan, where her father had been stationed, to Colorado Springs, and she found some ponies near her home. “I would walk over to them…

So, winter finally came. It just waited until spring to do so. Last fall, my wife and I predicted an early winter. But winter never materialized. Sure, there were some frigid days, but there were a lot of absurdly warm days too – and a lack of significant snow for months, leaving us with a…

When my wife and I lived in town, we lost a hen from our small flock of chickens to a fox. Foxes and raccoons were a persistent threat in our east-side Colorado Springs neighborhood. In the country, the biggest threat our chickens face is likely dogs. While we don’t have a Fort Knox-like setup, it…

Good news: The ducks are out of the bathtub. My wife and I decided to add to our menagerie recently with a pair of ducklings. The first surprise was their size. We expected cute little fluff balls, but at only a few weeks old they were already nearly a foot tall. It seems their breed…

Some people move to the country to get away from it all – the traffic, the people, the HOAs, the regulations. Of course, living in the country isn’t like the 12-hour period of anarchy in “The Purge.” There are still laws to be followed – and even restrictions on what you can do on your…

My wife and I didn’t go looking for a barn cat; instead, one found us. Our neighbor Shirley manages a feral cat colony, and one of those cats seems to have taken a liking to our property. It often can be found hanging out in the barn with the horse, mule and goats. Since it…

A few months ago, I wrote about the importance of having neighbors to rely on in the country. Denise Livingston has broadened the definition of neighborhood. She’s the creator and administrator of the Southern Falcon Community Facebook page, designed to bring rural residents in eastern El Paso County together. “I just wanted to make sure,…