Author: Bill Radford

You won’t be grabbing the steering wheel or slamming on the brakes if you attend Bob Olson’s driving school. In his school, the horsepower is provided by actual horses; Olson offers “a personal, hands-on experience in fitting, working with and driving everything from a single to teams, carts, wagons and farm implements.” The driving school…

Last holiday season I wrote about Mary Sue Leistico and her Dewmar Acres, where she raises dairy goats. Each year she holds an open house where she sells goat lotions and soaps, and it’s that time again. So if you’re looking for something different for stocking stuffers this year, the open house is 11 a.m.…

Looks like it’s the wooly season. I recently wrote about Edith Fisher, who has alpacas on her Wooly Works Farm and sells alpaca fiber and products at her Wooly Works Knit Shop in downtown Colorado Springs. That led me to Woodlake Woolies in Black Forest, where Sharon Dalrymple raises angora bunnies, spins fiber and teaches…

OK, it’s that time to say thanks. (Though we might be a happier nation if we were a more grateful one and always giving thanks.) My focus this Thanksgiving: friends and neighbors. Certainly, I was grateful for neighbors when I lived in town. But they take on special significance in the country – even if…

Edith Fisher’s alpaca adventure began with a scarf and hat, sent to her from her mother and made of alpaca fiber. “I couldn’t believe how soft that stuff was,” she said. “It didn’t feel real.” She researched alpacas online and was intrigued by the animals and by their fiber, which represented a new frontier for…

Winter is here. Not officially, of course; that’s still six weeks away. But for me, the end of daylight saving time marks the beginning of winter. (You did remember to turn your clocks back, right?) The change means arriving home in the dark and arming myself with a flashlight to feed the outside animals. And…

On a recent morning at Kiowa Creek Ranch and Sanctuary in Black Forest, the animals were on the move. Pigs rushed to greet visitors; apparently, chewing on shoes is a great joy of theirs. Cows wandered between the trees. Turkeys raced to a fence line in a gobbling frenzy. Only the sheep were relatively sedate,…

Godzilla was supposed to be a girl. But then Godzilla started to crow – although the first attempts sounded more like gargling than crowing. The crowing got stronger, however. And then I spotted Godzilla mounting one of the hens. So either Godzilla was a boy – a rooster – or sexually confused. My wife and…

Ellicott – The attacks came over two nights. And by the time the carnage had ended, 25 beloved animals at Wishing Star Farm were dead. A llama. An alpaca. Goats. Sheep. All victims of a pack of dogs that terrorized the farm and others in the area. Most of the dogs were tracked down by…

I’ve written about the ghost town east of Colorado Springs named Eastonville. What I didn’t know was that the U.S. government maintains facilities nationwide to keep and study a variety of rare creatures – and that Eastonville is home to such a facility, with an elite staff trained in combat and containment procedures. But even…