Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Wildfire burns 40-acre pasture
When the wind in Colorado Springs starts blowing from the southwest and the relative humidity drops to single digits, one single clueless or careless act can light the world on fire.
The fire started right next to the interstate, just across Fountain Creek from Venetucci Farm. For awhile, it seemed content to burn the narrow strip between the highway and the creek, but the roaring wind had other ideas. The fire seemed to search the riverbank looking for a weak spot to cross, and then leaped the creek to feed on the dry grasses of our Farm.
As we watched the 30-foot flames race across our south pasture followed by towering flame whorls rising a hundred feet into the air, the whitetail deer and the wild turkeys fled to safer ground. One tongue of flame headed around Venetucci Farm to the north, while the bigger fire crisped our beautiful south meadow and torched our century-old cottonwoods.
Luck. Thanks to Tim and Dave, we'd done about half of our early spring plowing in the lower fields, creating a fire break that essentially saved Venetucci Farm from potentially disastrous fire damage. Without the plowed ground, the fire could have made a mile-wide race up into the town of Widefield. Because of the furrowed dirt, the fire was forced to stalk its way around before racing eastward towards houses and businesses, giving the firefighters time to get ready.
While our south pasture is completely crisped, the rest of the Farm is safe and sound. We owe many thanks to volunteers and firefighters who stayed through the night to make sure the Farm buildings and livestock stayed untouched.
Thanks to Carl for talking his way through the police barricades with the right trailer hitch to help me ready the piglets for evacuation. Thanks to Joe for directing the firefighters around the farm and helping them create fire breaks. Thanks to Wayne for arriving in the dark with good food for us! Thanks to Carol for keeping the light on all night long for the firefighters, and thanks to Libby for arriving after a long day at work to help with everything.
And a special thanks to Tim and to the firefighters who worked so hard on the remaining hot spots....still burning today.
Now the hard work begins...in addition to getting ready to plant pumpkins for kids, put in cover crops to rebuild the soil, and also sow the sweet corn that made Venetucci Farm famous, we need to reseed and replant our meadow to keep the soil from eroding and blowing away.
Want to help? Give me a call at 389-1251 x107.
Thanks from Michael.
The fire started right next to the interstate, just across Fountain Creek from Venetucci Farm. For awhile, it seemed content to burn the narrow strip between the highway and the creek, but the roaring wind had other ideas. The fire seemed to search the riverbank looking for a weak spot to cross, and then leaped the creek to feed on the dry grasses of our Farm.
As we watched the 30-foot flames race across our south pasture followed by towering flame whorls rising a hundred feet into the air, the whitetail deer and the wild turkeys fled to safer ground. One tongue of flame headed around Venetucci Farm to the north, while the bigger fire crisped our beautiful south meadow and torched our century-old cottonwoods.
Luck. Thanks to Tim and Dave, we'd done about half of our early spring plowing in the lower fields, creating a fire break that essentially saved Venetucci Farm from potentially disastrous fire damage. Without the plowed ground, the fire could have made a mile-wide race up into the town of Widefield. Because of the furrowed dirt, the fire was forced to stalk its way around before racing eastward towards houses and businesses, giving the firefighters time to get ready.
While our south pasture is completely crisped, the rest of the Farm is safe and sound. We owe many thanks to volunteers and firefighters who stayed through the night to make sure the Farm buildings and livestock stayed untouched.
Thanks to Carl for talking his way through the police barricades with the right trailer hitch to help me ready the piglets for evacuation. Thanks to Joe for directing the firefighters around the farm and helping them create fire breaks. Thanks to Wayne for arriving in the dark with good food for us! Thanks to Carol for keeping the light on all night long for the firefighters, and thanks to Libby for arriving after a long day at work to help with everything.
And a special thanks to Tim and to the firefighters who worked so hard on the remaining hot spots....still burning today.
Now the hard work begins...in addition to getting ready to plant pumpkins for kids, put in cover crops to rebuild the soil, and also sow the sweet corn that made Venetucci Farm famous, we need to reseed and replant our meadow to keep the soil from eroding and blowing away.
Want to help? Give me a call at 389-1251 x107.
Thanks from Michael.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Just the beginning for Venetucci Farm
Venetucci Farm begins to come back to life this week. This Farm, the oldest Farm in the Pikes Peak region--dating back to 1862--is now the last great Farm in our area. From 1936 until 2004, the Farm thrived through the unbelievable efforts of Nick and Bambi Venetucci. For nearly 50 years. Nick and Bambi gave away free pumpkins to local school children, totaling literally millions of pumpkins...
An icon for his time, Nick Venetucci passed away at age 93 in September, 2004. He was one of the most brilliant and generous men our community has ever known. More about Nick in later posts...
Now it's our turn to keep his legacy going. Venetucci Farm has been placed in a charitable trust at Pikes Peak Community Foundation (ppcf.org), and will be preserved forever as a working farm that once again gives free pumpkins to kids.
Two important things this week: the arrival of ten piglets born last night! Nick Venetucci historically raised excellent hogs at Venetucci Farm, and thanks to a generous local rancher, two Tamworth sows and a boar arrived at the Farm last week. Waiting until the trailer journey from Indiana was over, one of the sows decided that March 7 would be a good time to reestablish hogs as a vital force at Venetucci...("Pumpkin" on the right gave birth last night; "Spice" on the left, is due in about three weeks...we named the boar "Harley"...he definitely motors around his pen, complete with unmuffled sound effects!)
Meanwhile, draft horses made their return to the Farm. For years, Nick Venetucci worked with two wonderful draft horses named Babe and Bess. This week, led by master driver Chuck Baley from Pagosa Springs, eight beautiful Suffolk draft horses led four volunteer teamsters through their paces in Chuck's intensive workshop.
Our goal is to give away thousands of pumpkins this fall to local schoolkids...follow our journey through the year on our new blog...
Thanks for reading~~posted by Michael Hannigan
