yuma

We just got back from a lovely weekend getaway to colorful...er...exciting...um...really cool Yuma, Colorado.  Why Yuma, you ask?  Well, Bob's side of the family is celebrating the 100th anniversary of their first ancestors settling there...and many of them are still making a good living farming there.  That's why.

Truth be told, Yuma is not a place I'd like to live, but it is a place I'd often like to be.  If that makes any sense.  It's a small town, church on Sunday, pray before you eat, wave to your neighbor kind of place.  It's filled with kind, generous folks, steeped in family values, tradition, and just plain hard work.  That's especially true of the ones I'm lucky enough to be remotely related to.

They invited all their city kin out for the weekend & provided tours of and/or information about Yuma's ground-breaking Irrigation Research Foundation, feed lot, dairy farm, ethanol plant, and museum.  We got to see the very successful current-day working family farm, as well as family farm sites of  days gone by. 

My personal favorite was when they showed us the farm where Bob's mom lived before they moved to Denver.  The house's foundation is still there, as is the pump house and windmill (though it toppled over years ago).  The current land owner just planted his wheat around the homestead...rather than bulldozing over it.  Love that.  In fact, we had to walk through the wheat field to get to it (yes, my inner-archaeologist was drooling steadily the entire time)...our hosts assured us the owner wouldn't mind a bit (the trampling on the wheat...not the drooling).  It was fantastic, and I could have stayed there all day, sitting on the porch steps, listening to the wheat in the wind and sifting through the dirt for treasures but, folks were waiting, the agenda was calling, and eventually we had to head home. 

We all learned something new and interesting and it was a great way to spend Memorial Day weekend!  Thanks, Carpenters & Newbanks!

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