The Hideaway Ranch and Refuge- Who and Why
Good afternoon friends and followers. Recently we have received a couple of complaints. We take all complaints seriously and try to improve where we can. The first was regarding plant life on the property. A guest got into either poison ivy or poison oak and felt like that should have been eradicated. The next complaint was from a guest who felt like we had promised that he would see wildlife from his porch, and he did not. At first, I took these “complaints” as a little ridiculous. But now I have thought that maybe guests have a misperce
ption of what we are and why we do (or don’t do) some things. We are not a zoo. Hopefully, the next few paragraphs will explain who, what, and why we are.
Last year we changed our name from The Hideaway Ranch and Retreat to The Hideaway Ranch and Refuge. We did this to give guests a better idea of what we are. I guess maybe I have become a “tree hugger”, or as we used to call them in Colorado…a “Granola”. We strive to allow the Hideaway to be as natural as possible. Like Yellowstone National Park, our animals roam freely. Sometimes allowing "nature" to take over can be perceived as bad. As a Refuge, our animals are not raised as “livestock”. They are not bred for the purpose of being utilized as human food. They are allowed to live as natural a life as we can provide. We occasionally have to sell, or eat, a cow to keep the numbers sustainable, but even those animals are treated with as much respect as we can give them and are not taken to feedlots or commercial slaughterhouses. Traci is a vegetarian, and Jason rarely eats beef. We are not in the business of trying to grow our herd for commercial profit. The animals are not given hormones or antibiotics and only a minimum of supplemental feed in the winter. Because of this, our property is not landscaped or cultivated to provide feed crops (hay) for the animals. The vegetation on the property is native grasses, shrubs, trees, and yes…poison ivy and oak. Because we do not grow hay or other crops, the number of large animals that we can sustain, without over-grazing the property, is only about 12-15. Those 12-15 animals roam over the entire 150 acres and could be anywhere at any time. Most people see them, (especially if you utilize the trails) but some do not. The animals may graze near the cabins and you may have to step over manure, or they may be in the darkest part of the forest looking to cool off.
As a “refuge,” we also do not kill predators or any other native species. We have lost calves to coyotes and goats to cougars, but we feel as a natural refuge this is the price you may have to pay. Armadillos roam freely and “root” up the ground, and so do raccoons and possums. You may see a snake or a mouse or a wasp. We do our best to keep these things out of the cabins. We try to remove anything harmful from around the cabins, but sometimes “Mother Nature” takes over.
We do not “manicure” the areas around the cabins. There are no “yards”. The pool and hot tubs are surrounded by nature and you may find a leaf or dust in them. We clean them routinely, but since they are not surrounded by acres of concrete,"nature" still gets in. We try to mow the open areas of the property once per year to keep the cedar trees and vines from covering the entire property, but we leave large tracts of the property unmolested and allow the vegetation to grow naturally. These “unmolested” areas are home to the deer and other wildlife that may be seen on the ranch. We do not broadcast spray fertilizer, herbicides or pesticides. We have an exterminator spray inside the cabins twice per year.
The roads are gravel and bumpy. Honestly, I used to try to make them smoother, but after losing several animals (wild and domestic) to speeding cars, I decided to let the roads be a little bumpy to slow people down.
So, to wrap this up…We love to share our ranch with guests, and we hope that all our guests can see and enjoy the beauty of nature and our refuge. We certainly do not want guests to leave unhappy because they thought they were going to a wildlife park, a zoo, or a Resort.
