TREE PLANTINGS

In the past 44 years, we, as a family, exercised our conservation minded drive towards projects that we knew would enhance our environment and improve our land. During these 44 years, we have planted almost 100,000 seedling trees on this arid semi desert land. The survival rate varies by the weather conditions, but, our persistance to (re)forest this land continues unceasingly.

We have cleaned out sagebrush by hand, leveled out the planting sites, built birdhouses, built high and expensive fenses to keep out the tree predators and planted trees...and planted trees...and then, some more. We are still continuing to plant trees and develop new planting sites, even though the owner of this ranch will never begin to realize even a minut, if any, return on the investment. As of the creating of this page, amidst the dozens of other projects, there are about 800 trees that need to be planted this week.

Our first planting of 4,500 trees, in May of 1972, was in the rain, and it was cold. It snowed that night, in fact it was snowing and we were still planting into the late hours of the night.

By now, many of the trees we have planted are upwards to 40' 0r 50' tall. Bur oak, aspens, pines, junipers, locust and cottonwoods are among the many different species; and we never even thought that some of these could grow at these high elevations; all produced by the  Colorado State Forest  nursery In Ft Collins, CO ( http://csfs.colostate.edu/nursery.htm) and purchased by us from our local office of Natural Resources Conservation Service.

We drilled wells, built reservoirs, developed springs, laid drip irrigation hoses, plugged in drippers and carried water by the buckets, many thousands of times over, just to give a starting boost to new seedling plants. We enjoy stepping back and looking up the hill or down the gulch, taking in the sight of the vegetation that today provides shelter to massive numbers of diverse families of birds, refuge to many deer and their newborn, antelope, elk and oxygen, beauty and wind protection to us. We enjoy the sense of achievement having initiated a planting and environmental program that is agreeable and pleasing to our winged, four-footed, and crawling friends as well as our fellowmen and us. We feel that this is our special contribution to the good of all men.

While we have appreciated the financial injection from some governmental, Federal and State, programs, the majority percentage of the expenses, upwards to 90%, is strictly from our own meager personal resources, many times to the detriment of other ventures and plans, as well as some recreational activities that could have been very enjoyable; but, it is our special choice to continue with this activity, for its gratifying and self-fulfilling rewards.

Our tree planting efforts have not gone unrecognized. In 1991, our family was nominated by the Colorado State Forest Service for an environmental award as "Model Stewards of agricultural lands, for having restored highly erodible and sensitive soils, previously tilled for wheat production, and presently prevented from any further erosion, by planting native grasses and trees and creating extensive wildlife habitat". We were invited to the Governor's Mansion in Denver, CO., where the, then, Governor Roy Romer awarded us with the special recognition award, at a "Celebrate Colorado" luncheon and award ceremony. This was a great honor, such as we had never imagined or sought. We prize the tribute paid to us and have resolved to try even harder.

Later, in July of 1993, we were awarded the "Volunteer Service Award" through the "Take pride in America" program by the U.S. Dept of the Interior, signed by Secretary Bruce Babbitt. In an accompanying letter the Secretary congratulated us for our volunteer efforts "towards making the American Community and Landscape, respectively, as strong and as beautiful as possible". The letter concluded: "The success of your program will inspire other groups and individuals to develop similar vehicles through which the "Take Pride in America" can thrive and its objectives be furthered". The letter concluded that we would have been invited to Washington, DC to receive the award in person, but, we were among the last to receive that particular award, because of the "great backlog" of National Parks maintenance and other land mangement needs. 

No recognition was ever sought, no awards were ever expected. But, to this day, tears stream down our faces, whenever we remember the honor paid to us for a job that we enjoy doing, anyway. To that end, we are still on a yearly basis continuing to order trees, making new tree-beds, building more fences to protect the seedlings, investing more funds that are becoming harder to come by.

In 1994 after a detailed inspection, of our records and the tree planting sites on this ranch, by the American Forest Foundation, The "Y Lazy S Ranch", aka "Butler Ranch" was awarded the honorable "CERTIFIED TREE FARM" CERTIFICATION.

Quoting Mr. Terry Wattles, the District Forester of the Colorado State Forest Service, he wrote: "......as you know, YOU ARE THE FIRST PEOPLE IN COLORADO, IF NOT THE U.S. TO BECOME A "PLAINS TREE FARM MEMBER".

RESEEDING AND AERATING OF OLD ROOTBOUND-PLANT FIELDS

BRUSH CONTROL 

NOXIOUS WEED AND VARMIT CONTROL EFFORTS 

Wildlife Habitat Incentives program

Environmental Quality Incentives Program

Conservation Stewardship Incentive Program

Water development projects

Renewable and alternative power interests ( Photovoltaic Energy and Wind generated power) 

Conservation Easements