I am often asked to tell the story of how I came to be in Colorado ranching on almost 7,000 acres, especially because I am a first generation rancher.
My story starts with my Italian grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. His name was John Arduin but we called him Baka (that’s me sitting in his lap). John Arduin was a trapper for the state of Michigan and he and my grandmother lived in the Upper Peninsula, so they were “yoopers.” One of my fondest memories is sitting with my grandfather while he carefully drew the tracks of all the animals that he had tracked while hunting. When he was done, I had three sheets of paper with carefully drawn tracks of bear, weasel, martins, etc. To this day, I am always looking for animal tracks when I am walking out in nature.
In the 1950s, my grandfather became a conservation agent and was part of a project to reintroduce the martin to Michigan by going into Canada and live trapping the animals and then releasing them back in the forests of the upper peninsula of Michigan. I chuckle to myself knowing that my grandfather was probably part of the problem of over-trapping martins and now he was being hired for his trapping skills to be part of the solution. This thought leads me to the conclusion that our ancestors are part of our DNA.
How interesting that my passion (okay, obsession) is doing the most that I can on the land that we steward to reverse the damage done to the land by white Europeans through years and years of over-grazing in the west. While I may not have had personal relatives that did this over-grazing, I believe that we are all responsible to help right the wrongs of those that came before us in order to leave a place healthier for the next generations to come.
While I was raised on the east coast, I was born in California, and every time I traveled west I felt at home in my bones. On my 50th birthday I declared that it was a goal to “go west.” I am fortunate that my husband, Dave, was up for the adventure. In 2015, we purchased Badger Creek Ranch and started into the life of ranching and running a guest ranch. During those beginning years, I learned a lot about the history of land we were stewarding and a lot about what was needed to help restore the soil and the Badger Creek watershed.
2020 was a very challenging year for the ranch. We had financial struggles due to the pandemic, which brought us to the place of considering selling the ranch. Dave and I decided not to sell the ranch and instead we committed ourselves to doing the most we could. Our nonprofit board grew and dedicated itself to assisting with our many public interest projects and initiatives on the ranch. These initiatives are RESTORE (the land and the watershed); NOURISH (raising healthy meat for the community and providing retreats to nourish the soul) and EDUCATE (the public and the next generation of agricultural stewards).
The land that we steward is the ancestral lands of the Ute people. Their sacred sites are here, and it is essential that these areas are not destroyed by development, which leads to our ultimate goal of preservation and conservation. In November of 2022, we launched Badger Creek Ranch Community, a program of our nonprofit, Full Circle Alliance. The creation of this community has been a vision of mine for the last few years. By joining our community, you join us in our efforts to RESTORE, NOURISH, and EDUCATE, and you join a family of people devoted to supporting the goals of the ranch. We are the only thing standing between losing to development the last bit of undeveloped South Park open prairie. I hope you will join us in our mission. You can make a one-time donation or get set up for monthly donations as low as $10 a month (the cost of two Starbucks coffees). Your donation will help support our work in such big ways.
In gratitude for your care and love of the ranchlands we steward,
Chrissy McFarren
Director
