Humble Beginnings
Hi there and welcome to the very first blog post for CALROCK Ranch for Trafficked Girls. This edition covers what’s happened so far from the raw land purchase through December 31, 2019. The purpose is to chronicle the development of the ranch. So here’s what’s been done so far.
On August 20, 2019, my very generous mother, Jeanne Kaump, purchased 10 acres of land for the ranch. Since quite a bit of the money originated from the work of my deceased stepdad, Robert O’Neill Christopher Kaump (R.O.C.K.), we wanted to honor him in naming the ranch. When they moved to CALifornia back in the 1990s, he created an email address using the moniker CALROCK, which seemed like a great name for a ranch. Since then, I’ve decided it’s also a great acronym – CALifornia Ranch Of Christian Kindness, since it is part of our mission to pay forward God’s mercy and kindness to all who set foot there.
I’m not able to retire from my 40 hour a week job until 10/1/2023, so the idea is to take that time to establish the infrastructure (water, power, septic and propane), get my residence (aka CC - command central) set up, begin restoring the land and preparing it for planting. At this writing, the idea is to plant cash crops of lavender and rosemary and possibly basil on ½-1 acre, grow food for the ranch in raised beds, develop approximately 5-6 acres for rotationally-grazed pasture for horses, followed by egg laying chickens and use the rest of the land for cabmins and program buildings for the girls, which will be set up once I can finally retire. At that point, I’ll treat the ranch as my day job and go out to work there on a daily basis to set up the sustainable agriculture program and finish developing the recovery/wellness program for the girls. So it’s become a multi-phase plan which seems to be an ever-evolving thing because you just never know what’s going to come up! For example . . .
I introduced my mother to Facebook marketplace shortly before the land purchase was complete and she went to town as the CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) of CALROCK Ranch. The initial plan was to fix up my horse trailer, go out on the weekends and just observe what happens at the land for the first year – to see how the path of the sun crossed the land, where the prevailing winds came from, what happened when it rains, etc. But then something better than my horse trailer came along. On August 16th, a week after the closing but before we even funded, she found an amazing deal on a mobile home. We contacted the sellers, met them at the storage yard where the home was being stored and bought it on August 21st! It didn’t make sense to leave it stored there and continue paying storage fees, so I made arrangements to have it moved to the Ranch. We needed to open up the fence and install a gate in order to make room for the delivery truck, but it was delivered on my 58th birthday (September 28th) and was leveled and sealed about a month after that. So now we’ll be able to do the “Ob” (observation) year in a little more comfort, although there is much to be done to make it habitable. In the meantime, we’ll act like pioneers when we’re out there – working between dawn and dusk and then lighting some candles! LOL!
Shortly after the land closed, I started a GoFundMe page to try to raise funds for the infrastructure, beginning with a 5,000 gallon water storage tank and a septic system. Within just a few days of starting the page, we had approximately $3700! THANK YOU TO ALL MY WONDERFUL, GENEROUS DONORS!!! The water tank cost $2700 and was delivered on September 14th and is in place and ready to be filled.
To make the work of the ranch a little easier and also for her own transportation over the 10 acres, my mom also bought herself an ATV. We haven’t used it much yet, but once everything is set up at CC, we’ll start working on land projects and it should come in very handy.
In the last month or so, we’ve also installed electric fence around the homestead area and got the plywood backing for the skirting up just before the rains hit and we survived the first Santa Ana winds! After that, contractors came out to give estimates on getting the septic system installed and getting power to the mobile home.
At this point I’d like to take a minute to thank my wonderful family for all of their incredible support, financial and emotional, and all of the manual labor they’ve provided so far as well.
So that’s the plan for the next 4 years and a recap of what’s happened in the first 5 months. It’s already been a wild ride and we’ve only just begun.
