Hi, I'm Rory. My wife Cesqua and I really need some help! Please read and help us save our trees and our property from wildfire if you can. We have 70 dead pine beetle kill trees and about 100 more we will lose if not treated.

About 18 months ago, we took a leap and bought our little foothills property with dreams of building a homestead, raising animals, growing food, and creating something lasting here in the Colorado mountains.

What we didn’t realize at the time was just how severe the pine beetle damage really was (most trees stayed green for 12-15 months).

Across the property are roughly 70 dead standing trees — many of them massive 50–100 foot beetle-kill pines. At first, they just looked weathered. Then the winds came. Limbs started falling. Trees began leaning dangerously toward our internal power lines, and nearly 10 of them stand over and around our barn and animal areas.

In the foothills, beetle-kill trees aren’t just an eyesore — they’re a serious wildfire danger and a safety hazard for everyone nearby.

Normally, we would try to tackle something like this ourselves.

But life had other plans this past year. Since October,

First, I suffered a major thumb injury at work and blew out my CMC joint, requiring surgery. While recovering from that, we also discovered I had an underlying genetic knee deformity that had gone unnoticed most of my life until it finally failed badly enough to dislocate twice and require surgery and more recovery. In the process of healing for my knee, the extra weight caused the plate in my left foot to fail and refracture. I will need surgery to remove my broken hardware and internally fixate my refractured foot.

Taking down dozens of massive dead trees on steep mountain terrain simply isn’t something we can realistically do alone.

After weeks of searching, we found an incredible group of off-duty volunteer firefighters willing to help us clear the property before fire season gets worse. They offered to remove all ~70 beetle-kill trees for $10,000 total.

That total covers: • tree felling and processing • slash cleanup and hauling • solar treatment to help prevent further beetle spread • $1,500 for the standing live-edge milling/slabbing work • $1,500 for a commercial chipper rental for the week.

For this amount of dangerous work, it’s honestly an amazing offer — but the catch is timing. They only have a two-week opening before wildfire season ramps up and they’re pulled back into fire response.

We hate asking for help, but this project is bigger than us right now.

This property means everything to us. It’s our home, our animals’ home, and the future we’ve been slowly building day by day. Clearing these trees doesn’t just protect us — it reduces wildfire risk for neighboring properties and helps restore the health of the land itself.

If you’re able to donate, share, or simply help spread the word, we would be incredibly grateful.

Every dollar goes directly toward removing hazardous beetle-kill trees and making the property safer before summer fire season arrives.

Thank you for reading, sharing, and supporting our little foothills dream. ❤️