Jacob Springs Farm

Andre Houssney
Proposal to Lease
February 16, 2018

Hunter-Kolb & Kolb Brothers

Jacob Springs Farm Bid
Submittal Section

1.Please submit your name, email address, mailing address, and phone number.
Andre S. Houssney,

ahoussney@gmail.com,

7602 Arapahoe Road,

Boulder, CO 80303,

720-201-5725

2. Please describe the operation you propose for this property, with as much detail as
possible.

Overview
Jacob Springs Farm proposes to operate our ongoing grass-based, dairy program and our
vegetable and haying programs on the Kolb and Hunter-Kolb properties just across the street

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“How we treat our
land, how we
build upon it, how
we act toward
our air and water,
in the long run,
will tell what kind
of people we
really are.
― Terry Tempest Williams

from our current base of operations. We have also bid on two other properties for this year that
fit into our overall strategy.

Each property fulfills a need for the farm - our desire would be to operate all three properties
and to set ourselves up for future growth. However the Kolb property is the most important of
the three for our operation.

Flexibility
We are very flexible to work with OSMP staff to devise a system that best helps to meet City of
Boulder land use goals. We are willing to cut out any program or aspect of this proposal that
staff does not prefer and add to it anything that would be beneficial.

We are committed to the highest possible standard of environmental stewardship and see
ourselves as determined to be an example in the community and to other farmers that meeting
environmental goals while succeeding at agriculture is not only possible, but preferable.

As a farm, we define a successful operation to be one that allows us to cover our costs and
meets our financial needs while resulting in a net increase of biodiversity, including plants and
wildlife and soil fertility on land that we manage.

3. Please include practices that conserve soil, water, and other resources.
We are committed to a “Beyond Organic” standard, our feeling is that the Organic standard is
primarily concerned with prohibiting the worst practices of modern agriculture, where we would
like to go beyond that to focus on best practices. To that end we are open to staff suggestions
and experimentation around developing the highest possible sustainability. We do this because
it’s an important value that we have, but it’s also good business when marketing to our local

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community, where Organic food and environmental conservation are high priorities for our
customers.

Fertility: We practice cover cropping to suppress weeds, prevent erosion and improve soil
fertility.

Although we are not opposed to the use of mined minerals such as Rock phosphate,
Potassium sulfate, Gypsum and the like, we generally prefer to use manure to gain these
nutrients.

Pest Control: To this point in our farm’s history we have only sprayed a single application of
any type (we sprayed a soapy cayenne pepper solution on 4 acres of pumpkins in 2014 which
successfully saved the crop from a bad infestation of striped cucumber beetles). We prefer not
even to use Organic listed substances, in most cases choosing to take a loss, rather than cross
that boundary. By taking this rather extreme position, we have learned to control insects by
other means. We can generally afford to do this because 1: We are diversified enough that any
single crop loss usually does not have a major effect on our income and 2: We sell nearly all of
our products close to retail prices and so profit margins are higher than for most farmers.

We do like to use beneficial insects and early cutting for dealing with insects such as alfalfa
weevil. Early cutting also contributes to higher quality hay (at the cost of quantity) and we
prefer that for our cows anyway.

Holistic Planned Grazing; we use this tool to track many aspects of resource management:

1. Minimize negative animal impact and overgrazing, Reduce time livestock spend in each
grazing division (ensure adequate plant recovery time) Protect and regenerate native plants

2. Determine where and when we need to concentrate livestock most to maintain healthy
grassland, reduce weeds or woody vegetation (where desirable), and prevent soil erosion

3. Provide wildlife with adequate cover, where & when needed to protect their breeding cycles

4. Maximize standing forage at the end of the growing season in a nutritious state - (extend
the grazing season and decrease the “feeding” season

5. Plan a Drought Reserve area to lessen impact of dry years on plants and animals.

6. Balance ecological goals with available labor, and practical considerations, including profit

Tillage: we till the ground as little as possible, recognizing that lacking herbicides to fight
weeds, tillage is sometimes the best remaining option.

Irrigation: we recognize that timely and proactive flood irrigation can greatly conserve water
resources compared to the “set it and forget it” style of surface irrigation sometimes practiced
by farmers who are overwhelmed and over-worked. We also recognize that multiple, brief
irrigation sets, while requiring more labor, are more water-effective than single, multi-day
sessions. We also recognize that flood irrigation widely has an undeserved bad reputation. One
benefit is that energy usage to pump and filter water is eliminated, also less plastics and metals
are needed, which reduces the embodied energy consumption of the operation. In a situation
like ours on the front range, critical late season water is also conserved by flood irrigation.

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Although more water flows into a field, return flows through ground water retain that water,
recharge aquifers, and return it gradually to streams and rivers, over a period of weeks, months
and even years. This ultimately improves the distribution of water available for downstream
users during the low-supply, high-demand dry months of July and August. In this way, flood
irrigation “saves” water and stores it for future use.
4. Please describe your proposed Crop Production; e.g., crops raised, tillage, irrigation.

Crop land
We are excited that the
property affords the
opportunity to expand our
vegetable production as well
as grow other annual crops.
We intend to divide the 13.1
acres (by our count) of crop
ground into three parts for
better organic fertility and pest
management. We will grow
and market vegetables locally
(as we currently do) on one
third of the ground, we will use
one third for cover cropping and, eventually (but not in year 1) begin growing small grains.

In order to reduce complexity until systems are proved out and running, in the first few years
we will opt for simpler crops that we have extensive experience with such as squash and
pumpkins (in our peak year we grew 4 acres of squash) and annual cover crops which we can
seed with our drill and either till down, graze down or cut and bale.

We have also identified a problem that we would like to fix; there is some significant erosion in
two areas of “Field C” (see diagram) we would address this by seeding a small portion of the
field (indicated in pink) to perennials and limiting tillage in this area

Three year rotation with two cover crops

Here’s a sample rotation, obviously it would take a few years to establish.

Field A: Spring: plant vegetables like pumpkins, squash or table beets, plant winter triticale
after harvest

Field B: Cut triticale as hay in June, plant peas, and oats as cover crop - graze &/or till it down
fall/winter

Field C: Plant & harvest a grain crop such as oats, wheat or barley

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Hay Ground
Ideally, to make best use of the infrastructure, most of the land around a grass-based dairy that
is easily accessible from the milking parlor would be used for grazing for our milking herd. This
means that hay production should occur on other, less grazable properties and the dry herd
should graze on pastures not so immediately accessible to the dairy parlor. However, this long-
term vision requires time to build up the herd and requires further development of livestock
watering systems.

In the mean time we have a strong need for alfalfa hay for our dairy cows. On the Kolb property
we would use manure on the hay fields and potentially feed on them during winter - spreading
out the areas where feeding occurs - to boost soil fertility. We would cut alfalfa early and
frequently, choosing to irrigate in multiple small bursts (probably 3 times per year) rather than
the single deep watering that has been the pattern of current management.

Pasture
In order to make best use of available forages we like to subdivide pastures with portable
electric fence where possible. We are experienced in the use of portable water systems
powered by solar electricity to provide stock water to subdivided fields, using Holistic Planned
Grazing to help determine moves. This helps us achieve the goals of healthy, productive and
biodiverse pastures.

We like biodiverse pastures including a wide range of native species, we frequently survey for
these species and include them in our planning matrix. We feel that diverse species contribute
to the nutritional mix, especially in the under-appreciated area of micronutrients, which
contribute to meat and milk flavor.

We are sensitive to the impact of grazing on pastures and riparian areas, this is why, during the
growing season, we limit cattle to no more than 2 weeks of access to any particular riparian
area. We also calculate adequate recovery times using the Holistic Planned Grazing framework.

5. Please describe how and where you will market the products grown on the property.

Using and Marketing the Crops

We market almost all of what we produce direct to our local market. We work with a large
number of local restaurants and have extensive farm-gate sales through CSA Shares such as
our very successful Meat CSA and our Milk Herd Shares (both 6 years old). We also sell whole
and half animals into the local locker trade and benefit other local businesses such as
Arapahoe Meats.

Our dairy currently has a net profit of about $700 per month per cow. This is primarily through
milk share payments, we anticipate being able to sell far more shares than we currently have. In
2015, Windsor Raw-Milk Dairy, which was milking over 100 head of dairy cows, sold their

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property to developers and closed down. Hundreds of customers were forced to go back to
the grocery store for their milk needs. Over 80 customers in the Boulder area contacted us to
try and buy shares, and we only had a few available. We scaled up from 2 to 4 cows at that
time. Only a few other small dairies have scaled up since then to supply the need. This
indicates a strong pent-up demand for raw milk. Our prices are identical to Windsor dairy,
however our standards of cow-care, feeding and milk quality are higher. We anticipate being
able to grow to milking at least 12 cows, and possibly as many as 20 without seeing a loss of
demand. This should result in sufficient additional profits to fund the entire operation. All other
products could be considered “extra income”

Ideally, the majority of all hay produced on this parcel would be used to feed our own livestock.
The remainder of all hay produced on this parcel would be sold in small square bales on the
local market through:

• Sales to current contacts on horse boarding operations

• Sales to new contacts we hope to develop in the local market for hay

• As a last resort, sales through one of the hay auction sites in the region

We have had great success feeding extra or malformed vegetables, especially pumpkins to
dairy cows and it is never a loss to use them in this way, however our first intention is to sell
them in bulk to local grocery stores (we have sold totes to Alfalfa’s in the past) and to market
them through our farm stand, as we have been doing.

We also have great relationships

growing beets and other vegetables for
a Ozuké, a local pickle and kimchee
company. We would explore expanding
this relationship after getting settled in.

Cover crops can be tilled in as green

manure, grazed by cattle and pigs or
cut for hay, giving us lots of value and
lots of options. We would like to
explore options for small grains crops:
currently we have a small flour mill and
we do sell flour this way at our farm
stand, however we have not been able to grow enough wheat to meet this demand. We have
had some requests for local, organic barley by local brewers and we will explore this option as
well.

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6. Please describe any kind(s) of
infrastructure improvement(s) that you
envision for the 

property.

Infrastructure
Improvements
There are a number of small
improvements that we would want to
make in order to have a successful
small-scale, pasture based dairy on the
property. We would love to work with city
staff to plan these improvements and we would be able to contribute labor as well as any
portable equipment.

Phase 1
These are improvements we would want to make in 2018:

Fencing: Although we rely heavily on portable electric fencing within the properties boundaries,
for operations like ours a solid perimeter fence is essential. In some places the property’s
exterior fencing is sound, however repairs will need to be made in places, (see main map) and
in other large sections the fence is either missing entirely or too poor to be repaired and will
need to be rebuilt (there is about 2,000’ of fence that will need to be completely rebuilt). We are
able to provide the labor needed to address this and this would be our first priority upon
receiving word of a successful bid.

In the medium to longer term we would like to add perimeter fencing around the house and
dairy parlor and to rebuild the defunct pen area in front of the loafing shed. This will require
about 800’ feet of new fencing and 4 gates to accomplish. We are willing to work with OSMP
staff to modify this plan.

Livestock water: Dairy cattle need a reliable source of clean drinking water at all times,
however systems need not be complex. Availability of creek access minimizes the need for
piped water, however it will still be needed for calves, pens (rarely used in our system but
important) and for dairy barn cleanup. We envision a simple system to collect creek water and
pump it to a holding tank using solar electricity (we have built these on numerous occasions
before). Water will then flow by gravity to fill up stock tanks. To achieve this we will want to
trench and install about 650’ of water lines. We own a suitable “Ditch Witch” trencher and we
already have the tank, pump, and solar panels needed to accomplish it. We will need
approximately 3 frost free risers.

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Electrical: The dairy parlor will need to be equipped with single
phase 220 volt power suitable for a 5 hp milking vacuum pump. We
currently have two of these pumps, one installed at our dairy parlor
and a spare which we would install at this site. We anticipate being
able to bring all the milk over to our place for refrigeration and
distribution, however we will also want to have a cooler onsite for
temporary storage of milk until we can move it across the street.

Phase 2
These are improvements we would want to make in 2019 and
beyond:

Structures: Subject to OSMP staff guidance and approval, and being highly sensitive to both
the historic nature of the property and the important view-sheds enjoyed by the drivers along
Arapahoe road, we would like to strengthen and eventually reroof the loafing sheds and
potentially other old buildings. We are interested in exploring the renovation and use of the silo
for silage. Our approach is to value old things and to sensitively repair, rather than replace,
wherever possible, even though it may cost us more in terms of labor. We are willing to do this
because of the high embedded energy costs of new construction and because we value the
aesthetics and heritage of old farms.

Livestock water: We would like to work with OSMP staff to explore possibilities to expand and
improve the livestock water system including possibly a small pond near the Northwest corner
of the property.

Field renovation: As our herd grows, we would like to work with OSMP staff to look at options
for gradually converting the old stands of alfalfa into mixed pastures including grazable
legumes and native plants.

7. Please describe how you will use the Hunter-Kolb Farmhouse and how it fits into your
agricultural operation.

Housing
We are in urgent need of more housing and the Hunter-Kolb Farmhouse fits the bill perfectly.
Aaron and Courtney Sprague, our relatives and farming partners, would love to be able to live
onsite, rather than commuting in, Aaron would be taking a leading role in managing hay
production, vegetable production on the Hunter-Kolb Property (as he did at our farm 4 years
ago and at Three-Leaf farm in Lafayette last year) and filling in for me (Andre) with livestock
responsibilities as needed. Courtney is a lawyer with a business degree and has a role in the
dairy operation as well as admin and marketing for our farm, she’s also a keen animal trainer
and will be assisting with milking duties. Being able to rent the Hunter-Kolb Farmhouse
provides an opportunity to create a more stable and healthy lifestyle in close proximity to the
animals.

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8. Please submit other details of your management not included above.

Livestock
Even though we have strong demand for our milk share program, it will possibly take some
time for this to scale up. However we deem it often more profitable to feed the hay we produce
than simply to sell it. We have explored a few options for feeding cattle for winter 2018-2019
(which we would probably do on our property rather than the Kolb property,) in order to prepare
to efficiently utilize Kolb pastures in 2019.

Option one: we have located a few dairies with herds of 12-20 breeding age A2A2 dairy heifers
for sale, (going for around $900 each) we have the funds to buy 15-20 of these animals, breed
them to our high quality bulls and then in spring 2019 we can retain some for our milking herd
and sell some as springing heifers (demand for A2A2 springing heifers is strong and they
typically sell for $2,200-$2,800) This is plan “A”.

Option two: we have a contacts with a large ranch raising high-quality black Angus cattle in
Montana, as well as a farm raising Wagyu cattle in Missouri - they have each expressed
willingness to furnish us with a load of yearling steers this fall that we could overwinter using
hay that we cut. We could then finish them on grass and market them locally as grass-fed beef.
(We have grass finished wagyu beef before with excellent results and sold the beef to local
restaurants for upwards of $20 / lb). Each of these operations is willing to finance the sale - this
is plan “B” but the easier option since it requires less cash.
9. If you are currently involved in other agricultural enterprises, briefly describe the 

operation(s). Include general locations.

Zambia
My wife Vanee and I started a co-op of
farmers in Zambia in 2004, Currently
with 1,194 farmer members we
produce mainly certified Organic
Honey and Beeswax as well as
essential oil crops for import to the
USA. I also own two large farms in
Zambia that were given to me by local
tribal kings. These farms are entirely
managed by local staff and I am part
owner in a third commercial farm in
Zambia. I typically visit the farms there
once per year and the operations do not require much of my attention because, after 14 years,
their management is doing an excellent job and I simply serve as a strategic consultant. I am
very proud of our work there as our farmer’s co-op members have gone from an average
household income of $75 per year to nearly $2,000 (and out of poverty) and drastically

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reducing the damage to the forests (clear cutting of the sensitive Miombo forest is nearly
eliminated in our areas), proving that profitable, environmentally sustainable organic farming
models can work even in developing countries.

Wyoming
In 2014 we bought a small homestead farm in Wyoming which is currently being farmed by tenants, they
milk goats and raise chickens and pigs which are marketed there as well as here in Boulder. This farm
also serves as our US warehouse and distribution facility for the Zambian agricultural products.

Consulting
As someone with a unique model of success in the difficult field of development agriculture, I’m
in demand as a consultant for agricultural projects in developing countries, I have kept my
travel limited, but do visit these types of projects from time to time. In the last year I’ve been
involved with livestock and concentrated fruit juice projects in Togo, and with Coconut oil and
essential oil production in Haiti.

10. How will the City of Boulder agricultural land you are proposing to lease, fit in with
the rest of your operation?
We are desperate for more land. As a small farm, marketing our grass-based dairy products
locally, we have been able to survive on the small land base that we have for 8 years. It’s
impossible for us to grow to a sustainable level, however, without more fields and pastures.

Although we have all the equipment needed to put up hay, we are bleeding money buying hay
from far away. Additionally, it’s difficult to find organic alfalfa, something that we would be able
to grow ourselves. Our current business selling grass hay could be considerably expanded,
and would help to defray the costs of haying equipment and give us additional income. The
proximity of the Kolb property, as well as the Aweida and Swartz properties we are bidding on,
to our home farm fits in very well with our operation. Our 6.5 acre farm headquarters essentially
has all the infrastructure to run a much larger farm (since it was once much larger before fields
were parceled off and sold). We are able to store equipment and a significant amount of hay on
our property, and we won’t tie up the roads much driving our equipment - (entrance to
entrance it’s less than 100 yards between our driveways & all three properties are within 700
yards from our farm)

As we anticipate increasing the scale of our haying operation, we are prepared to make some
major investments in haying equipment. In order to justify the purchase of this equipment, it’s
highly desirable for us to have access to as much hay ground as we can responsibly manage.

The pastures and the milking parlor at the Hunter-Kolb Property offers a unique opportunity for
us to grow our dairy. We have been sold out of dairy shares and have not advertised our
program for several years. We are constantly turning customers away because we have
reached our maximum capacity. Currently our milking parlor has 4 stanchions, while our
pastures will not allow us to grow beyond 4 cows. The Kolb property will allow us to expand
the grazing area as well as the throughput in the milking parlor, increasing the labor efficiency

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and allowing us to meet customer demand. There is a synergy involved in having two
properties so close together.

Not many farms in our area are involved with BOTH vegetable production and dairy/livestock,
but we are. The Kolb property affords opportunities for us to grow both aspects of our farm to
a more economically viable scale.

Our farm also has some advantages that the Kolb property does not have: we have 5 spacious
box stalls in the barn where springing cows and young calves can be housed during bad
weather if the need arises, we also have additional pens and sheltered areas for any cows that
need close monitoring or for bad weather that the Kolb property lacks, this means that we will
not have to build many new structures or pens for these purposes. We also have a fully
functioning milking parlor on our place and plentiful water, we can easily trailer water or cows
across the street in case of equipment or electrical failure.

11. Please describe your agricultural background.

Background
I am a first-generation immigrant born during the civil war in
Beirut, Lebanon. My family immigrated to the Boulder area in the
early 80’s when I was in grade school.

Coming from a war-torn country at first I did not adjust well to

life in the United States, I found a refuge in working on the
Niebur farm (West of 75th and west of Dry Creek between
Baseline and Arapahoe) from a young age. Jay Niebur, who was
the president of the Enterprise Ditch Co. and a capable farmer and stockman, trained me in
irrigation, training horses, operating farm machinery and other farm skills starting in grade
school. I fell in love with agriculture and threw myself into it beginning to keep bees, chickens
and goats of my own starting around 5th grade and continuing until I graduated from High
School.

I went to Douglass Elementary, Nevin Platt Junior High School (now middle school) and
graduated with honors from Fairview High School in 1996. Seeking out opportunities in
agriculture I won a full scholarship to Deep Springs College - a school with a huge BLM
allotment and a cattle herd. I completed my studies as a double major in Music and Civil
Engineering (Water Resource Management) at CU Boulder.

Prior to College, I also sought out opportunities on other farms around the world spending at
least 2 months on each of the several farms (list follows)

After College my wife Vanee and I became active in agriculture in the developing country of
Zambia - building an extensive farmers co-operative called “Sambah Naturals”

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In 2010 we were able to buy our property, the old Condon/DeBaker place near Jacob’s corner
which we have operated as Jacob Springs Farm for 8 years.

Haying Capacity and Experience

Although we are currently only managing a modest amount of hay ground, we are experienced hay
operators going back to 1997 when Andre managed 160 acres of dairy quality alfalfa at Deep Springs
ranch near the California - Nevada border.

For the last several years we have been cutting hay on 35 acres off of South Boulder road for the last as
well as 6 acres off South Boulder road and a few other small properties. We currently have a full
compliment of haying equipment including a backup mower, however we stand ready to make
substantial investments in improved haying equipment with a successful bid for one or more City of
Boulder properties.

Irrigation Experience
I first learned to irrigate in 4th grade working with my mentor, Jay Neighbor, who was also the
president of the Enterprise Ditch. I was so enthralled with water that I decided to make it the
focus of my college education, studying Water Resource Engineering at CU. Since then I have
designed and build several community irrigation projects in developing countries. I have been
the president of the Cottonwood Ditch company for the past 5 years.

Farms where I did internships:

The Thompson Dairy - Milking 250 cows near Ithaca, Upstate New York - 1 season

The Kennel Farm - 640 acres of corn, soy and cattle near Peoria Illinois - 2 months

La Ferme D’Aigrefoin - 25 acres of potatoes and cut flowers on a home for mentally
handicapped adults in Saint-Remy-Les-Chevreuse outside Paris, France - 2 months

Deep Springs farm and ranch Along with various part-time farm jobs and animal training gigs,
Andre spent 2 seasons on the Deep Springs farm and ranch with 600 head of cattle on
200,000 acres in Deep Springs California and Dyer Nevada - season one was on the general
farm crew with additional responsibility for 50 replacement heifers and 30-40 bulls. season
two Andre managed all aspects of producing 160 acres of Alfalfa, potato and onion fields and
was the student farm manager.

12. Please list the machinery and equipment needs for your planned operation on the
property and how you will meet those needs; e.g.: own, lease, borrow, hire custom, etc.

We own, (or plan to buy in the next 3 months) all the equipment we need for the basic
operation of the livestock, haying and cropland aspects of the farm. There are a few pieces that
we would like to buy in future years to enhance the operation, as well as to expand into small-
grains harvesting.

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List of Jacob Springs Farm Equipment
General Equipment
• John Deere 1070 Tractor

• 2 F-350 flatbed trucks (with gooseneck hitch, 1 with 4WD)

• Clark plane loader all-terrain forklift

• Three-point mountable forklift (backup)

• 2 axle 16’ Flatbed hay trailer

• 3-point Backhoe attachment

• 3-point auger attachment with 8” and 10” augers

• Ditch Witch 36” self-propelled trencher

Hay Equipment

• Massey-Ferguson 36 Self-propelled swather with draper heads and 14’ cutter bar

• Massey-Ferguson 7’ sickle bar mower (backup mower)

• New Holland 276 Hayliner small square baler

• 10’ side-delivery rake - brand unknown

• New Holland 1010 bale pickup/stack wagon

Cropland Equipment
• 5’ seed drill - small grains - 7” row spacing

• Jang Clean precision seeder - 3-point mountable - 3 adjustable planting heads for seeding
veg crops.

• 5’ Tarter 3-point roto tiller

• Harrow - single point hitch

• 3-point mounted tool bar with a number of tools: deep rippers, spades, “goose foot”, beet
knives, etc

• Multiple moldboard plows

• Land leveler - single point hitch

• 2 hand-pushed small seeders

Livestock Equipment
• 18’ Gooseneck stock trailer

• approximately 20 livestock panels

• 2 Feeders

• 3 Solar electric fence energizers, thousands of feet of polytape, numerous stakes and 6
lengths of poly netting of calves and sheep/goats

• 2 220v Vacuum pump milking machines (8 cow/ time), 1 at our farm - 1 be installed at the
Hunter-Kolb

• 1 110v backup milking machine (2 cows / time) & a gas generator in case of power failure

• 8 bucket milking units, with pulsators

• 80 gallon bulk tank - refrigerated milk cooling unit

• 40 gallon milk cooling unit (backup)

• 100 lb ice making machine with generator (backup for emergency milk cooling)

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We currently have a $75,000 budget to buy needed equipment and additional stock. With a
successful bid we plan to, at minimum, buy an additional tractor (large, with bale spikes and
forks), an additional swather, a manure spreader, and upgrade our small-square baler.

Also on our wishlist if the right opportunity presents itself, we will buy a round baler, a disc and
a small trial-plot combine.

We also have an agreement from two local farmers to borrow their tillage equipment when we
need it and their haying equipment as a backup in case of mechanical failure during the haying
season, both of these operations use their haying equipment only lightly and they would be
willing to lend the equipment in trade for a portion of the hay crop. This allows us to be
confident that we can get the hay put up in a timely way even under worst-case conditions.

13. Describe how you will meet the labor demands for the proposed operation. Are you
involved in your agricultural enterprises on a full-time basis? If not, what percentage of
your time is dedicated to agricultural pursuits? 

I am full time on the farm as is Aaron. We currently also have 2, fully-paid, part-time farm
interns This should be adequate to manage the work however we are in a position to be able to
hire labor as needed to supplement.
14. Amount bid for the property, either cash rent or per ton of hay and/or AUM 

Our bid for the property is divided into: Irrigated crop land (13.1 acres) $75 per acre, Irrigated -
hay meadows (36 acres)-$50 per acre, and unirrigated pastures (25.4 acres) - $15 per acre.
Total bid $3,156 per year.
Ability to meet financial demands: The total annual amount bid for all three properties is less
than what we spent on hay last year. Any of these properties will provide more than enough hay
to replace what we bought.
Please provide personal references that are familiar with your agricultural experience. If
you are currently leasing agricultural land, one of your references must be the owner.
Matt Carlson; Senior Pastor of Boulder Valley Christian Church - 303-895-1867
We cut hay and graze cattle on 30 acres of the church’s property off South Boulder Road
Ruthie Niebur; Landowner Boulder County - 303-358-6347 Ruthie’s late husband Jay was my mentor
Scott Ascherman; Landowner, Jefferson County - 303-818-7894
We have grazed cattle on Scott’s land in Jefferson county and co-operated on other agricultural projects

Name: Andre Houssney Date: February 16, 2018




Email address and Phone #: ahoussney@gmail.com, 720-201-5725

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