The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch: How to Build a Haven, Part 1: The Siege

have worked on this for a very long time. Hard scrabbled pass in southern Colorado in the winter. It's not where you'd expect to start a story that's fundamentally about the Internet, but it's where a four wheel slid a rental car in the spring of If you remember, back then, Biden had just been inaugurated, some chads had stormed the capitol,

and vaccines were gradually being administered across the country. Less remarkably, frontier rail lines are taken forever to find my damn bag, and I was trying to get there before dark about a week before it's in a tweet, I thought that this is a Nature's Unicorn Ranch because I grew up as a farm who didn't really slide quite as easily as others did into the supermatcho stuff, and I certainly

didn't slide anywhere near conservative politics. What the ranches were doing building a queer haven and anarchistyle pack of farming co op inspired me. I've been missing country life a lot during the pandemic, and they wanted to get out onto the ranch. But that wasn't really why I was driving an appropriate, rittle car through a white out. I was doing that because I've seen this tweet, and that tweet said there ranches under attack and they needed help.

The tenacious Unicorn Ranches under attack by local biggots and militia. They have threatened violence publicly to us and those that help or associate with us. They have encroached on our property, armed at night, with the intent to harm those of us that live here. We need help. That's where the story starts for me. It's where the story starts for a few characters you're going to hear this week, but

it's not where the story really starts. It starts with Penelope log we'll call Penny, working at a big box store dealing with increasing transphobia both online and in person in the early Trump era. Penny's a veteran and a country girl, and she was looking to get out of the city along with her partner's Canton Gin. She decided to rent some land and set up Founding Rescued Our Packers. So we started in Livermore, Colorado, which is on the

whole entire other side of the state. UM, And it really was a reaction to what was happening to the queer community, UM, not only locally, but kind of what we were seeing nationally. Went about two years into the Trump presidency where things were just getting really bleak and

dire for the majority of people that we hung out with. UM. We we were originally going to try to like just make a make a bus that was roadworthy and we could live in and just kind of be nomadic, but we couldn't really on board and help other people that way. Like that was really just like it would have been hard to have the cats we had. Yeah, we also like even at that point we had like four cats, so it was two three cats whatever at the time,

but still too many umbo young dogs and whatever. So so we uh so I had always wanted to do a homestead, and I grew up farming and ranching, so it was very natural for me. Um, And so we found a ramp that we could rent and livermore Um and knee cat and gen Um just uh kind of set out to start somewhere. So that was a haven for queer people, um, but also a home for us. You know. It turned out the United States didn't something

given alt pack of crisis. The animals were once extremely fashionable, and herds popped up over the West in the nineteen eighties. Now that generation about pacer ranches are aging out of the hard physical labor that makes about every day on a ranch, and there are packers are often left to their own devices. The unicorns, as the people in the valley called them, adopt these al packers, which are often

to elected, and care for them. They re feed them slowly so they would't die from the blow that comes from refeeding too fast, and they sell their fiber as yah. Gradually, with a ton of hard work and a growing community,

they built their ranch into a sustainable operation. But as the herd grew and their unfortunate rental agreement became clearer, they decided they needed a different ranch, and so they moved across the state to Westcliffe and it was a rented ranch that we were trying to rent their own.

We thought we were renting their own actually um, and then that rug got pulled out from underneath us, like they just they just when we went to purchase it, they were just like, no, you haven't been renting, going, you've just been renting. And we were in an additional hundred thousand dollars, So it was like, yeah, we had to move right as COVID was getting bad in America.

So like March of that was fun. It was it was the worst and best move all at the same time, because the roads were fucking empty, like if quarantine was in full effects, so the roads were empty. So we were traveling with trailers full of animals on empty roads. And then after like the restrictions lightened and we got used to what like the normal traffic flow was, we were like fuck this, like but it was cool, like

having everything shut down. We couldn't like the big problem was we couldn't rent anything because every rental place had shut down, and so the really it was like the beginnings of like the community for for us right. It was like we taped friends and you know, comrades to how social media. Yeah, and everybody really stepped up and helped with that move. So it was it was cool West Casts where I met them. It's a beautiful town

in the sound grade to Christo's. In the summer, it's full of tourists taking weekend trip to the mountains and eating ice cream. And in the winter it's quiet, snow covered, beautiful and absolutely freezing. In March, I drove through the town in the afternoon and what I figured was an inconspicuous man. Everyone else who visited the ranch that month and picked up a tail. Aside from a few strange looks,

I think I got through, okay. I took a long, lonely winding road through the valley and then turned down a dirt road towards the ranch. Penny met me at the gate in a plate carrier with a rifle. We briefly hugged, and then I quickly parked my car outside. That don't that the grown queer community at the ranch called home. It was a profoundly strange experience. Inside the house was full of warmth, conversation and laughter, people enjoying each other's company and enjoying being out of the biting

wind and snow. Outside was cold. We wore plate carriers, and the ranches carried long guns. I carried a camera and go pro and a kniffac and then dressed in battle rattle. We broke the eyes on the art pack of drinking tanks and tried to stop the recently adopted animals from re feeding too quickly. I walked and talk with Penny and j another of the unicorns, whose story will get you later, about the stress that the increasing threats to them had had on them. But first we

met the animals. We have sheeps, we have goats, We have of course alpaca. We have ducks and chickens um day to day, five Pyrenees which are life stock guardian dogs, and a couple of blue heelers rescues um and my dog Starbuck, and oh yeah, eight cats. Um, But the

vast vast majority are the alpacas. It might sound a delic, and in many ways it is a dilic, But the work on the ranch never stops, and sick al packet need tending to almost constantly, even during the seats, which we will get too soon, I promise there was a lot of volunteers could help with, but animal husbandry wasn't on the list. So even after long night's patrolling their ranch, cold and afraid, Penny and j often had to take it in terns looking after old animals with blow let's.

They labored to breathe. Here's one that I recorded, m can you set that down? Help me stand her up, because we're just gonna see if we can give her to walk, all right, if you'll run it, okay, I yeah, there you are there, you are there, you go. My felts are perfect. Good. Next up, they can set it in there. Gotta walk, baby, that's part of this. I know that's part of this through Okay, okay, okay, oh baby,

I can't do that. It's all right, laugh it's sorry. Well, if you're not gonna walk, my love, I gotta do this. I know it hurts. Yeah, okay, let's get you crush. Yeah, it's okay. There, that's Cooper sounded like there was a little bit more movement. Yeah. I'm getting the feeling that they probably didn't even start asking for help until the we guess thought they heard was actually dying in the

old field. The story about how we got from a thriving and happy ran community built on the anarchist principle of mutual aid and solidarity to what the Unicorns called the seat. If the story it's about lies, bigger tree, and the Internet, but it's hard to think about those things too much of the ranch, because in the two trips I've taken I felt nothing but incredible sense of love, solidarity,

and supportive community. If you've engage with the story of the ranch at all, perhaps following Tenation's Unicorn Ranch online, it's probably because of the siege. But I don't want this to be storied. It's just about guns, bigger tree, and community defense. I also wanted to be a story about how long before the stiege began, the community at the Sana's Unicorn Ranch realized that nobody was coming to

save them, and so they decided to save themselves. They were they want to kill us, and they yeah, but when we like call it out, you know, um, I, hey, stop killing us, not even like fuck of just hey, like, did you just like lay off the whole killing us thing? You fucking fun half like fucking unsympathetic victim screaming trainings forgot? All right? So no, the anther, no, you can't stop killing. Excellent,

Maybe time to get guns now. The day I slip slid my way across hard scrabbled past in my not so trusty nous and our mirror with the same day that the gunman walked into a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado and killed ten people with an a R pistol. My social media feed was filled with the sadly all two common reactions to these, all two common mass murders that happen in this country. But the next day I saw people flooding gun shops in the fear that the state

would begin enforcing to gun control laws. It didn't. As I edit this draft, another young man with another gun has walked into a gay bar in Colorado Springs, about an hour from the ranch. It's an intensely conservative city.

The host focus on the family. You'll know by now that the club queue shooting result in the death of five people, including two trans people, and in your twenty one more, I'll be honest with you, it felt a bit weird driving through Colorado to write a story about guns was broadly positive, and in a sense it still does today. But the reason this story about guns is positive, really has very little to do with guns and everything

to do with people. It's really a surly about solidarity what it is about a R fifteen, But some people will never get part of the A R fifteen enough to see that. In case you missed it or you caught one of the reports at the time that seemed to skim over the fact that the ranch is around. We should give an account of the siege up top here so you understand what happened. Understanding why it happened,

that's another episode. So for now, just to understand. It's some boomer's log in to their social media and the queer elimination rhetoric we've reported so much about overlap with their small community in a valley in the Soengreade to Cristo Mountains, and this was a result. Things started, as they often do these days, online, with a throwaway comment about a parade in town. The girls didn't really know that they had moved into the reddest county in Colorado

at the time. Lauren Bobot was that congress person. But soon they started to get an idea of what some people, pretty small minority of people as it turned down, thought about them. So It started on Facebook, like honestly, like we started seeing more comments and people getting weird about it, and then there was literally to this day, I will

still say it was a fascist fucking parade. You're talking about July, they had a fascism, Like the local fascist did a fascism And we observed this by accident because we were like, oh, parade, that doesn't sound interesting, but we did go into town to get some coffee and ran smack into a fascist parade and and fascist and what what sort of like so fascist in the most like like direct way that there was Christian nationalist flags,

three percent flags, Confederate flags carried by armed white people screaming about the government and the Libs and the queers. Like it was a they did a fashion there's that one guy with a shirt that says I know things and own guns or something like that and shooting and shoot things yeah, um and so like it was a overtly hard right sponsored parade that was supposed to be like hard like that, like it was like set up

as a protest because of the COVID restrictions. They weren't letting people have a parade, and this was their answer to that. Um, and so really all we did was call that out on Twitter. We're like, wow, Like, there's a fashist parade in West Clifton. We'll come back to this parade next episode. It's organized by a local newspaper, which is, to be perfectly frank the most batchit, crazy, boom and brain worm thing I've ever seen in print.

It was an open carry event where malicious from across the US come to open carry unloaded guns for reasons that we can't really pin down. Soon. The unicorns calling out the parade on Twitter set keyboard fingers clicking. I've said fingers here, but these people give off a distinct single finger typing vibe if I'm honest. We started. The first thing that we noticed was the tails. We started getting tailed from points that everybody that we were very

public about frequenting, like Peregrine Coffee and Chappie's. We started getting picking up tails from those points routinely. Um, and that so like people like following you, yeah, yeah, not very covertely in the same three vehicles. And they wouldn't just follow us anyone that they figured out knew us. Yes, anybody that announced on any social media platform that they

were coming to see us. They would then follow and then it really got it became super into the physical world when nine News, well nine News did a piece on us in which the Sheriff's department came up because they were mass reporting us for animal abuse. A lot of the harassment came from a website you're probably familiar with now, but maybe you wouldn't have been back then. It might have been farms and locals. You don't have to say their names, yeah, if we could blank out.

But it's one of those things where like sis, people don't even know that Kwie Farms exists, and more people need to fucking now because it's it's it's ridiculous harass. We've done a couple of episodes. I don't want to give them attention, but like I don't know, I don't know whatever you think is best. Yeah, it's an entire forum dedicated to harassing Frans people that get any sort of popularity, ruining their lives as best they can with his stay did goal of making trans people kill themselves.

And it's there's a lot of members like like like like notable turfs are part of it, like like like everyone has found this website now and people need to know it at least existed, and it's a truly awful cesspool of They spent all of their time obsessing over that. It seems like it's worth naming them, but please save yourself the time and don't click over there. It's nothing good. Soon things got more real. A local news report who covered the rude you've got apostle with a white powder

in it. That powder wasn't deadly, but it was a real threat. Soon that threat came to the ranch, the nine news reporter. Thing happened, and then we started getting like warnings from people that were monitoring chat rooms, Like they were like, oh, hey, like the chatter about y'all has skyrocketed, and like it is blatant, like people making plans to burn your home down and kill you, like, and locals started warning us that like, hey, this has happened before you got to get ready. This is real.

Don't have pea, like, don't be predensiti about this, Like we're being serious, And so me and Jay started for about two weeks, we were walking patrols around the perimeter. The unicorns are afraid, so they took steps to defend themselves. Lots of the people that they ranch, like Jen and Cat you can hear anything interview, didn't want to carry guns. Penny and j had some military experience and they knew

how to use and carry guns. So every night they set out walking the perimeter to what for intruders on their property line patrols. They realized that there were people out there at the night looking back at them. That night is when me and Jay came back from that and put out a very whole heartfelt cry on Twitter, like we don't know what the funk to do. We're terrified and any help would be amazing. They were armed at this point, but they weren't ready for a gunfight.

That's a very different thing. Sadly, though, the gunfight they weren't ready for wasn't going to wait until they were yeah armed, um rudimentally armed by the way, like Jay had a hunting rifle, no a shotgun at that point, Um and I had my springfield a r U and so we scared them off. But like that made it like clear and present for us, and so we put

a heartfelt call out onto Twitter. Um and although was up here like the next day and caught people on the property that night, like it was armed people on the property, multiple people. Altho arrived the next day, spread on by that same tweet I'd seen. This isn't his voice, but they are his words. We wouldn't say too much about him other than that he has significant experience with this kind of thing, and he spent his own time and money to drive across the west to help some

queer folks he'd never met. He just wanted to raise our package, and he left the funk alone. I saw a post on Twitter from someone else boosting the original Tenacious Unicorn ranch plea for help. I reached out to them, and after some back and forth and letting them vet me, we agreed I would drive down to help them out. I took a little time to do some map studies of the area and confirm some suspicions about local law enforcement.

The sheriff at the time had publicly spoken at and supported oath Keepers rallies as a keynote speaker, alongside Stewart Rhodes, as well as other prominent oath keepers and three per centers. The cops haven't ever been much of an option in keeping marginals people safe, but this was on a whole other level. I called some people to tell them I was heading to its nacous unicorn ranch for accountability's sake.

At the time, I was binging an unhealthy amount of letter Kenny, And when one of them asked me why I was driving six to seven hours to help total strangers, the first thing I thought was when a friend asked for help, you help them all. They gave us his account of what happens. Again, for everyone's safety, were not going to use his voice. But that night he patrolled the mentor, often nearly being run off the road on

the way to the rug. He said, at first, when he saw at a tweet, he thought Penny and j were of reacting. But after that tale, and after what happened that night, he knew something very strange was going on. So on arrival at the hard Pack road off the highway, there were two cars on the other side of the highway from the intersection, backed in with their headlights off. There's an old Durango and a truck that I couldn't make the model of on the other side of that Durango.

Once I turned down the road, probably two yards after turning, I looked back and saw one of them turn on their headlights and started gaining on me until they were tailgating. I started to slow and pull over to see if they would pass, and they slowed and stuck with me. I had a suspicion about the two cars initially, and this was confirmation. I can't really see how fast we started going, but I know it was significant enough that I was starting to oversteer and lose traction on the

back end of my car on turns. I knew Penny and the rest were waiting at the property gate, so I signaled Penny to say, hey, I got a tail keep the gate locked. You'll see me driving by. Tell me what vehicle is following me. The vehicle slowed down we approached the gate, so it appeared they may have been anticipating me to do the same. Once I passed

the gate, they continued to follow. It turns out it was the Drangle, which I later found out had been doing drive byes of the property of the past couple of days. The Draga quickly realized what all those doing and pursued him pasture rog further down that snowy do it. Right after I passed the ranch, I accelerated a little more to create some distance and drove to a spot that I had seen on the map on the way down that looked like I could effectively turn around without

extra maneuvering. As I turned around, they had closed the gap and started to slow. Once they were pulling up next to me, I turned my high loom and carry light on them to at least disorient or over stimulate them with bright white light and try to catch faces. The windows had a dark tent, so it was not feasible. My other goal was trying to convey I see you and I have the advantage without actually visually threatening them.

The driver had been rolling their window down until I put that light in the window, then immediately stopped and rolled it back up. At that point, it was apparently enough to make them decide it wasn't worth it and take off. I legally carry a side arm with me the majority of the time and had it on me. I had my hand on it, but didn't feel the

need to draw during that encounter. In the two minutes since he turned off the hard top, does ideas about what he was in for had pivoted almost as fast as his car did not put out earlier on while driving to the ranch from my house. I had the thought, you know, this is probably bullshit and a bit of an overreaction on their part, So maybe at least I can deescalate some of their anxiety and give them some rest.

This will probably just be a lot of nothing. Clearly, I was mistaken, and after that encounter my mind was very much re oriented to the present reality. Driving through the gate, I had to prepare myself to the new possibility of actual exigency, and I thought, oh shit, there's something to this well petter pattern. Motherfucker's I'll just send a message to Penny saying that he was free of his tail, and she opened up the gate quickly. He drove up the same dirt road I did a few

days later to the dome. We had a scared and sleep deprived unicorns were hiding from the cold and from the same people who had just tailed him down a dirt road. Once I the house, we made introductions, and I explained that a trusted source had boosted their call for help, and I was willing to drive over to see what, if anything I could do to offer them in the form of assistance. They gave me situational awareness of the property who lived there, et cetera. Then went

over what had been happening up until my arrival. The local harassment people following them and doing drive bys of their property, the Kiwi farms threats of quote burning them out of their home. They had also mentioned there was a probing incident a couple of nights before that had really set them off when they caught another unknown individual probing their fence on the southern side of the ranch.

They detailed how they hadn't slept for almost forty eight hours since that incident, which had prompted their call for help. I could tell they were just done mentally, emotionally, physically, but still keeping it together. So I said something to the effect of you've done a great job, go get some rest. I'll stay up and take the watch. That was around nine pm. The crew went to get some deserved rest, and I got ready to go out. Before stepping back outside, I had to ask myself what the

actual funk is going on? I walked outside, grabbed my rifle and plates, put on some extra layers of warm clothes, and got ready for what turned out to be a long night. Quickly as Unicorn slept, Aoud got to work making a plan to keep the property and the people they're safe. Having never been on the property, I went ahead and to the best of my ability in the dark, started estimating distances high low ground, points of opportunity, weakness, cover, concealment, hazards,

and any other unclear backdrops. But the other residences that I had needed to be aware of that all came into play later. Based off what I found my best guesses, I started working at patrol on foot, covering the areas I thought were vulnerable and most likely for incursion. The roadside seemed like the most likely point of opportunity for them since there was no barbed wire and a single low wire fence being the only barrier to entry on the property. Pretty quickly things got weight. At around I

heard the first vehicle pass by. There was decent moonlight at the time time and I could see that it matched the shape and size of the Durango. They were driving by with their lights off, slow rolling and had made a stop about halfway down the property line on the roadway. They repeated this multiple times, so this kind of confirmed my theory they would go for the easiest

point of access off the roadway. The drive by has continued sporadically, and twice from high point on property, I watched them turn their headlights back on, heading towards the highway and stop on the hard pack, where another vehicle could be seen sitting with its headlights on. Although is pretty experience of this scenario, so it's Pool another of

the defenders who came a few days later. And it's not my first radio with these things either, But that doesn't mean it wasn't scary for all of us, but especially for Ald, who arrived first and was patrolling a small farm he'd never seen, facing attacks from an unknown

number of armed assailants. I can't remember how many times I wish I had my m v g's with me for better situational awareness, but they have been sent off for repairs, so I relied heavily on the moonlight, which there was a decent amount of not ideal doing a foot patrol on your own and the dark with an unknown number of people. Multiple times I thought I should get one of them up. There's way more ground than

I can safely cover. I don't know the terrain well enough, and doing this alone is fucking dumb if this turns bad, But of course I ignored that intuition and told myself, Okay, I'm overthinking this right now. These dudes are just trying to funk with the queers, and this is purely intimidation. I'm just gonna keep working the vulnerable areas, watch them play their dumb, bullshit games, and let the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch folks rest. Besides, at the time, I didn't know

the Tenacious Unicorn Ranch folks before that night. While they did great with what they had available to them, I had no idea how they would respond and a ship hit the fan situation, what their personal capabilities were, if they could be relied on for team movements, and didn't want to risk relying on someone running on fumes, so I said, fuck it, it'll be fine. His fears, as

it turned out, were more than justified. A little before midnight, cloud cover came in while I was walking along the west fence line and saw what I assumed was a dim flashlight or a cell phone light flash about halfway along the north fence line by the road, and I fifty to twenty seconds later another flash, making me think

that they were moving west towards the ranch gate. It was the first time I noticed anyone on foot, so I started slowly working my way down quietly to see if I could get closer for a good visual on who it was walking the roadway. Since the moonlight went away, I stopped about forty or so yards from the gate and squatted download or reduced my profile and just watch.

After about ten minutes, I heard quiet voices and then a very distinct earl from the man that appeared and turned to call out after he activated the gate's motion sensing light. I remember I had to stop myself from laughing from them not only having such shitty discipline, but also about what was a perfectly comical chud name. I stood up and watched another dude come out of the dark into the light of the ranch gate, who very

much had the build of an earl. The first guy began lifting and pulling at the gate lock and chain while earl was trying to cover the most and sensing light. They stood at the gate and I could hear them whispering for about a minute before I got annoyed at just how dumb they were and how they didn't notice me creeping closer to them while they were doing all this. Finally,

from around fifteen yards. I went to had and lit up the two males on my flashlight, who both had their faces covered in no visible weapons and a fairly sarcastic voice. I said something to the effect of, Hey, what are you idiots doing? Stop playing with the gate. Go away it would I didn't really feel I had much recourse other than to give a verbal warning at that point, because they were still technically not on the branch property and they had not made any visible attempts

to trespass or do any property damage. Both of them ran off in the most awkward, non athletic way you could think of. I didn't see anyone else in the area, so I approached the road to watch them jump into a car and drive off. I kind of laughed at myself and remember saying out loud, cut, you guys are impressively stupid. Okay, they're probing the property. Now I realized

these guys weren't working at a higher operational capability. I also felt a little more comfortable that even though I didn't have my n VGs to work in the dark environment, they didn't either. After staying out for another thirty minutes to make sure they were taking a break, I went back inside to warm up for a few minutes, get some food, and change my socks. After its scene, they had maybe gone and re convened after they got caught

trying to tamper with the gate. I turned off the lights inside the house that were visible from the road so I wouldn't be visible, and also just to see if that might make someone tempted to believe that the nation's unicorn ranch folks had turned in for the night.

Things were quired for the next hour or so. While out walking close to the east fence line towards the road, I remember a fox letting out a scream from less than a hundred feet away from me that honestly was more startlingly all the other events in the night up until then. If you haven't heard of fox screaming, it does indeed sound like someone being murdered in the most brutal way possible. I had a fox, probably the same fox,

a few nights later on the ranch. Even in the midst of the siege, it was still a working ranch, and so as a word of protecting people from violence the ranches, and they're pretty in mountain dogs also had to make sure they were protecting the chickens from Foxes. Sadly, though Foxes weren't the only visitess that night. A few hours later, a much more serious threat emerged. The night continued to be quiet for the next while, and I decided to move along the east side of the property line.

The cloud cover broke around two fifteen and I could see some movement and hear low voices again. I got low in held my position since it was fairly safe. It could make out two figures walking towards me inside the property boundary. I waited until they were about thirty or so yards away, and I was pretty sure there were no others working flanks before using my rifle light to begin the process of p I d and figuring

out if they were armed. As soon as I saw them, I noticed they were both armed, one with an A R with no optics and the other with an M one A with optics on it. I realized that while I had the high ground, I was not comfortable with the backdrops due to the house across the road potentially being in line with my firing position, and started shifting to a safer spot in case the confrontation escalated into

an engagement. I called out my first command while moving to a better position to their left side, you are trespassing on private property. Slowly, placed your weapons on the ground and show me your hands. Do it now. The two men frozen place but did not comply, and I recognized in that moment that these were two different men than who I had seen earlier. I called out again, drop your weapons or I will fire on you. Do

it now. As soon as I finished that sentence, they both looked at each other with their rifles and low ready turned to the right and ran. I pursued them so that I wouldn't lose the advantage I had, and to make sure there was no way they can make it up hill towards the house or get into a more advantageous firing position if they decided to turn on me. While parallel to them, so I could keep on the uphill side, I called out, stop and place your weapons

on the ground. Realizing there might be others out there watching my light move, I turned it off so I wasn't such an obvious target and made short bursts of the two men fleeings that I could maintain a visual on them. It wasn't an ideal way to handle it, but This was all an incredibly unideal situation to begin with.

After sustaining a fast paced run over uneven terrain and somehow not falling on my face, I realized we were moving toward the fence line and quickly looked around with my light to make sure no one else was waiting for them and also armed. At that point, I turned my light back on them, and they both pivoted directly to the fence, since we were still some distance from the gate, where it appeared they were heading toward. The first one with the m one a pushed the fence

down and hopped over. The second one panicked and with both hands tossed his a r across the small ditch on the other side of the fence, and I watched it fly halfway across the road while he struggled over the fence. He scurried over and kicked his rifle across the road before picking it up and disappeared with the other mail into the small ravine on the other side.

I realized I was disadvantaged where I was located, and repositioned to a small rocky mountain nearby so that I can at least get prone and have some cover if they decided to fire on me. I laid there and recovered my breath for a minute or so, watching to see if anyone else was out there, and then moved toward the house to make sure there weren't other incursions I may have missed while occupied with the other two who disappeared after trying and failing for a second time.

It seems that the local biggots took a break for the evening, but out in the unicorns couldn't. That was it for the rest of the night. I did go back down and find their entry point, where the fence had been newly damaged and bent inward, and tracks leading over the patchy snow from the roadway. Then I walked back to their egrest point, where the fence had been bent outward. Everything that occurred that night was clearly a hostile incursion, and they demonstrated intent to harm others on

their own property. The only reason that didn't happen is because we were armed and prepared. I think they realized at that point that the ranch was not a soft target, and the occupants these men painted as weak were in fact hard people willing to protect themselves and stand up against their aggression. More importantly, the residents of the Tenacious Unicorn ranch just wanted to be left the funk alone. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.