RAINFALL DOESN’T DO MUCH TO END COLORADO DROUGHT
State weather officials said the wet weekend in Colorado, where some areas received up to eight inches of rainfall, won’t do much to clear the long-term drought, and said the effects of the stormy weekend will be forgotten within days. Denver Rocky Mountain News; July 10 <http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4833501,00.html>
Column by Hal Walter
Agriculture – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
THERE’S NOTHING like a drought — whether a long-term trend or a short-term dry spell — to make livestock owners edgy. Lately we’ve seen both sides of dry.
While an early July monsoon bolstered hopes of a better hay crop this year, the long-term trend has been drier than dry, and the demand for hay is outrunning the supply. These factors, combined with sky-high petroleum prices have bucked the price for a bale of hay to near record highs. At $5.50 to $6 per bale, or up to $195 per ton, hay is commanding a premium price.
Essay by Ed Quillen
Climate – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
AS I WRITE THIS, Salida has just seen three or four straight days of rain, the strange spectacle of water falling from our sky. Not our usual violent summer thunderstorms, but a long gentle soaker, as though we were in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. And it’s chilly for July; I need to wear a sweater as I sit and type. Thus “Drought Associated with Global Warming” is not a topic that leaps to mind.
Essay by John Mattingly
History – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
JUST NORTH OF MOFFAT on Highway 17, on the east side of the road, stands the old Wagon Wheel Cafe, now empty, guarded by trees and weeds.
When I first came to the Valley in 1987, it was a hub of conversation, coffee, and late lunches for locals. I had just started as manager of Cotton Creek Ranch that year, hired in the middle of an ill-conceived sheep drive up to Bristol Head. An embarrassing number of ewes had escaped, partly because the drive had been conducted by cowboys on horseback instead of shepherds with dogs.
Article by Marcia Darnell
Commerce – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
ALAMOSA, like most small towns in Colorado, tries hard to put itself on the tourist map. Small businesses and individuals work to showcase their local attractions and natural wonders. Districts and boards, associations and directors, struggle to turn a trickle of tourists into a steady flow of dollars.
Letter from Slim Wolfe
Colorado Central – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
To Colorado Central:
How can god’s way be best if we can’t agree on what god is?
Letter from Leigh Mills
Agriculture – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editor:
I am writing this letter to tell folks about the USDA’s draft strategic plan of the NAIS, National Animal Identification System, which was designed to create and implement a national database to store information about all livestock animals and their movements in the United States. Currently, the plan is voluntary, although some states like Wisconsin are making it mandatory. The USDA intends to make this plan mandatory January, 2009, if they do not get “full participation.”
Letter from Jan Klump
Colorado Central – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Martha and Ed Quillen,
This is just a thank you note. I happened on your website after Google found me the article from your January 1998 edition, “From Turret to Salt Lake City” by Dick Dixon.
Letter from Lee Milner
Politics – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
The replacement of Congressman Joel Hefley will be decided on primary day August 8th. Yes, we Dems have a good candidate in Jay Fawcett, but let’s face it the Republican candidate would have to wake up with a dead girl or a live boy two days before election day to lose. And even then I don’t know that I would bet on the Dem!
Letter from Frank Snively
Christo – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Judging from the bumper stickers and slogans which have been cropping up around the Arkansas Valley recently, the proposal by Christo and Jeanne-Claude to put some cloth covering over the River — for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! — is the worst thing that has happened in quite a while. Personally, I happen to disagree with the notion that it is evil, and I will try to explain why.
Letter from Bob Engel
Culture Wars – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editor:
I found Martha Quillen’s July critique [A Letter From The Editors] of Richard Lamm’s recent book, Two Wands, One Nation, incomprehensible. After rereading Lamm’s book her assessment seemed even more farfetched.
Letter from Richard D. Stacy
Water – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I have enjoyed George Sibley’s columns in Colorado Central for some time. His most recent, “The Developed Resource,” was very interesting. Long ago, as a student at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs (B.S, Chemistry, class of 1952), I used to occasionally sit in on the geology lectures of Dr. Pearl who also was quite interested in the water resources of Colorado.
Letter from John Mattingly
Disparagement – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Martha,
I enjoyed your disparagement letter so much I have nothing disparaging to say, though I admit to a single bashing thought: Dick Lamm’s description of Americans (“materialistic, uninformed, wanting what they can’t afford, and too ignorant to sustain a democracy”) so aptly describes our current administration I thought for a moment Lamm might be short-hiking between switchbacks on the campaign trail.
Article by Gary Minke
Local History – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE HUMAN MIND has a way of sidestepping fears. Even though we all know that more people die in motor vehicle accidents in our counties than almost any other activity, we don’t think twice about getting behind the wheel. Yet we wonder why so many men took on very risky jobs in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Review by Ed Quillen
Colorado Lore – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Bank Job – The Story of C.D. Waggoner
by Peter F. Kenworthy
Published in 2005 by Western Reflections
ISBN 1-932738-24-X
Review by Martha Quillen
ColoradoLlore – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Here Lies Colorado – Fascinating Figures in Colorado History
by Richard E. Wood
published in 2005 by Farcountry Press
ISBN: 1560373342
Review by Ed Quillen
Leadville lore – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Iron Ties -A Silver Rush Mystery
by Ann Parker
Published in 2006 by Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN 1-59058-262-4
Article by Elaine Foster
Roadside Attractions – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN since you touched the leg of a dinosaur?
And when was the last time you walked the land where dinosaurs are known to have lived and died? Or held a fossil in your hand? Or examined one under a digital microscope?
If it’s been ‘ages’, then it’s time for you to visit Colorado’s ancient past and hold bits of its exotic plants and creatures right in your hand. You can touch a real Apatosuarus bone. There’s one right inside the door of the Dinosaur Depot in Cañon City, just for you to handle.
Article by Central Staff
Pike Bicentennial – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
When we left Lt. Zebulon Pike on July 31, 1806, he and his military party of 23 were camped, along with 51 Osage and Pawnee Indians who were being returned from captivity by the Pottawatomie, near Mary’s Home, Mo., about 200 miles up the Missouri and Osage rivers from St. Louis.
Pike’s interpreter, Baronet Vasquez, had been arrested over a debt but had returned. They were proceeding upriver in small boats called batteaux, usually propelled by poles.
Column by George Sibley
Climate – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
CLIMATE — the big global movements of air and water that come down to us in the form of our daily weather — has been much in the news. We’ve always said, “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” But, in fact, it seems that every time we’ve climbed into the car to go to the grocery store, or turned on the furnace or a lightbulb, we’ve been unconsciously doing a little something about the weather, incrementally helping to alter the global climate that delivers our local weather — more early snow over here, but less overall; warmer, earlier springs; wetter summers.
Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca
Wildlife – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Close encounters of the black bear kind:
Experts agree that people crossing paths with black bears should expect the unexpected.
Most bears know we’re there long before we’re aware of them. And those not conditioned to humans and human food will simply leave the area at the first glimpse of us.
Sidebar by Lynda La Rocca
Wildlife – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Bears have been revered and respected throughout human history.
The Pawnee of the Plains venerate White Bear Medicine Woman, born with a bear’s spirit after her father killed a bear while she was in her mother’s womb, and known for her healing powers.
Article by Lynda La Rocca
Wildlife – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
TO THE UNINITIATED, it certainly looked like breaking and entering. But to my husband Steve and me, the splintered wood on the door of our detached garage meant one thing: The bear was back in town.
Granted, we’d never actually seen this burgling bruin. In fact, our only bear encounter during five years of living in Twin Lakes had occurred just weeks earlier, when a cub came around the corner of the garage as we were taking our dog Twink for her morning walk.
Article by Marcia Darnell
Tourism – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
MAYBE COLORADANS have become jaded. Maybe we put implicit trust in smoke jumpers. Or maybe it’s just a pervasive case of denial-itis. Whatever the cause, the Mato Vega fire in June caused little disruption to the money flow in the eastern San Luis Valley.
Brief by Walt Hall
Utilities – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Summer time is here again, and with it come the lightning storms that can wreak havoc on your electronic equipment. Nothing is going to survive a direct hit, of course, but lightning can strike power and telephone lines many miles away and transmit surges. When the power company tries to cope, your lights might flicker. During our summers, your household current can vary considerably from the standard 117 volts.
Brief by Central Staff
Community – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
A study commissioned by Breckenridge’s town government about youth in Summit County brings to mind the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
The 31-page study noted that many local parents lead relatively non-traditional lifestyles. People who moved to the mountains during the 1960s through the 1980s (and seemingly even today), were part of the “immediate-gratification cultures,” says the consultant, Lynn Johnson.
Brief by Central Staff
Geography – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Bayou mucho salade?
This South Park real-estate ad caught our eyes, since we’d never heard of “Bayou Salida” (Marsh Exit?), and we suspect they meant “Bayou Salado,” an old name for South Park.
Brief by Martha Quillen
Regional News – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Sporting Events Marred By Tragedy
Diane Woolwine, a 65-year-old participant in the annual Ride the Rockies bicycle tour, died in Salida on June 22. According to the police account reported in the Mountain Mail, Woolwine and five other cyclists had stopped on the shoulder of U.S. 50 for the traffic light in front of Wal-Mart. But when the light turned green, Woolwine veered left into the traffic lane, and struck the side of a traveling motorhome; whereupon she went down and under the wheels of the vehicle.
Brief by Central Staff
Crime – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Growing the wrong plants in your house can be a form of child abuse in Park County.
Stuart Sorensen of Fairplay was found guilty in district court of felony cultivation of marijuana, as well as the petty offenses of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Brief by Central Staff
Crime – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
A murder that may have happened in Denver County will be prosecuted in Park County, even though the Park undersheriff “would have liked to have seen them [Denver] handle it,” since “they have more resources.”
Brief by Central Staff
Media – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you hear some Boston accents in and around Salida this summer, that might be a result of a piece that ran on June 28 in the Boston Globe’s travel section. Written by correspondent Diane Daniel, it was headlined “An unspoiled slice of Colorado,” and begins with a quote from a colleague: “I’m asking you not to write about Salida.”
Brief by Central Staff
Climate – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Drought continues to plague many Colorado communities this summer, but in different ways. Fires plagued the southern Rockies, including a huge blaze along La Veta Pass, which shut the highway, and thus affected towns as far away as Alamosa and Poncha Springs.
Brief by Marcia Darnell
San Luis Valley – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Mountain Moments
Summer drama kept rescue crews busy in the SLV in June. A plane crash near Antonito spared the life of an Arizona pilot, and a lost hiker was found alive and well in Conejos County. Sadly, a climber died on Kit Carson Peak. The man from Cheyenne perished in a fall on the fourteener.
Brief by Central Staff
Water – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
The meetings probably didn’t do much good anyway, but the Chaffee County Commissioners and the Upper Arkansas Water Conservancy District are no longer conducting formal dialogs.
They have clashed before over recreational in-stream flows in the Arkansas River from Buena Vista to Salida — the county wanted a flow right, and the district opposed it. Last summer, the district entertained petitions so that it could expand to cover all of Frémont County (it currently has only the sparsely populated western portion).
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Essay by Jim Stiles
Transportation – August 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
THESE ARE DIFFICULT TIMES for people like me. I love to drive. Nothing soothes me more than a long, empty stretch of road and a full tank of gas and no known destination. I love the rumble of the road, spotting a café in a town, stopping for pie and coffee and listening to locals talk about the price of cattle. I love hearing meadowlarks as I rattle by their perches on fence posts. I like to roll down my window and moo at the standing cattle and wonder if this urge is an affliction that will someday produce its own special medication. I love driving into a thunderstorm and listening to the rhythm of my wipers.
