Article by Hal Walter
Agriculture – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
AT A RECEPTION prior to Joel Salatin’s lecture at Colorado College in January, a bluegrass ensemble serenaded the self-described “grass farmer” with a tune praising him as the high priest of pasture.
Letter from Slim Wolfe
Politics – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I enjoyed Lynda LaRocca’s story about woodstove cooking. The intrepid chef can manage stovetop items on most any flat-topped range, potatoes can be steam-baked in a lidded casserole in a half-inch of water, or use a dutch oven. If I had my druthers — for baking — I’d rather use a Canadian farm-kitchen range with a self-stoking gravity-feed wood chamber large enough to handle four or five big chunks of wood, since the typically small fireboxes on the stoves we see around here need frequent attention, especially to keep the oven heat up. Seems a shame that so many stoves were made with that built-in inconvenience.
Letter from Charmaine Getz
Colorado – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Editors,
I am a freelance writer who was recently contracted for a book called Weird Colorado to join a series published by Barnes & Noble on all things strange and wonderful in the U.S.
Letter from Elizabeth Dickson
Barnhard Attachments – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Regarding “Barnyard Attachments” in the January edition:
Remembering my sweet and sour time with my beautiful little pet goat, I was able to relate to the joy and the heartbreak that goes with attaching oneself to a pet. In the Canary Islands where we lived for a few years, we had a little bit of land where we resided, so I brought in some animal friends.
Letter from Katherine Mccoy
Review – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Hello, Martha,
I’m a big fan of your balanced journalism, but you seem off balance in your review of the book Thrillcraft. Yes, the book may be polemical and over the top. But realistically, where is the bulk of off-road damage coming from?
Letter from Bill Hatcher
Colorado Central – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Cozine,
I enjoy your coverage of Colorado issues and events. Thanks. Keep it up.
Here are some opinions/comments on the Feb ’08 mag that I’d like to share:
1. The plumber/lion account on page 7.
First, I’m glad that plumber got out from underneath that house with nary a scratch. Second, I’m saddened that the lion was killed merely for being a persistently resourceful cat. If I was a mountain lion, I too would be looking for just such a cozy, defensible spot like a crawl space. And anyone rooting around in such places in rural Colorado should expect as much. How to deal? Tranquilize.
Article by Jennifer Dempsey
Local Artists – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHETHER HE’S PAINTING a waterfall, tree root or mandolin player, artist Joshua Been wants to show the inhabitants of this world how beautiful it is.
“Painting is a way of framing moments of beauty,” said the 33-year-old Salida artist. “I try to show the world why I find a subject particularly amazing. If a viewer sees one of my paintings and appreciates that subject matter a bit more than they did before, after I perhaps showed them how to see it in a unique way, then I feel I have done my job. I just can’t get over how amazing this world we live in is.”
Essay by Ed Quillen
Modern Life – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
MARTHA AND I attended the Democratic caucus for Precinct Two in Chaffee County on the evening of Feb. 5 — despite the cold, and ice, and dark of night.
I had problems with Hillary Clinton, starting with her resounding failure on health care back in 1993. I had been torn between John Edwards and Barack Obama, but after Edwards dropped out, I went to support Obama, as did Martha. We walked to the caucus in the bitter cold, joking that it was too bad that one of us wasn’t supporting Clinton, because then our votes would have canceled each other out and we could have stayed home by the fire.
Column by John Mattingly
Food – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Wheat traded at over $10 a bushel last week. It dipped into the mid-nines during the stock market flurries, but rebounded quickly. Farmers are wondering if these high prices are new tops, or new bottoms.
Article by John Orr
Water – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
General Assembly water bill update
Every legislative session Colorado’s lawmakers take a stab at passing new water legislation. This year is no different. So far three bills have been shelved.
Article by Orville Wright
Salida Lore – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE BETTER HALF AND I were born and raised in Salida. As such, it is our hometown. In July of 1957, I left Salida to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. When Diann Ayers and I got married in 1958, she also left Salida. After I was discharged from the military in 1961, we moved back to Colorado, to eventually make our home in Broomfield.
Review by Ed Quillen
Wildlife – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Rocky Mountain Mammals A Handbook of Mammals of Rocky Mountain National Park and Vicinity
Third Edition
by David M. Armstrong
Published in 2008 by University Press of Colorado with the Rocky Mountain Nature Association
ISBN: 978-0-87081-882-0
Review by Forrest Whitman
Environmentalism – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism; to the Politics of Possibility
by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger
Published in 2007 by Houghton Mifflin
ISBN B001M0MDLG
Review by Frank And Sue Snively
High Plains – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
West of Last Chance
by Peter Brown and Kent Haruf
Published in 2008 by W.W. Norton & Company
ISBN 0393065723
Review by Eduardo Rey Brummel
Dinosaur National Park – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dinosaur: Four Seasons on the Green and Yampa Rivers.
By Hal Crimmel, text; Steve Gaffney, photographs.
Published in 2007, by University of Arizona Press.
ISBN: 0816524300
Brief by Central Staff
Trails – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
A new brochure about the Old Spanish Trail in the San Luis Valley came out late last year, and should be available now at area tourist information centers.
The Old Spanish Trail is more like a network of routes than a single path. In the 18th century, the American Souuthwest was a remote part of Spain’s New World empire. The region’s two major outposts, Santa Fé and Los Angeles, were isolated from each other, which made them more vulnerable.
Brief by Central Staff
Politics – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
At least one Central Colorado resident will be attending the Democratic National Convention that runs Aug. 25-28 in Denver.
That resident will doubtless have a voice, if not a vote. Mordecai, a 7-year-old donkey owned by Curtis Imrie of Buena Vista, was selected as the official convention mascot on Jan. 26 at the National Western Stock Show in Denver. The burro was shown by Sophie Herzog of Fairplay.
Brief by Allen Best
Altitude – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
The New York Times recently had a travel piece about Breckenridge, but one reader, Rudolph Pick, from Florida, thought the story incomplete. That belief is based on his personal experience.
My first night was a horrible experience I could not breathe. First thing in the morning, I went to the first-aid station, where it was determined that the oxygen content of my blood was 70 percent only. The high altitude of the resort — almost 10,000 feet — was the cause.
Brief by Central Staff
Mining – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Does a major environmental disaster loom for the Arkansas River above Pueblo? There was sure a lot of talk about it as we went to press.
The fear is that high water, thanks to a heavy snowpack, will force its way past an obstruction in the Leadville Mine Drainage Tunnel, surge past the treatment plant, and roar down the Arkansas River, carrying a heavy load of minerals and other pollutants that kill aquatic life, from tiny bugs to brown trout.
Brief by Allen Best
Forests – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
The U.S. Forest Service is hoping to cut about 200 acres of low-elevation aspen trees that appear to be dying out, with the hope that the cutting will provoke the aspen trees to generate root-based generation, called suckers
Brief by Allen Best
Transportation – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Truckers are excited about a new product called Autosock, which is a high-tech fabric that can be slipped over a tire, delivering the same traction in snowy and icy conditions that now require chains. The Autosock can be installed on tires of tractor-trailer trucks in about 5 minutes, instead of 35 to 40 minutes, product representatives tell the Vail Daily.
Brief by Martha Quillen
Regional News – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Weather, Weather and More Weather
Weather has been the biggest headliner this season. Snow has fallen in cumbersome amounts, resulting in huge snowpacks. As of February 13, the Arkansas basin snowpack was 168% of average, the upper Rio Grande, 169% of average; and the Gunnison, 147% of average (and on February 14th, it started snowing again). Heavy snowpacks have heightened avalanche dangers and clogged backcountry roads, inspiring travelers’ advisories: don’t stop, don’t stand, beware of treacherous trails, and double check conditions before x-country skiing or snowmobiling.
Brief by Central Staff
Transportation – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
This spot between Salida and Cleora is not exactly a “ghost town,” since it never was a town. It was a siding named Barrel, where the railroad used a rotary dump to transfer limestone from the narrow-gauge cars that served the Monarch Quarry to the standard-gauge cars that served the CF&I steel mill in Pueblo. The machinery was erected in 1924, and was used until 1956 when the Monarch branch was converted to standard-gauge; the branch was abandoned in 1984.
Brief by Allen Best
Terror – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Summit Daily News thinks that the war on terrorism needs to be better connected at times with common sense. What provokes the newspaper’s grousing is diversion of traffic from across Dillon Dam, a shortcut between the towns of Frisco and Dillon.
Brief by Allen Best
Recreation – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
In 1987, four young men died in an avalanche adjacent to the Breckenridge ski area. After that, Summit County Sheriff Delbert Ewoldt announced a new policy, one limiting access to the backcountry from ski areas.
Brief by Central Staff
Prisons – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Working at a prison may not be the safest job in the world, but at the federal Supermax near Florence, there’s another danger besides fractious inmates — contaminated soil under the prison that can make staffers and inmates sick.
Brief by Central Staff
Media – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Colorado Central turns 14 with this edition; the first edition was dated March, 1994. That one, like all the others, was printed at the Arkansas Valley Publishing (the corporate entity that publishes the Mountain Mail) in Salida, and things have certainly changed there.
Brief by Marcia Darnell
San Luis Valley – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Eco News
It should be a good year for water users in the Valley. The heavy snowfall this winter means a snowpack far above average, and plenty of the wet stuff to go around. Allen Davey, water engineer for the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, reported that the Valley’s aquifer recovered quite a bit last year.
Brief by Central Staff
Geology – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Despite our jagged terrain, which reflects many faults in the earth’s crust hereabouts, earthquakes are not common in Central Colorado. So it was something of a surprise when the ground shook a little at about 8:45 p.m. on Jan. 25 in the Cotopaxi area.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Essay by Joe Barnhart
Wildlife – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
A story in my local Montana paper, the Missoulian, described the growing problem of family pets harassing wildlife and livestock. It seems that the expansion of urban life into the wild is taking its toll on deer, elk, cattle and all kinds of burrowing creatures. The story really hit home as my dog Hank, aka “Where the heck did the dog run off to now?” is breaking us in.