by Hal Walter
Late summer has its many emotions here in the Wet Mountains, from the blustery days when you first notice the edges of the aspens turning, to the clear blue days that seem never to end as summer becomes fall. But I know in my bones these days will end.
At some point the summer bugs will come off the windshield with the first heavy frost.
by Hal Walter
A friend once suggested I write myself a check for $50,000, $75,000, or something like that, and just tape it to the refrigerator as a payment to myself for this grand lifestyle I’ve chosen.
Perhaps I should just make it an even, cool $1 million.
Is the Greater Arkansas Valley ready to join forces with a multitude of towns, cities, and counties who have signed on to become leaders in the growing global task force to address peak oil, climate change and economic stability?
Considering the number of concerned citizens who are connecting in Salida, Buena Vista and surrounding areas to adopt the “Transition Model” (www.transitiontowns.org) – all with the intention of engaging a significant proportion of the people in their community to kick off a “Transition Initiative” – it appears that the local community is ready to commit to change.
by John Mattingly
Last month, under the title, A Species Behaving Badly, I concluded. . .
“Few would argue the most unique aspect of the human species is our consciousness, but there is no reason why that consciousness must be contained and energized inside a global bone atop the body of a non-commensul, energy-eating, land-based, brain-bearing, nest-fouling mammal.”
Quillen’s Corner
by Martha Quillen
Language is a gift, extraordinary and wondrous, but unrestrained speech can be more aggravating than yowling cats. In fact, I suspect that if dogs and cats could talk, we would not regard them as nearly so adorable.
by Hal Walter
“Some of them live, and some of them die.”
“If you don’t want to lose any, then don’t have any.”
“At least you don’t have to feed the sumbitch anymore.”
I’d nearly given up on the cow I call “Number 30.’ During the days running up to the March full moon her udder had been swelling, and I thought for sure the calf would arrive then. Some cattlepeople say that cows tend to have calves during foul weather, but a small snowstorm passed over, then a few more days, and the calf had yet to be born.
(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)
by Suzanne Ward
The quiet of the winter and the warmth of the inside fire, which was such a blessing in January, feels too confining in spring.? We long for the warmth of sunshine after the dark and cold of winter.? It is time to plan the garden.? My Aunt Virginia, who will celebrate her 100th birthday this month, once told me, “If I can’t dig in the dirt and plant something, it is not spring!”?
Cotopaxi grass farmers enjoy profitability while preserving land
Story by Susan Bavaria
Photos by Mike Rosso
A small percentage of cattle ranchers have laid down their agricultural arms and made peace with Mother Nature. Instead of inoculating, spraying, inseminating, supplementing, feeding and fighting blizzards to rescue calves born in February, these ranchers opt to coax the land into doing what comes naturally.
by Allison Linville
I don’t have a house. It wasn’t lost to foreclosure or auctioned by the bank; I have simply never owned one. As a recent college graduate, I am just now learning to pay rent, utilities and my gym membership every month, while trying to find a job that will cover my medical expenses if I wreck my car again.
Article by Allen Best
Mountain Life – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHAT HAS SCARCELY BEEN MENTIONED in all the reporting about Jim Blanning, the former Aspen resident who deposited four bombs of gasoline in the city’s business district before killing himself on New Year’s Eve, is how closely the basic story line resembles the strange and fearful machinations in two other Colorado mountain towns: Alma and Granby.
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
The school in Silverton — there is just one for the town of 500 people — got chilly after the coal-fired boiler cracked in early November.
The boiler can still be used, but not sufficiently to warm the building. As a result, electricity-driven space heaters have been used to warm the classrooms. A propane heater keeps the gymnasium at 40 to 50 degrees, reports the Silverton Standard, although water has been turned off there. This makeshift situation will have to make do for this winter, superintendent Kim White says.
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
Things could be worse — a lot worse. So believes Crested Butte Mayor Alan Bernholz. The town council was having a discussion about the best way to keep traffic moving slowly. But by all accounts, the number of 40 mph scofflaws are few.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – January 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
Article by Lynda La Rocca
Mountain Life – December 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
HEY, I’m a law-abiding citizen. And I really do want to “render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s.” But I’d feel a lot more cheerful about paying my taxes if I weren’t being prodded toward the tax collectors by spear-wielding Roman guards.
“Move along!” these toga-clad tough guys order my husband Steve and me when we try to slip a few coins to several ragged beggars. “You’ll be free of that money soon enough!” a soldier snaps before wading back into the throng of merchants, pilgrims, shepherds, and money changers gathered at Bethlehem Marketplace.
Letter from Pat Williams
Mountain Life – December 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Ed and Martha,
Why doesn’t the Colorado Central calendar have an entry for “The Day the Flatlanders Go Home” ?
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – December 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Most Aspenites are a few pickets short of living the American dream in a white-picket fence on the edge of town. Their housing is cramped, their expenses high. Still, Aspen is worth the aggravations, they tell The Aspen Times.
Column by Hal Walter
Mountain Life – November 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT WOULD BE FAIRLY EASY at this point to go on a rant about the presidential race, the new welfare for bankers program or the ongoing economic crisis, which only means some people with money now have a glimpse of the same black hole I’ve been staring down my entire adult life.
Frankly, I’d rather write about something that actually matters, like food, friends and this season of change we call fall, but in some way I suppose it all ties together.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – October 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – September 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Review by Ed Quillen
Mountain Life – August 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Monkey Wrench Dad: Dispatches from the backyard frontline
by Ken Wright
Published in 2008 by Raven’s Eye Press
ISBN 978-0-9816534-0-7
Letter from Slim Wolfe
Mountain Life – July 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Now entering my 17th year as a Desolation Row desperado, I find myself debating the next moves on the old chessboard of existence. I’m pretty comfortable here despite being too close to the highway and not having a wooded spot to enjoy. But I’ve got a strenuous sort of existence with not much hope of letting up, and now I’m past sixty I wonder when I’ll find the time and energy to keep things rolling along. I’ve also realized that I’m not immune to little annoying injuries which can slow me down just when I need to maintain the pace. Nor do I have a handy son or daughter to bring by an amplified phone, for example, should I suddenly lose most of my hearing — as happened to a friend this month.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – July 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – June 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – June 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
From time to time, somebody wanders home from a ski town bar, then stumbles into a snowbank and dies. Such was the case last February in Breckenridge, when Michael “Alphonse” Barbiere disappeared.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – May 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Column by Hal Walter
Mountain Life – April 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
I NEVER SAW the horseshoe puzzle flying toward me as I sat reading the Wet Mountain Tribune in my living room. But I sure felt it when it struck me in the temple, causing a momentary blackout and a small but steady ooze of blood.
What’s a horseshoe puzzle? Well, it is two 0-pony size steel horseshoes welded to two pieces of link chain strung through a metal ring. The game is to remove the ring.
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – April 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
The supreme irony was immediately evident. Eric O’Hara had survived combat for 15 months in both Afghanistan and Iraq only to suffer a violent death a month later in what is an essentially bucolic setting near the Steamboat ski area. He fell to his death six floors from the roof of the Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel while shoveling snow.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – February 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Essay by Ed Quillen
Mountain Life – January 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
EVERY TIME THE SNOW starts to fall outside, I have this pleasant fantasy that the day will turn into a holiday of sorts. I will sit in an easy chair near a warm fire, as I do as I write this, and the porch will hold a huge pile of split, dry firewood, which it does not as I write this. In my fantasy, the refrigerator and pantry are full, and at hand is a pile of good unread books, along with a Coleman lantern ready to light, just in case the power goes out.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – January 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – December 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – November 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
An art show was held over a late-summer weekend in Red Cliff, a one-time mining town located two ridges and sometimes a world apart from Vail.
The town’s artists opened their homes for inspection of photographs from Asia, paintings o
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – November 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – October 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – September 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – August 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s been more than three years since Marvin Heemeyer drove a bulldozer from the muffler shop he owned, the driver’s seat concealed in a fortress of concrete and steel, guns protruding, and proceeded to terrorize Granby for the better part of an afternoon.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – August 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – July 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Essay by Ed Quillen
Mountain Life – June 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
EVERY NOW AND AGAIN, someone tells me I should take up “blogging.” The term comes from “web log,” wherein somebody posts relatively brief observations and invites comments. Readers add their comments, then there are comments on comments, etc. Some blogs are pretty interesting, while others are tedious or worse, and many degenerate into ranting and name-calling. But the “blog” concept has its charms — since there are so many topics which seem to deserve some commentary but hardly seem worthy of a long essay.
Brief by Allen Best
Mountain Life – June 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council has prohibited either a U.S. flag or, for that matter, a tribal flag, on top of construction cranes on the reservation, located in the Four Corners area.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – May 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
Essay by Kathryn Socie
Mountain Life – May 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE AMERICAN DREAM is alive and well in Missoula, Mont., sort of. Not long after arriving here in the late 1990s, I found myself in the same conversation about real estate, hearing the same words and sharing the same sentiment. “You can’t eat the landscape,” someone would say, and everyone within earshot would laugh at the cliche, though it would usually be followed by an uncomfortable silence. Here’s what wasn’t funny then or now: In a recent Missoulian article, local realtors tallied their statistics and calculated a whopping $206,850 median price for a house, but only a median income of $43,200.
Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck
Mountain Life – April 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine