A burgeoning wine industry could provide a welcome economic boost to farmers on Colorado’s Western Slope.
The dictionary reader
Read first, write later.
Brushed aside
Washington’s floral greens industry falters as beleaguered harvesters leave
Affirmative actions
Homer Lee Wilkes. Ignacia Moreno. Hilary Tompkins. Each is a member of a racial or ethnic minority. Each has been nominated by Barack Obama — the first black president — to a high position with power over environmental issues in the West. And each has faced skepticism from environmentalists. On May 5, Obama picked Wilkes…
Desperate people
The Mechanics of Falling and Other StoriesCatherine Brady227 pages, hardcover: $25.University of Nevada Press, 2009. In 11 deftly rendered short stories, Catherine Brady’s latest book, The Mechanics of Falling, introduces us to fragile people whose precarious lives are unraveling. Most of the book takes place in California, especially in and around San Francisco with its…
From Corn to Cabernet
A burgeoning wine industry takes Colorado agriculture uptown
Grousing about wind
In the topical and informative article about wind impact on sage grouse, I do take exception to the comment “At this point, no one really knows how turbines affect grouse” (HCN, 6/22 & 7/6/09). While it’s true that wind farms pose a negligible direct mortality threat, sage grouse do avoid vertical structures and are negatively…
Hikers and bikers
Summer brings many visitors our way. Rod Vanderwall of Boulder, Colo., stopped by our Paonia office to renew his subscription and pick up a snazzy HCN T-shirt on his way to Cortez in southern Colorado, where he’ll be reviewing the energy conservation needs of a community college. As head of energy management for the Office…
How yuppies killed, and saved, the family farm
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time on what we called “The Farm,” my grandparents’ place in the Animas Valley in southwestern Colorado. We ate corn right off the stalk and green peas out of the shell. We gobbled the feral asparagus that sprang up each spring alongside the fences. We…
Meet the makers
flashembed(“flowPlay”, { src:’http://s3.amazonaws.com/hcn-media/FlowPlayerDark.swf’, width: 626, height: 380 }, {config: { autoPlay: true, showMenu: false, autoBuffering: true, initialScale: ‘orig’, videoFile: ‘http://s3.amazonaws.com/hcn-media/2009-08-18-wine.mp4’ }} ); Please wait while the player loads. Note: you must have javascript enabled and the Adobe Flash Player installed. Read more about Colorado wine in our recent feature, But is it any good? This…
A ‘consummate community collaborator’
As a career National Park Service employee and former superintendent myself, I know Jon Jarvis to be a dedicated public servant who cares about the future of the national park system and strives to make good decisions on behalf of it (HCN, 8/3/09). A recent opinion piece in High Country News suggested that a conflict…
The spirit of the place
The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in MontanaRick Bass384 pages, softcover: $26.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. The Yaak Valley in the northwestern corner of Montana is one of the wildest places in the continental United States, home to grizzly bears and mountain lions, wolverine and elk. Nature writer Rick Bass, who lives there, has devoted…
But is it any good?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “From Corn to Cabernet.” Colorado wines are higher in acid than the California wines that Westerners are most familiar with. They bear more resemblance to the wines of central mountainous Europe, such as Austria and northern Italy, than to West Coast wines, says Kansas…
Catch and share alike
I found Matt Jenkins’ take on catch shares balanced and engaging (HCN, 8/3/09). He covers the benefits of catch shares and fairly points out some of the challenges this fishery has faced. Among Alaska crab fishermen, safety, economic stability and resource sustainability have all improved. And while crew pay has doubled, there are fewer crew…
Mission critical
Can natural gas help save us from global warming?
Cigarette wars
Northwest Indians want no taxation in their sovereign nations
Chilling forecast
We might have to say goodbye to California apples, walnuts, pistachios, cherries and other stone fruit over the next century, according to a recent report from scientists at the University of California-Davis. Between 1950 and 2000, the winter chill hours essential for fruit and nut tree growth — defined by temperatures between 32 and 45…
A slow-moving disaster
Communities struggle to adapt to a beetle-ravaged landscape.