Brands. The return address for 3 million livestock in Colorado.
Chris Whitney grabbed a pair of worn leather gloves from his back pocket, pulled them on with his teeth and stoked the campfire and the red-hot branding irons which read Lazy T Reverse F. The young calves were restless and noisy. Whitney looked across the Uncompaghre Valley at the towering snow-capped peaks of the Cimarrons and San Juans. It would be his last spring roundup at his family’s ranch in Ridgway, Colorado, before he...
Gas, coffee and quinoa: A life changing pit stop.
The San Luis Valley is a high-altitude agricultural basin covering approximately 8,000 square miles in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The average elevation of 7,664 feet above sea level is similar to the Altiplano regions of Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Peru where 90 percent of the world’s supply of quinoa (keen wa) is grown. The valley is home to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, the tallest sand dunes in North America,...
Mountain Man Badger Puthoff
Approximately 3,000 mountain men roamed the Rocky Mountains between 1820 and 1840, the peak beaver-harvesting period. While many were free trappers, most mountain men were employed by major fur companies. Mountain men lived aux aliments du pays, French for “nourishment of the land”, surviving by using the provisions of nature. Eating bull cheese (buffalo jerky) and galette, a basic flour and water bread made into flat, round...
The ballads collector of Lake Champlain
Journalist Marjorie Porter watched the old woman’s wrinkled hands spinning yarn and listened to the tune she was quietly humming as she worked. A cool breeze from across Lake George was stirring the humidity in the shade. It was 1941, and Porter, 32, had spent many summers with her family at the lake. Today, this exhibit of pioneer life in the Adirondack Mountains brought her to the spinning wheel of Lily Delorme. “Mrs. Delorme, I’m...
Capitol building tour guide
Richard Lamm was governor (1975-1987) when Carol Keller started giving tours of the Colorado capitol building 25 years ago. She waits quietly for her next tour group to gather. She says good morning to Gov. John Hickenlooper as he enters the Executive Chambers near the capitol tour guides desk. It’s Friday, 10 a.m., according to the Mickey Mouse watch on her graceful wrist. Time to start. At age 87, she’s entertained...