Colorado Central Articles From — March 2005

Cartoon by Jack Chivvis

Modern Life – February 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazines.

Near the old railroad town of Minturn, across Tennessee Pass from Leadville, is a place called Meadow Mountain. It once was a downhill ski area, but the Forest Service got the property in a land exchange. And so locals used it for several decades as a sledding hill, with parents taking their small children to the hill on weekends for cheap, outdoor entertainment. Read the rest of this article

Column by Hal Walter

Modern Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

IT SEEMS I HAVE a new career. After years of poking fun in my writing about the realities of living full time in the Wet Mountains, I’m ironically making a good portion of my income caring for small ranches owned by people who don’t live here full time. Read the rest of this article

Article by Jayne Mabus

Fiber Arts – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

“Follow Your Bliss,” we are exhorted in popular bestsellers. “Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow.”

Yeah, riiight! Read the rest of this article

Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Fiber Arts – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

WEAVING, AND THE ASSOCIATED crafts of spinning and dyeing, are among the first technologies that humans developed. Although scholars are divided as to whether woven cloth or fired pots came first, both were here in times that precede written history.

Old as the fiber arts are, though, they’re not skills that come naturally. They have to be learned, one way or another. Read the rest of this article

Article by Sunnie Sacks

Agriculture – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

WHEN SUZANNE ROTH was operating her home interior design company, Red-bird Design, in Evergreen, she never dreamed that one day she would be living in Guffey, or that she would be raising goats, combing them and selling the cashmere, the winter undercoat or down of the goat, to spinners, knitters and weavers.

Suzanne Roth rounding up her goats

After living in Evergreen for 25 years, Suzanne and her husband Fred were ready to leave. “Evergreen was getting too over-built for us. We were looking for a remote place to live when we found Guffey,” said Suzanne.

In 1997, they bought land near Guffey and named it Jabberwocky Farm. By the end of 1998 the Roths had purchased three goats, a nanny and two kids. Suzanne was on her way to building a herd.

The main reason Suzanne choose goats was because they were fiber-producing animals. She had only had experience with horses in the past, so this was an exciting experience for her. Today on 75 acres, divided into three pastures, Suzanne has 37 goats.

“I have always had a love for fiber. The idea of having animals to grow the fiber and to be able to process it intrigued me. Cashmere is such a luxury fiber, that I was drawn to it. We got the goats, and I fell in love with them. My breeding stock stems from Spanish, Tasmanian and Australian goats. There is not a cashmere breed, it is just a goat that can grow long fine down,” Suzanne said.

Goats date back to ancient times in Asia, and are the oldest domesticated livestock. For centuries they have provided things necessary to man’s survival in the form of meat, milk, hides, fiber and companionship. Historically, the cashmere producing areas were in the Himalayan region. Western clothiers bought cashmere in bulk mainly from India, China, Iran and Afghanistan. Cashmere was once considered the fiber of kings, and it is said to have lined and curtained the Arc of the Covenant of the Old Testament.

IN THE FIRST PART of the 19th century European immigrants introduced goats when they settled in the Southwest. These “Spanish” goats, as they were called, lived on large tracts of arid land, where nothing else would thrive. They ran wild, with the exception of once a year when the herds were rounded up and the young goats were sent to a meat market.

Australia has a similar history. Immigrants settled on farms in the Outback, but some of the farms failed and the goats escaped and ran wild. In the late 1970′s, the Australians began to notice that this environment had produced a strong animal that had also developed a luxurious undercoat of down which protected it from the harsh climate of the Outback. With this discovery the Australians felt that they could establish a new industry which could lucratively be exported. The wild goats were captured and selectively bred to produce commercial cashmere.

In the late 1980′s a few Australian goats were exported to the United States. In the search for suitable mates it was realized that the goats in the Southwest already had much the same undercoat as the Australian goats. The “Spanish” goats were taken from their harsh environment and fed well, but the offspring did not have the same fine, lush undercoat as did the wild goats. It was realized that the fiber in goats was not just controlled by genetics; environment and nutrition also played an important part in growing the coveted down.

When the goats were taken from the arid Southwest and sent to New Hampshire, Washington State, or Colorado, they produced coarser and straighter, yet still luxurious, fiber.

Today, the United States is producing American grown cashmere, but on a very small scale. Jabberwocky Farm is one of three goat farms in Colorado that supplies cottage industries.

In order to pursue her trade, Suzanne dehairs her goats, has the wool processed, then spins part of it into yarn and sells the other as roving, which is cashmere that is not spun. The process of de-hairing the goat is done by one of two ways: either by combing out the down, or by shearing. Suzanne prefers combing it out. She starts combing in January as the goats start letting their hair down as the days get longer.

“I enjoy each step. First I comb the goats. All goats have undercoat, but some are bred to grow longer under-down. At the beginning of January through March, I comb each goat twice, but I wait two to four weeks between combings. It is labor intensive, but I have a lot of friends who come over to help. I don’t shear the goats because our winters are too cold to shear them. I don’t believe in doing that to them,” she said.

Suzanne Roth combing a goat

THE HAIR IS THEN SENT to Canada to be processed. “I’m really into American made, but I haven’t been able to find a mill in the U.S. that can process it like the one in Canada,” said Suzanne.

The goat hair Suzanne sends to the mill is processed into a loose rope-like shape by removing the guard hair, which is separated so that the cashmere will retain its softness. In order to turn the down into roving, the processor lines up individual fibers so that they are all going in one direction. Suzanne has the cashmere spun into yarn or left as roving, which is primarily used by hand spinners. Using a spinning wheel, spinners can process their own yarn to use in knitting or weaving or on looms.

The final step in processing the yarn for sale is to dye it. Suzanne has started dying some of her fiber, and is experimenting with different colors to create beautiful yarns.

Garments made from cashmere are very soft, warm and long-wearing. Though not as strong as wool, cashmere is softer to the skin and out-wears wool. A variety of textiles can be made from the undercoat: including knitted garments, which are made from the longest, finest down, and woven fabrics, which are made from the shorter down. The separated guard hairs are used to make rugs or for a hair canvas used in creating tailored garments.

“I direct my business to knitters, spinners and weavers. My market is basically for cottage industries. The fact that it is Colorado-grown cashmere makes it a special thing,” Suzanne said.

Though Suzanne does weave her own yarn, she doesn’t sell her finished work at this time. “Weaving gives you the ability to blend fibers. You can take two separate fibers and weave them together. With textiles, there are unlimited things you can do. I don’t sell finished pieces yet, but the next step would be for me to make garments,” she said.

At this point Suzanne sells her cashmere to fiber artists in Colorado, but she plans to have a website up by this June to expand her market.

Suzanne is a member of the Friday Fibers, a regional group of women, which currently averages 20 weavers, spinners and knitters. The women gather in different members’ homes the first Friday of each month. These women come from Castle Rock. Lake George, Guffey, Florissant and Divide to spend the day working together on their current fiber project. “It is very uplifting especially to see what other people are doing. It’s a great way to learn — and people are so giving,” Suzanne said.

This past summer a Spin-off event organized by the spinners of Friday Fibers was held at the Grange in Florissant. It included the spinners group, Twisted Sisters, from Salida; 30 spinners brought their spinning wheels and spun yarn together for most of the day. Spinning demonstrations were held for the public.

FIBER IS NOT THE ONLY PRODUCT Suzanne’s goats provide, however. “As a sideline, I make goat milk soap. I have one milk goat for the soap. It has wonderful skin softening qualities and essential oils. I sell it at the Caldera Gallery in Guffey, at fairs, and to family, friends and neighbors,” she said.

Suzanne plans to continue to increase her herd using her three bucks for in-house breeding. She would like to build a herd of 50, then stop because she doesn’t want the land to be eaten down by too many goats. By rotating the goats among her three pastures Suzanne is able to keep that from happening. To keep her herd selective, she sends the wethers (neutered males) to a meat market in Calhan, timing market day to coincide with Hispanic celebrations.

“I am so fortunate to pursue my love of raising goats every day,” Suzanne concluded. “Their antics bring a smile to my heart (most of the time). It is very satisfying to know that when the cashmere from my herd is turned into yarn, it will continue to bring joy and warmth to others who create and wear items made from it. I am so happy to accomplish this in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with the people and the critters I love.”

You can contact Suzanne at 719-689-9502

Sunnie Sacks free-lances from Guffey, which may be the closest post office to the actual center of Colorado.

Article by Marcia Darnell

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

It’s not easy morphing. The Great Sand Dunes National Park has gone from being a national monument, to a park and preserve, to a national park in the last five years. Composed of park, refuge, and private holding, it’s become an amalgam of land, water, sand, flora and fauna, under three management entities — the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy. Read the rest of this article

Mountain Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

More Life with Pickle
by J.C. Mattingly
Published in 2005 by Mirage Publishing Co.
ISBN 0-9710430-1-9 Read the rest of this article

Mountain Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Woodburner’s Companion – Practical Ways of Heating with Wood
by Dirk Thomas
Revised Edition
Published in 2004 by Alan C. Hood & Co.
ISBN 0911469249 Read the rest of this article

History – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Colorado: A History in Photographs
by Richard N. Ellis and Duane A. Smith
Revised EditionPublished in 2005 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0870817892 Read the rest of this article

Column by George Sibley

Liberty – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ONE OF THE ENDEARING THINGS about our president is his way of using high-falluting words without concern over the complexities of what they really mean. And when he says things like “the American people need to understand that the war in Iraq is about peace” (shortly before “Mission Accomplished”), there seems to be a tacit agreement that the major media won’t bother him for an explanation – the least they can do to ease the burden of office. Read the rest of this article

Essay by John Mattingly

Technology – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed Quillen’s Letter From the Editors (Colorado Central, January) brought to mind my own family tree of computers, starting with the 512K Mac box I proudly brought home in 1984, and still have, high on a closet shelf in the office. From that first small box, the genealogy went to Lisa, Performa, Mac II, iMac, and X. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Slim Wolfe

Technology – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Ed,

I enjoyed your account of your high-tech wrenching; I think it is analogous to fixing your harness or maintaining your saw for the modern-day writer and it’s good to gain an understanding of the tools of one’s trade. As you have previously explained, you’re compelled by your industry to use these tools, and the magazine continues to be an attractive product whereas today’ computer-generated graphics sometimes (in the hands of the less-tasteful) take a bit of getting used to. Short of being a contrarian like Dean Coombs who also puts out an attractive publication (the Saguache Crescent) on the old-fashioned Linotype, you are making the best of this thing called progress. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Ken Jessen

Cotopaxi Colony – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

I could not resist commenting on the fine piece by Nancy Oswald on the little-known Jewish colony at Cotopaxi. Diversity of race and religion reflects one of the fundamental strengths of our nation. Although the Jewish colony failed and their effort was abandoned, Oswald’s article clearly points out the many problems faced by these people. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Adam Krom

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Confirmed sighting of a mountain unicyclist

Editors:

I read with interest your short feature on mountain unicycles in the December 2004 issue. I instantly remembered the first time I came across one in its habitat. My wife and I were in Colorado Springs for a get-together with friends and family when we stole away for an afternoon in Fox Run Park, which is tucked into the Black Forest north of the city. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Bruce Goforth

Land Trusts – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed,

Thank you for the coverage in the Central Colorado Agenda for the LTUA sponsored book signing of “Saving the Ranch: Conservation Easement Design in the American West” on January 21st. The event was attended by approximately 50 people, including a half dozen ranchers, several of whom are now talking to LTUA about doing conservation easements on their land. Read the rest of this article

Letter from Andy Burns

Colorado Central – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Editors:

The Post Office is ripping out parts of the cover and whoever is writing page 2. February had an extra barcode glued to the back, vertically, randomly. When Hal Walter gets ripped out I guess I’ll have to complain. If Curtis Imrie tilts at the insurance racketeers won’t he be taking on the entire industry? Who is Randy Russell? Virginia McConnell Simmons? Read the rest of this article

Essay by Martha Quillen

Education – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

I’D BEEN MUCKING AROUND in the backwaters of my mind trying to think of something to write this letter about, when Ed and I went on a local radio show.

Then, on the air, Ed said he thought Colorado Central should do something about the regional effects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Read the rest of this article

Article by Central Staff

Poetry – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

POETRY ON A PLATTER IS all about Poetry; it’s about reading, writing, studying, performing and enjoying poetry. PoP is rural Colorado’s yearly celebration of National Poetry Month.

Festivities include a program of presentations and workshops put together in a collaborative effort by the Salida Regional Library, the Leslie Savage Library at WSC in Gunnison, and the Montrose Library District.

The 5th annual PoP happens this April 3 through 10 in libraries, schools, cafés, and community centers. The poetry tour begins in Salida then travels on to Gunnison and Montrose. There is no charge for any of the events, and everyone is invited to participate.

Veronica Patterson and David Keplinger, the guest poets for PoP 2005, both hail from Colorado and have books of poetry to their credit.

Veronica Patterson’s studies have taken her to the halls of Cornell, the University of Michigan, the University of Northern Colorado, and Warren Wilson College. She is the author of How to Make a Terrarium, her first poetry collection, and another collection, Swan, What Shores? was a finalist for the Academy of American Poets’ 2000 James Laughlin Award. Veronica has won poetry awards from the Colorado Center for the Book and Women Writing the West, and her book, The Bones Remember: A Dialogue, features poetry and photography.

Veronica has also been awarded three residencies at Wyoming’s Ucross Foundation and one at Hedgebrook, and she has received two Individual Artist’s Fellowships from the Colorado Council on the Arts. She now lives in northern Colorado where she teaches an eight week writing class for the Hospice of Larimer County. She also presents workshops for a group of adult writers, and for the University of Northern Colorado and Colorado State University, and every spring she conducts a 6th grade poetry workshop in Illinois.

In addition to writing and teaching, Veronica loves hiking, reading, listening to music, theater, and bird-watching, and she studies the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

David Keplinger, the director of the Creative Writing Program at CSU-Pueblo, has a new book of poems, The Clearing, due out in March; it was the runner-up for the Green Rose Prize.

David’s first poetry collection, The Rose Inside, won the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize. It is about the outside longing to get inside and about those trapped inside looking out.

David has traveled throughout the world to teach and to be taught. In Czechoslovakia he was challenged by the language and discovered that “language is a miracle; it’s a miracle we can say anything to each other at all.”

This epiphany led David to write, “The words I spoke and later wrote, felt more precious.” His inability to speak Czech fluently fueled his writing.

AS A GRADUATE STUDENT, David learned that, “all poetry is political, as it is inevitably a product of the time and place in which it was written.”

“Honesty and clarity are the qualities that connect your reader deeply to your experience,” David contends. “In a poem, it’s how you say it that counts.”

David has received grants and awards from the Academy of American Poets, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a 2003 Fellowship from the NEA. His poems are widely published in many magazines and reviews, including Poetry, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares and Prairie Schooner.

In Salida, PoP begins with an Open-Mic Night at the Salida Regional Library, at 405 E St., on Sunday at 7 p.m. The guest poets host the evening’s festivities.

The next serving of poetry is also at the library. On Monday from 1-3:30 p.m. David and Veronica will conduct a workshop, and there will be platters of treats for participants.

The Salida finale to PoP 2005, will be at Bongo Billy’s Salida Café, 300 W. Sackett St., with readings by Veronica and David starting at 7 p.m., Monday.

Then the tour moves on to Gunnison and Montrose.

For more information about Salida’s portion of the festival, or for copies of the events schedules for Gunnison and Montrose call Kathy Berg at the Salida Regional Library, 719-539-4826, or email kberg@salidalibrary.org.

Essay by Allen Best

Climate – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

ARIDITY IN THE AMERICAN Southwest has always been axiomatic, nearly a point of pride. It’s how we define the region. But evidence trickling in suggests that we have not yet begun to appreciate water scarcity. Read the rest of this article

Cartoon by Jack Chivvis

Modern Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local History – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Several area institutions are turning 125 this year: Salida, its Mountain Mail newspaper, the Chaffee County Times in Buena Vista, the Saguache Crescent, and the town of Poncha Springs.

Salida celebrated its centennial in 1980 with many events, starting with New Year’s Eve fireworks from Tenderfoot Hill, but if any municipal festivities have been announced for this year, we’ve missed them. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Preservation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The Homelake Veterans’ Center, featured in the November 2004 edition of Colorado Central, is one of the state’s “most endangered places,” according to a list issued in February by Colorado Preservation, Inc.

Dating back to 1889, when it was opened as a “peaceful place for aging and displaced Civil War veterans,” the Center suffers from “lack of maintenance and a high water table,” causing the closure of the chapel; the post office may soon follow. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Outdoors – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dogs, perhaps by their nature, seldom leave a place cleaner than they found it – a trait confirmed by all those “Pick up your dog’s doo” signs along popular walking trails.

But there’s one pooch who’s an exception – a five-year-old retriever mix named Timber. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Outdoors – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

If a few days of hard labor for a good cause sounds like a good way to take a break this summer, the Colorado Trail Foundation wants to hear from you. The foundation is looking for volunteers to join both week-long and weekend trail crews. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Water – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The old joke in the headwaters counties of Colorado used to be, “Be sure to flush, because Los Angeles needs the water.” Or perhaps it was, “because Denver needs the water.” But new evidence shows that being at the headwaters doesn’t remove you from tainted water. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Events – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Salidans may remember the warm months of 2005 as “the summer of the two-wheelers.”

For one thing, the Denver Post’s Ride the Rockies tour is coming through again, so the town will be full of cyclists on Thursday, June 23. There are 2,000 riders, and many of them will be accompanied by friends or family in support vehicles; so the town’s population may double for a night. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Local Politics – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

In our experience, the usual ranch gate consists of wooden fence posts and barbed wire to keep the cattle where they belong. In more prosperous operations, the gate might be metal, and a cattle-guard could be part of the installation.

Cattle Gate at Weldon Creek Development

But if the “ranch” is actually a high-end real-estate development that contains cattle as a tax hustle (if you work it right, you can run cows on the property and call it “agricultural land,” which is taxed at a much lower rate), then an $80,000 automatic gate is just a cattle gate.

That’s the argument that Weldon Creek developers Tom and Margie Smith made to the Chaffee County Commissioners on Jan. 31. Their agent, Karin Adams, asked the county for a tax abatement. “The issue is these gates on the property. I don’t know of another ranch where the property is assessed for gates.”

Kevin Andreas of the county assessor’s office observed that “In our opinion, this is a structure … that far exceeds the requirement to hold cattle.”

Brief by Allen Best

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Near the old railroad town of Minturn, across Tennessee Pass from Leadville, is a place called Meadow Mountain. It once was a downhill ski area, but the Forest Service got the property in a land exchange. And so locals used it for several decades as a sledding hill, with parents taking their small children to the hill on weekends for cheap, outdoor entertainment. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Energy – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

Biodiesel has been a trendy fuel in mountain resorts for the last several years. From Telluride to Jackson Hole to Breckenridge, the diesel fuel used for buses, snow groomers, and other vehicles has included a 20 percent component made from vegetable matter, mostly soybeans. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Astronomy – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

There’s a value to being out in the boonies – lack of light pollution. Because of those clear skies, two amateur astronomers several years ago set out to create an observatory in the sagebrush near Gunnison. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Education – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

High school literature classes in Colorado mountain towns were in the news nationally recently for very different reasons. In one case students had read too much, and in another case parents worried that students read too little. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Central Staff

Recreation – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The American ski industry has been flat for the past two decades, averaging about 54 million visits a year after it grew rapidly in the 1960s and ’70s, thanks to Baby Boomers taking up the sport. Read the rest of this article

Brief by Allen Best

Wildlife – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

After trying rubber buckshot to keep animals off the runway at the Gunnison-Crested Butte Regional Airport, airport officials will be looking for more sophisticated, or at least successful, methods. Read the rest of this article

Comic Strip written and drawn by Monika Griesenbeck

Mountain Life – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine Read the rest of this article

Essay by Ben Long

Wildlife – March 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

TIME FLIES when the sky is falling. At least, we were told to expect the sky to fall in 1995. That’s when federal biologists snatched a bunch of Canadian wolves, hustled them south of the border and cut them loose in central Idaho and Yellowstone. Read the rest of this article