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Hey, Colorado Sunday friends!

I’m sad to report that I have visited farmers markets exactly zero times so far this spring — unless you count purchasing heirloom tomato starts from a teacher who farms lightly (eggs, honey, tomatoes) as a side hustle, which pushes the count to once. The sadness comes from feeling like I’m missing out on the sense of discovery and camaraderie you get from chatting with a flower farmer or that one guy who grows asparagus way out in Weld County, or talking with a cheesemonger from Westcliffe about how chile-infused chevre might work in (insert your recipe idea here.)

But there is also community in these markets — community that spans ages and vast distances. And people entangled in this net of nurturing are very fortunate. I learned from this week’s cover story by Sue McMillin about one family of southwestern Colorado farmers who had their lives and livelihood saved by the market community.

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Heidi Rohwer, left, receives a batch of new plants from her nephew, Zackery Berg, in their greenhouse while preparing for the weekend’s farmers market. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

Almost two years ago, Sue McMillin told Colorado Sun readers an especially poignant story about Rohwer’s Farm. A head-on collision early on a Saturday morning killed Judy Rohwer and seriously injured her daughters Angela and Heidi and a grandson, Zach, as the family drove their plants and vegetables to sell at the Durango Farmers Market. The Rohwers were missed that morning. These people Sue knew from chatting them up at the market were widely regarded as wonderful and joyous, deeply embedded in their rural community and fixtures at the Pleasant View Volunteer Fire Department for more than a decade.

Customers and colleagues quickly organized to begin looking after the farm, their animals and the market stand while Angela, Heidi and Zach recovered from devastating injuries and grief. Their work helped make certain that the losses suffered in the crash weren’t amplified by the loss of the farm

We didn’t talk about the Rohwers again for a very long time. But then news percolated up through Sue’s network that Heidi, helped along by a new and seemingly random community of market customers, had made the difficult choice to have her leg amputated. She had not healed from her injuries more than a year before, which led her to a decision she hopes will let her fully reengage with the farm, the fire department and her community.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE

The snow melts away, wildflowers and critters emerge, and commercial buildings roll open huge garage doors for the day as we transition into warm summer months. Here are some of our recent favorite images from both sides of the Continental Divide captured by the Sun team.

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A walk around Sprague Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park on June 3 offered access to extraordinary scenery in less than a mile. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
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Climbers try out a top-roping wall set up by Adaptive Adventures, a Colorado-based nonprofit that provides recreational and competitive sports opportunities for people with physical disabilities, June 2, during the Outside Festival in Denver. (Parker Yamasaki, The Colorado Sun)
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A northern tamarisk beetle, about size of grain of rice, walks along a tamarisk twig at the shoreline of the Colorado River on May 31 in Grand Junction. The beetles are used to control tamarisk trees, a non-native plant that threatens native plant species and consumes massive amounts of water. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
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“Stars of Hope,” many of which were created by Club Q survivors, decorate the walls of Prism Community Collective during an open house celebration May 22. Prism is a new LGBTQIA2+ resource center in Colorado Springs. (Mark Reis, Special to The Colorado Sun)
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Norwood Fire District’s Chief John Bockrath chats from inside the station in Norwood on June 3. The rural fire department has a mix of full- and part-time employees and volunteers who handle an average of 400 calls a year across San Miguel and Montrose counties. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
The new Dazzle Denver is made up of three connected spaces, including the main listening room, which sometimes hosts large ensembles. (Provided)

If you haven’t already, check out the new Dazzle location at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 1080 14th St. It’s a cool place for hot jazz this summer.

The new club features a large listening room to host local and national jazz acts. The adjoining El Chapultepec Piano Lounge has a happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and free late night music. There are Friday lunch performances, kids’ matinees on Saturdays and brunch on Sundays.

Upcoming national acts include bassists Ron Carter in September and Christian McBride next February.

Sign up for the Dazzle newsletter to get a heads up on shows for the coming weeks and months.

EXCERPT: In this striking memoir, author Gina DeMillo Wagner explores the nuances and difficulties of life — and death — within a family dealing with developmental disability. Her excerpt from “Forces of Nature: A Memoir of Family, Loss, and Find Home” begins with the heart-pounding dread of finally receiving the news as an adult that she’d known was coming since age 5, and confronting the difficult dynamics that defined her family.

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST INTERVIEW

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Wagner explains how she discovered that there was an untapped audience of siblings and other family members living with developmental disability based on reaction to an essay she wrote on the subject for the New York Times. She also explains how her opening chapter cuts to the heart of a life-changing moment. Here’s a snippet of her Q&A:

SunLit: Place this excerpt in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole? Why did you select it?

Wagner: Most people who have experienced a sudden, unexpected loss describe a before-and-after moment, like a bright white line you cross or a rip in the fabric of your personal universe. The moment for me was made more acute by the fact I was on an airplane. When the plane took off and I powered down my phone, everything was fine. When I landed and turned the phone back on, everything had changed.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH GINA DEMILLO WAGNER

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

Chris Vaughn, Alquist 3D’s director of operations, watches Ziyou Xu control the 3D robotic printer as it builds the first wall on the first house under construction in Hope Springs in Greeley. Xu owns RIC Technology, which created the robot printer that can build the walls of a 1,500-square-foot house in about 48 hours. (Tamara Chuang, The Colorado Sun)

🌞It is interesting enough that the 491-unit Hope Springs neighborhood in Greeley is the largest Habitat for Humanity neighborhood in the West. But at least a few of those homes will be built using 3D printing technology. Tamara Chuang went to see the first walls come out of the printer and met the woman who will live in that particular house.

🌞 A bit of tourism news: Some scenic mountain highways that typically open for Memorial Day weekend are finally cleared of snow and open for exploration. But if Trail Ridge Road is in your sights, please be advised that you’re going to be rolling slowly through the town of Estes Park.

🌞 If everything went according to plan, your primary ballot should have arrived or will reach your mailbox soon. Sandra Fish assembled instructions for how and where to vote, plus answers to other questions — in English and in Spanish.

🌞 Perplexed by your ballot? We feel for you, especially if you’re voting in the GOP primary. To help, we lined up the (very large number of) candidates in the 3rd and 4th Congressional Districts and asked them where they stand. Oh, and there is a primary among Democrats in the 4th Congressional District, too.

🌞Meanwhile, the GOP primary in the 5th Congressional District looks like it’s a proxy battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Sandra Fish tallied up the spending that is trying to shape the party in Colorado and nationally for years to come.

🌞 Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed an omnibus elections bill into law that contained what is effectively a poison pill for a measure seeking to enact ranked choice voting statewide. The measure hasn’t been approved for the ballot. In his signing remarks, Polis assured the public that if the measure does pass, the new legislature will adjust the new law to be less deadly to its intention to change the way we elect public officials, Jesse Paul reports.

🌞 Colorado cities have been pretty bold in their approach to reducing homelessness, including providing housing to people that doesn’t require them to hold jobs or be sober. The concept pioneered at Sanderson Apartments has saved a lot of money in Denver, where people living outdoors cycle in and out of jail and the emergency room. Jennifer Brown reports that three more complexes, in Denver, Lakewood and Jefferson County, will open soon, hoping for similar results.

🌞A little fresh air never hurt anyone, right? A Fort Collins mom, whose 6-year-old daughter is about halfway through treatment for leukemia, included regular hikes in her plan for helping her child manage being a patient without having to stop being a kid. Dan England went along on one of their hikes and learned how Sarah Bailey would like to help other parents navigate a child’s serious illness.

Thanks for spending time with us again, friends. We appreciate every story link that you share to the world, each friend you urge to sign up for our free newsletters, and every person you encourage to become a member of The Sun. We literally could not work this magic without you.

See you back here next week!

— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun

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