When Steve Ela walks through orchards that are usually blossoming with promise this time of year, he comes up with one word to describe his feelings: Sad. This week, he is also beginning to feel a tinge of hope as he starts to rebuild a 114-year-old weather-devastated fruit operation on Rogers Mesa near Hotchkiss with […]
CSU Extension
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Culture, News
Next Napa Valley? The Cañon City area is hoping wineries can lead to an agricultural renaissance
The start to a Fremont County wine trail might follow narrow and sometimes muddy rural roads, but there’s plenty of buzz about it leading to an agricultural renaissance in the region. With the recent launch of a fourth winery and two more on the way, and a blossoming cidery and the move from Denver of […]
Posted inEducation, Health, News
How Colorado’s rural education network went from teaching home economics to fighting the opioid epidemic
CSU Extension agent Abby Weber covers a lot of wind-swept territory putting on workshops about rabbit and poultry care, sustainable living and cake decorating, and she also oversees shooting-safety classes, robotics challenges and dog-training courses for Bent County 4-H clubs. And now Weber and other extension agents are moving to the front lines in the […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
Gunnison’s farm season has grown by 28 days. The proof is in “Barometer” Bartleson’s weather records.
Bruce “Barometer” Bartleson pulls a tattered brown folder from a china cabinet and runs a finger down a column of faint figures on the top sheet of paper. He stops on one line: on Dec. 12, 1901, the numbers show, the high temperature in Gunnison was 44 degrees. The low was 22. Bartleson’s eyebrows go […]
Posted inHealth, News, Outdoors
Don’t suck out the venom, do bring your phone: What a trail runner’s rattlesnake bite can teach Colorado adventurers
DEL NORTE – Each ink line on his orange and purple leg marked the progress of swelling advancing toward his torso from four fang marks near his ankle. At one point, his thigh measured 24 inches around. His waist size is 30 inches. “Pretty gnarly huh?” Tres Binkley asked, only half joking. Binkley was bitten […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, Culture, Environment, News
Peach growers are expecting an all-time bumper crop on the Western Slope, but there’s one problem
The plink and plop of tiny green peaches hitting the ground at a Talbott Farms orchard is the sound of exceptionally good news for Colorado fruit lovers. This season there have been no damaging freezes, no punishing winds and no bruising hail on the more than 500 acres of fruit trees at the Talbotts’ orchards […]