PEA GREEN — Dawn is breaking everywhere as the stillness of Sunday morning is interrupted by the sound of ears of corn being ripped from waist-high plants in the ground. An old Ford 350 motor slowly chugs to life as about two dozen migrant workers quietly walk into a field to begin the first day […]
John Harold
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outsider
A 120-year-old water tunnel beneath the mountains is the Uncompahgre Valley’s lifeline. We went inside.
MONTROSE — After more than a half-hour splashing through the dank dark of one of the world’s longest irrigation tunnels, Dennis Veo grins in the sunshine showering the cliffs of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. “The guys who did this were dang sharp,” says Veo, the operations manager of the Uncompahgre Valley Water […]
Posted inNews
How is Colorado’s new farmworkers’ rights bill being received by migrant farmworkers? With a shrug.
OLATHE — Erasmo Cano downs a bottled drink and dumps the dregs of packaged cookies into his mouth before he climbs out of the van where he and his coworkers have been taking a 15-minute shade break. It was a brief escape from pulling weeds in a 14-acre field where his crew has been toiling […]
Posted inBusiness, Coloradans, COVID, Culture, Environment, News, Politics and Government
“A big year” for Olathe sweet corn as pickers pluck first ears of the season
OLATHE — The sun’s first rays are spilling over Jumbo Mountain when the team clambers aboard the sprawling corn harvester. John Harold joins the pickers as they twist his “Olathe Sweet” sweet corn from the stalks. It’s barely 6 a.m. and the first harvest of the season is underway for the nationally celebrated ears. It’s […]