Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Outdoors, Wildfire

Priceless seeds, sprouts in New Mexico a key to post-fire future in the West

By Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press A New Mexico facility where researchers work to restore forests devastated by fires faced an almost cruelly ironic threat: The largest wildfire burning in the U.S. was fast approaching. Owen Burney and his team knew they had to save what they could. Atop their list was a priceless […]

Posted inNews

Colorado ranchers are selling off cattle to survive another year of dried-up grass and parched soil

Janie VanWinkle can hear it in the discontented way her cows call to their calves, the way the dried grass crunches into powder under her boots. It’s the sound of drought. The landscape where her cows graze in Grand Junction doesn’t have a green tint this spring. It’s gray and brown, ugly and parched. “And […]

Posted inArts, Coloradans, COVID, Culture, Environment

In southwest Colorado, high tech plays in the mud to produce ecologically sound architecture — and art

In the middle of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, a progressive architecture and design firm is proving that everything old is new again. Also, that the future is mud. Combining indigenous mud-based building materials with 21st century robotics, California-based Rael San Fratello created the oddly beautiful structures of “Casa Covida,” their “proto-architectures” that connect high- and […]