UBC1113 ... Western Slope Native Seed meet

Jim Garner leads Native Seed meet

SUPPORTING THE NATIVES ... For many years the Public Land Partnership, centered in Montrose and under the leadership of Delta’s Dr. Mary Chapman, provided a table of trust forum for public land stakeholders of all sizes and shapes in four of the counties surrounding the Uncompahgre Plateau. Alliances were formed, and projects spun off from this innovative forest collaborative. Those projects included our own Burn Canyon Monitoring Committee and what has now become the Uncompahgre Partnership (UP).

One of UP’s most successful projects was its Native Plant effort. For years it has coordinated native seed collection and production for use in regeneration seed mixes on public lands -- not only in Colorado but in multiple Western states. Thanks to a recent grant, UP is hiring a Native Seed coordinator. Last month they held a two-day Native Seed Summit in Grand Junction at the Doubletree Inn, pulling together land agency managers, seed producers, botanists, enviros and a lone country government representative to try and see what this new coordinator could be doing to help forest restoration efforts in the Four Corners region using native seed in place of introduced forbs and grasses.

Locally collected native plants are usually best adapted to local regeneration projects, but the seed is often difficult to collect, harder to grow and rarely available in sufficient quantities to treat large landscapes, particularly after a forest fire. Jim Garner of Colorado Parks & Wildlife had great news, as reported in the Telluride Watch earlier this year – his state agency is building a native seed warehouse, where rare seeds will be able to be stored and research can be done on unique seed strains and cultivars.

 My interest was piqued because one of the primary recovery efforts for the Gunnison Sage Grouse is restoring critical areas to the kinds of sagebrush flats -- with an understory of succulent native forbs and grasses -- that the bird depends on for habitat. I’m hoping to see if San Miguel County can provide support to private landowners in our boundaries by paying them to do this kind of native plant recovery – a win for the bird, the private landowners and the community if we can increase critical habitat and, hopefully, increase the bird’s numbers in our county. The Native Seed folks had lists of native seed known to provide the best habitat for the Gunnison Sage Grouse. I’m hoping the county will be able to ease the burden to private landowners with money to help in habitat restoration.

UBC1013 ... The Talking Gourd

Rosemerry at Shroomfest (photo by Matt Stits)

Text scraping the ink
off my pages, sending it
for biopsy

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Placerville

3rd Karen Chamberlain Poetry Fest ... Mar. 29-31, 26013

Uche Ogbuji performing last year (Goodtimes)

The Thunder River Theatre Company's pleased to announce the third annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival to be held in Carbondale, March 29 - 31, 2013. Poets, performers and listeners are invited to join us as we honor the inspiring life of Colorado poet Karen Chamberlain, who passed away in September 2010. 

Festival organizer Valerie Haugen

 

 

 

This year's theme is "Poetry Everywhere!” The first evening of the festival will feature an award ceremony naming a new Western Slope Poet Laureate. On Saturday evening, honored Colorado poet Reg Saner will be presented the Chamberlain Award for Lifetime Poetic Achievement. 

Performers this year include current Western Slope Poet Laureate Art Goodtimes, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Trinity Lafey, Jared Smith, SETH, Uche Ogbuji, Kit Kalriess Muldoon, Roseanna Frechette, Eric and Jacob Walter, MD Friedman, David Rothman, and more

Performances and open mics will take place Friday and Saturday evenings. Sunday morning’s program includes a continental breakfast, followed by a Gourd Circle led by Goodtimes. 

Colorado Poets Center's Bob King

Saturday workshops, more than a dozen of them, include Ogbuji’s "Poetry from the Heart's Far-Flung Places"; "Contemporary Music and Poetry: Creative Connections" taught by Richard Kempa; "Writing the Political Poem" with Debbi Brody, and Stewart Warren’s “Collaborations: the muse everywhere,” among others. 

Don't miss this incredible opportunity to honor a great lady, to celebrate the Western Slope's vibrant poetry community, and to find the poetry growing wild in your own soul's garden

Tickets are available online at <www.thunderrivertheatre.com> . For more information, e-mail <karenchamberlainpoetryfestival@gmail.com>

UBC913 ... Ken Salazar Comes Home

Ken and Art at Center of the American West conference, 2012

The Denver Post opined that Salazar, stepping down from his post as Interior Secretary for the first term of the Obama administration, was in a good position for any number of future possibilities. The headline Feb. 17^th read, “Ken Salazar returns to Colorado with image intact and many options.”

According to co-writers Karen Crummy and Bruce Finley, “Some see Salazar as governor. Others see him as a high-level envoy or ambassador. A few consider him a good pick for a presidential ticket down the road.”

But for now, Salazar says he’s going to focus on finding a money-paying job and spending more time with his family.

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt touted Salazar's "consensus-building magic" in many of his accomplishments over the past four years. "The environment he stepped into was impossible,” insisted Babbitt. “The economy was really struggling. He was trying to figure out how you get anything done when everyone's attention in Congress and the administration was on economic issues and jobs. And he set in motion things that are quite powerful."

Added Gov. John Hickenlooper, "He brings integrity everywhere he goes. He's always going to do what is right for the country, right for Colorado, before he does something that will benefit himself. He is, by nature, someone who thinks of others. His default position is to help someone else."

UBC1013 ... The Talking Gourd

Text scraping the ink
off my pages, sending it
for biopsy

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Placerville

UBC1013 ... Catching Up on Our Neighbors to the South

DOVE CREEK PRESS … Living in the upper watershed of the San Miguel River, our newspapers have a very hip upscale look separating us from this more traditional rural weekly. And the prevailing community attitudes and op-ed spins are often diametrically opposed … I’ve written about Linda and Doug Funk’s DoveCreek Press. The newspaper serves the county seat of Dolores County, our neighbor to the southwest (Rico having once been the county seat, until dryland farmers and uranium miners wrested it away from hard rock mining-camp-gone-bust holdouts back in the Fifties). Folks over in San Juan County, Utah (Blanding and Monticello) read it. The Press also serves as local news organ for San Miguel County’s far West End: Egnar, Slick Rock, Disappointment Valley -- all of it located in the Dolores River watershed and San Miguel County Commissioner District #3 … I subscribe. It helps keep me in touch with all the different perspectives that make up citizen views in my bifurcated constituency. And last week’s issue couldn’t have showcased those differences more.

Gunnison Sage Grouse

SAGE GROUSE LISTING … Usually sporting a local snapshot of some rural landscape scene, the Funks’ front page for Feb. 21^st featured a color (rare) map of proposed U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Gunnison Sage Grouse Critical Habitat – both occupied (40,000 acres) and potential (108,000 acres). The front page headline, below the fold, told the story: “County hires experts to fight sage grouse designation as endangered” … Dr. Rob Ramey was granted a $6,000 contract to help oppose listing, and “a GPS company” $5,000. Here’s some direct quotes from Doug Funk’s article … Commissioners lamented over the fact that Dove Creek/Monticello has few birds but a huge area of critical habitat… [County Attorney Dennis] Golbricht said he talked to a big wig in Kinder Morgan and was told that if sage grouse are designated endangered, drilling in Dolores County will cease … “Without oil and gas and farming, we’re done,” said [Commission Chair Doug] Stowe …As I understand it, some sixty percent of Dolores County revenue comes from oil & gas extraction. Depending on how the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service meshes with local farmers and how much truth there is in Golbricht’s rumor, listing could shut things down in Dolores County worse than the Bush-era Banking Collapse … In the Letters to the Editor section, Corinne Roring of San Juan County (UT) explains how her family has for years tried to protect the grouse, never killing them, and how they’ve worked with Utah Fish & Game to transform their windmill into a solar bird watering facility. But she believes, like many farmers and ranchers, that predation is the root cause of grouse declines. Roring writes, “It is a losing battle if the Fish and Game does not manage the predators, especially the raptors, with eagles at the top of the list.”

SHERIFF’S PERSPECTIVE … An occasional columnist, Dolores County Sheriff Jerry Martin weighs in, later in the paper, on gun control … “I am sure the potential terrorists will only show up with weapons and ammunition clips allowed under the new law. This makes about as much sense as buying a guard dog and then having his teeth extracted” … “Chicago and Washington D.C. have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation and also lead the nation in homicides. Is there a lesson to be learned here?” … “I support the recent decision by the school board to designate select school employees as school source and protection employees and will work closely with them to see that they are trained and able to respond.”

FRONT PAGE NEWS … One of my favorite regular features (along with Doug Funk’s own rural life column, Phunque’s Desk) is this summary of regional stories from newspapers in other communities. Telluride doesn’t make it very often, but the Cortez Journal, Dolores Star, San Miguel Basin Forum, Pine River Times (Bayfield), the Palisade Tribune, and the San Juan Record (Monticello) are all regulars … Here’s the Funks’ take on a Record story: … “Sally Jewell has been nominated to replace Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar. San Juan County residents fear she may be in favor of more National Monument designations.”

UBC913 ... The Talking Gourd

The Female Form

Girl Dressing Hair by Ito Shinsui

Yes, I posed nude for him.

But he wasn't like any

other artist I've ever

worked for. I'd sit on

his lap, his left arm tightly

around me while he painted

with his right hand. He said

he didn't want to paint

the way I look, only

the way I feel.

-Valerie Haugen

Carbondale