The Homestead
Green Mansions
Your Eco-Friendly Dream Home
For all of you who've been worrying about global warming while driving your Hummer to Butch's Lobster Bar to dine on crustaceans flown in overnight from the coast, you can cease your fretting. Ken Pieper and Associates and Legendary Properties Sotheby's International Realty (both of Evergreen) are now offering a high-end luxury home that not only features "a state-of-the-art media room, wine cellar, game room, exercise area and several family gathering areas," but has a miniscule energy footprint. And it can be yours for the very reasonable price of … $4.5 million! [more]
Monday Business Roundup
‘New Urban’ Islands Dot the WestDespite its sprawling geography and its reputation for car-oriented, Phoenix-style suburbs, the Mountain West is in reality becoming an ocean of thinly populated rural areas and small towns dotted by islands of dense, "new urban" centers.
In Idaho, reports Lee Vander Boegh in IQ Idaho magazine, "Thirty-three years after being compared to a bombing range, downtown Boise is driving commerce and the community." In Bozeman, the Story Mill project is an urban infill development "led by a socially responsible developer with a vision that provides an alternative to sprawling fields of high-priced, single-family homes." Even Cheyenne has been recognized with two consecutive "National Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Metropolitan Transportation Planning" for cities under 200,000 in population.
In Denver, meanwhile, developers can't build enough high-priced downtown condos.
In other business news: Colorado's economy remains strong in the face of a national slowdown; the state passes Texas as the No. 2 aerospace economy in the nation; and Wild Oats stores learn their fate under new ownership.
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Itinerant Goat Ranching
Hooves of Gold, Stomachs of Iron
I was riding my bike over the weekend on the bike path through CU's Research Park when I came upon a herd of goats. Grazing away in the brush along the creek, hooved and horned, with a dozen or so interested spectators of the human variety. I pulled up and talked to their herder, a weathered, friendly woman named Lou Colby.
After we chatted a few minutes I asked her where her permanent base is.
"Well, don't have one right now."
This took a minute to sink in. So, do they live in hotels or what?
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Coffee in bed says I love you
Twenty-Five Years With the Right GuyToday, it is twenty-five years since my mother helped me into my wedding dress and I took my father’s arm to walk down the aisle to the altar, where Vince was waiting.
When Vince called to make our first date, his voice on the phone was deep and sexy, and I could HEAR a twinkle in his eye. But nothing prepared me for what happened the next night when he rang my doorbell: I took one look at his darling face and knew I would marry him, just like that.
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Column: Savagemama
Swimming Toward Confidence: Mama’s First Baby Swim LessonsEliza started swimming lessons this week and I was a total wreck. As I treaded into the water to join our class I looked around and not one other mother in the place was wearing a two-piece bathing suit. Just me. All the other mothers seemed to be taking cues from the same fashion trend. Ill-fitting plastic-type shorts layered over a dated one-piece bathing suit. They all seemed to know that this was the swimming lesson uniform for moms. I somehow missed the memo. So I got under the water as quickly as I could. [more]
Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Rattlesnakes Under Glass
What smells with its tongue, has an endless supply of fangs and announces someone's at the door with a rattle rather than a bell?
If you guessed a rattlesnake you’d be right but I’ll bet there’s a lot about these slithering, but not slimy, creatures you don’t know. Visiting the American International Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque helped me separate fact from fiction.
Owner Bob Myers claims he has the largest collection of different species of rattlesnakes in the world.
"I used to be a biology teacher," he said. "I tell people I wanted to get into something safer so I opened a rattlesnake museum."
The best way to deal with a snake is to ignore it and keep on moving. The only time Myers was ever bitten was when he had the snakes outdoors for a National Geographic photo shoot.
"I let my guard down and I guess the snakes were upset. I learned my lesson, not to do what National Geographic tells me."
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Weekend Essay
Of Families, Casseroles and Rocky Mountain OystersAt 15, of course I knew about "Rocky Mountain Oysters." My father had even tricked me into taking a nibble from one at a party when I was little. For whatever reason, though, I didn't know they were "harvested" at branding. My mind still saw its first attempt at making sense of the term -- joining mountain and sea -- and I imagined foragers chipping away at fossilized mollusks that over millions of years had cemented among the flat irons.
Making the branding pilgrimage meant leaving our ever-present view of those giant slabs on suburban Denver's front range, and driving up I-25 to Buffalo, WY, and then over to my grandfather's cattle ranch in the center of Montana, near Lewistown. If I was lucky, the 12-hour journey passed quickly as a hazy procession of Arby's, Wendy's and convenience stores briefly interrupting a catatonic Dramamine nap.
A pubescent girl who didn't barrel race like my cousin's girlfriend, do 4-H like every kid in Fergus county, or sew, as was my duty, was really like a fish peddling around the ranch on a bicycle. My acting aspirations and gothic red lipstick didn't help matters, but shunning the protein on which my grandfather's empire was built was a personal affront.
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How I'm spending my summer vacation
The Lazy Woman’s Guide to GardeningI love the *idea* of gardening, making things grow and thrive and eating the freshest of vegetables and fruits.
Sadly, the fantasy doesn't always live up to the reality.
This whole gardening thing is fairly new to me, but these are some of the things I've learned in my quest to reduce the amount of work.
1. Pick your plants and seeds carefully. You're looking for words like "Perennial" and "Enthusiastic self-seeder." aka Things You Won't Have to Plant Again. "Thrives on neglect" is another good one.
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Which breed bites most?
Should We Do Anything About Pit Bulls?
From Boise’s CBS affiliate, KBCI Channel 2, we have another report of a pit bull attack - this time, the dog’s own family. (It's not the dog in the photo - that one is a sweetie up for adoption.)
And again, we have neighbors who know the dog saying “it was only a matter of time.”
What wasn’t reported on the local news to much extent is the fact that the boy in the family was apparently teasing and otherwise provoking the dog. Update: The dog has been euthanized at the Idaho Humane Society.
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Column: Savagemama
Gimme an E!: Channeling my Inner CheerleaderWhen Eliza is fussy, I do cheers for her. Like short-skirt-and-ponytails kind of cheers. Gimme an E – L –I –Z –A kind of cheers. And, yes, it is more than a little alarming to me that this is my instinct, the first thing I pull from my bag of tricks in the face of a squirming, teething baby. We mamas all have our bag of tricks, mine just happens to include pom poms. [more]
