The Homestead
New West Energy Grok
Rural Coops Face Net MeteringYou'd think that utilities would get behind the movement across the West toward "net metering," which allows owners of small solar- and wind-power systems to put the excess energy they generate back onto the grid, and be compensated for it. The electricity produced by homeowners or ranchers, after all, is power they don’t have to generate or buy on the market.
Rural Electricity Associations, however, have lined up against Colorado's House Bill 1169, which would significantly raise the amount of user-generated power utilities have to allow on their grids. The measure passed the House in late March and is currently before a Senate committee in Denver. The associations argue that raising the net-metering caps would allows big-box stores and agribusiness to get into the energy business, and would raise rates for non-energy-producing ratepayers.
“What this bill does is blow the lid off the existing net metering law," Rep. Cory Gardner of Yuma said last week. "Instead of allowing individuals to produce power for their own needs, it creates a giant loophole for people to get into the power business on the backs of rural electric rate payers."
This, of course, is nonsense. The net metering bill would require REAs to allow just one percent of their electricity to come from net metering for the first two years, and only five percent in the long run.
In other energy news: Plains Exploration pays nearly $1 billion for Western Slope oil and gas wells; gas prices to spike up to $3 a gallon this summer; and Denver-based oil co. faces bizarre lawsuit by a venerable Texas ranching family.
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Column: Savagemama
Baby = Pumpkin or Punk?Someone told me once that there would be a day when there would be nothing I could do to ease my baby’s suffering whether it be because she was colicky or teething or just a little off. I honestly didn’t believe it but today was that day. I have never felt so inept. [more]
NORTHERN GARDENING TIPS WITH CHERYL MOORE-GOUGH
No Need To Crab About Beautiful Spring CrabapplesIn the Rockies, April showers (and sometimes snow) always bring May flowers, but what do blossoms on crabapple trees bring? If one wants to avoid a proliferation of falling fruit in the yard later in the year, local home landscapers can still have fragrant, colorful blooms on the trees while nipping unwanted fruit in the bud, says ace horticulturist Cheryl Moore-Gough of Montana State University who returns here with her regular gardening tips. "Long-term, you can enjoy crabapple flowers but avoid the fruit by planting a flowering crab cultivar that does not produce fruit," she says. "For existing trees, you can prevent crabapples from forming by using plant hormones." Welcome back Cheryl. [more]
Column: Savagemama
Is Motherhood Leading me to the Church Door? Really?Lately, my grandmother seems extra interested in our spiritual path. I don’t pretend that she’s out to save my soul and saving Seth’s soul has been a little harder then she bargained for but Eliza’s soul is a different story.
As Easter approached this year she slipped sly comments into conversation before finally asking, “You gonna take that baby to church?”
And the strange thing was, I was actually considering it.
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Lawless Loppers Running Loose in the West
Mangled Blobs Yearning to Breathe Free
I say we are each allowed one or two firmly-held pet peeves. My husband has a thing about throwing away the used coffee filter when the coffee finishes dripping. Encountering a dried-up filter with used grounds wigs him out. This is the same man who, without noticing, will walk through goose crap straight into the house.
That wigs ME out.
But nothing gets me quite like the pruning crimes going unreported across the West. Apparently people stroll out on the first nice day of spring, take a look at their shrubs, and get an irrational urge to attack them with dull weapons.
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Column: Savagemama
Rural Life with Baby and My Neighbor’s CowsWe live on five acres south of Arlee, five acres of postcard mountain views, swaying yellow grass and, more often than not, a handful of our neighbor’s 200 or so head of cattle. These creatures have 155 other acres on which to roam and poop and make baby cows but where do they really want to do all of these activities? You guessed it. Our five-acre island. At eight months old, Eliza is becoming quite the cow hand. [more]
Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Food and Ag Summit: Solutions to Healing An Ailing Food System
For Molly Anderson, research coordinator for the Farm and Food Policy Project, healing Montana’s food system begins by looking at the entire life cycle of food from ground to mouth, seed to sewer. To improve the health of our food system we must examine each organ of processing, packaging, advertising, cost... and the vascular transportation system that connects them.
For instance, food may expel fewer emissions when it travels greater distances than it would if grown in a greenhouse that is warmed with fossil fuels. Or food grown in Malawi might support the economy for that country while contributing only a fraction to greenhouse gases.
This two-part series on Spade & Spoon highlights the Montana Governor's Food and Agriculture Summit held in March in Helena. The first article noted the issues associated with creating local food systems in Montana. This piece -- the second -- discusses solutions.
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Column: Savagemama
Staying at Home, Taking Care of Baby and Identity CrisisIn our culture, a stay-at-home mom is someone who spends her days shopping at Target (in a not-so-sexy jogging suit nonetheless) and watching Oprah. This stereotype, while grossly unfair, is one I’ve bought into even without knowing it. It’s more than a little embarrassing to admit but I realize I’ve been less than kind over the years in my judgment of stay-at-home moms. This little identity crisis I’ve been having of late has forced me to confront my biases and realize that a woman can be smart and sexy and stay at home with her kids. [more]
THE GARDENING GOUGHS RETURN WITH SPRING TIPS
You’re Asking: Are Those Old Seeds Still Any Good?Robert Gough and his partner extraordinaire in the garden (and in life), Cheryl Moore-Gough, have been the go-to horiticulturists at Montana State University in Bozeman for many a planting season. Soon, they'll be publishing a new book on backyard gardening in the northern Rockies and in the meantime, Cheryl will continue to post gems of wisdom to help all of us grow stuff better for the dinner table, for aesthetic enjoyment and for the good vibe that healthy plants bring into our lives.
In honor of Bob, NewWest.Net decided to bring out one of his old columns that is as timely today as the year he first wrote it. The subjects is what to do with old seeds. Another excellent spot worth visiting for all aspiring green thumbs is Garden Guide. It was first established as a collaboration between Bob Gough and Montana State University and today is operated by Cheryl and her horticultural colleagues. It is a source for great gardening information.
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Column: Savagemama
Cottonwoods, Magnolias, Sage and Redefining HomeThis last month my little girl has done some traveling, first to see her grandparents in the South then to my husband’s childhood home in the high desert of Central Oregon. Without really meaning to we’ve found ourselves taking her to all of the places we carry with us even though we barely know we do.
Taking Eliza to the South was like placing the last piece of a puzzle and allowed me to bring her home to Montana feeling much closer to where I grew up. She will not know the South as her own but she’ll know it as me just as I know the scent of sage and juniper as Seth. She’s helping me reconfigure home. And somehow that is comforting.
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