New West Living
Bulgaria. Ibiza. Ojai. Bozeman.
NYTimes Travel Section Features Bozeman’s Main StreetBozeman's “homespun and hip” Main Street was a highlighted charm in the New York Times travel section this weekend.
As writer Donna Paul points out that in the throes of development of big-box stores, our historic downtown shops are retaining our Western history but with modern distinction.
From Leaf & Bean to Vargo's to Montana Trails Gallery to Bent Lens, the article gives a brief stroll of our newly renovated Main Street. There is also a travel guide with many local's favorite places listed. And the NYTimes also has a great portrait series of Bozeman and Livingston faces.
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Yoga On & Off the Mat
Try Yoga This Holiday Season
The contrast is startling. First, it’s Thursday, a day for giving thanks — for relaxing with loved ones and filling plates with local harvest. Then it’s Friday, “Black Friday,” a day when shoppers rush against each other and the clock to fill their carts with marked-down merchandise and check off page-long wish lists.
In Missoula, on the Friday following Thanksgiving, 40 eager shoppers slept outside Best Buy and endured 0-degree C temperatures to cash in on early-bird specials. After one eager shopper missed out on a screaming deal — 60 Toshiba laptops were priced at $229 — he surmised that other, more successful shoppers would hop on eBay and resell the laptops for $1,000, thus robbing his kids “of a good education.”
Likewise, the spirit of Thanksgiving seems to have been robbed — in less than a day, we go from grace and gratitude to pushing and purchasing.
From light to “black,” we enter the holiday season.
Yikes.
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Column: Savagemama
A Little Note on Being ThankfulLast week when we sat around a table heavy with home cooked goodness and I thought about what I am thankful for this year, the list was extensive but a few things stood out. [more]
Yoga Under the Big Sky
Ski Season Yoga
The holiday season rapidly approaches - and with it comes ski season. Since I moved to Montana earlier this year, I'm in a place where the arrival of winter is a much-anticipated event. Excitement builds as the temperature drops. I share the enthusiasm as I monitor the mountain snowfall and get my skis tuned up for opening day (or shortly thereafter – Big Sky opened this past Saturday). I've also changed my yoga practice, incorporating poses that will help develop the strength and flexibility needed on the slopes. The question to ask yourself as you get your skis ready: is your equipment in better shape than your body? Good news - you can get your body and mind ready for the slopes with some simple yoga moves. [more]
Drug Testing
State May Employ New Eye Test to Detect Drugs, AlcoholA new test could help determine if someone has been using drugs by checking reactions in their eyes. An Associated Press article being picked up all over the state is reporting that the Idaho Department of Correction is considering this new type of drug test that flashes beams of light into someone’s eyes and checks eye reaction time.
The test is called Passpoint, and Corrections would like to use it on parolees specifically. Passpoint can identify drug use in past days because the eye reaction is typically slower for people using drugs or alcohol.
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Turning Development Pressure into a New Agricutural Market
In the Boise Metropolitan Area of Ada, Boise, Canyon, Gem and Owyhee counties, the landscape has become a labyrynth of homes. Development has meant more people, traffic and air pollution. It has also reduced the Valley's once vital agricultural lands.
Long defined by industrialized agriculture magnates J.R. Simplot, Ore-Ida Foods and Albertsons, which began at the corner of 16th and State street, Boise has been redefined by the sprawling development. And while the large processing corporations still operate and provide a mainstay of Boise’s economy (although Albertsons was sold to Supervalu in 2006), this expansive development has displaced many of the working, agricultural lands that surrounded Boise.
But, in Boise, one farmer is finding out how to turn expanding urban areas into a source for new markets.
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Stumbling the Walk
Night Driving with Dick Dorworth
How do you kill time on an airplane planted on the tarmac, snow blowing and swirling outside, in the wee hours of the morning? The most amusing event was when some older fellow walked up into first class, looked around with his hands on his hips for a couple moments, and then turned to return to the back of the plane without saying a word. He did not pass quietly: clearing the third row, which is where I just happened to be seated, he unleashed a fuselage-rattling fart that did not go unnoticed by any of us in the vicinity. "I think he just fired a shot across our bow," I remarked, and the giddiness of the hour made it a lot funnier than it may have otherwise been. [more]
Missoula's Dish
A Whole Meal of GratitudeI moved to Montana when I was 21 years old. I have not sat around a table on Thanksgiving with my family, since. Occasionally, one of my sisters has made the road trip from the west coast. This year is the first year that I can leave and join her for the holiday.
I no longer work in the restaurant business, yet it is the restaurant business that reinvented the notion of family for me, and in fact those that have helped ease the void of living so far away from my own family are those who I have worked with over the years. After all, we’ve shared the kitchen and the dining room, day after day, and often, even when we close for the holidays, we gather in one of our homes and share a meal.
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"munchy crunchy gooey tasty"
Thanksgiving Poems from Chief Charlo ElementaryThese Collaborative Thanksgiving Poems are from the Chief Charlo School where I am the writer in residence through the Missoula Writing Collaborative. Special thanks to Ms. Johnston’s class for letting me be a part of their poem.
Ms. Johnston’s 4th grade collaborative poem:
Cornucopia
Oh man, Oh man, what do I pick:
cows taste perfect from the hay they eat
sometimes squishy
a piece of fat juicy bacon
starts off as a pig and
I am thankful for pizza because it smells good
with barbecue sauce it zaps my taste buds...
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Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
The Top Five Ways to Make Thanksgiving Local
As we head toward Turkey Thursday and get ready to give thanks, give up the remote for unending hours of football and doze off with the tryptophan, locavores will celebrate their addition to the Oxford English Dictionary this year, with locally grown food. For those who want to join them this Thanksgiving, and give up the long-distance vittels, here are the top five ways to go local.
First ... Avoid Cranberries.
While Washington state is the closest producer of cranberries, most producers sell to the Massachusett’s based Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. So while you might think they are pretty local, they can actually end up in a rather long supply chain.
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