May 30, 2014

Floods, Fire, Buses: Changes at Bandelier National Monument

Bandelier National Monument visitor center with sandbags
M. and I last visited Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico in May 2011, mainly to see the new diorama in the visitor center that her brother had built. Then the Las Conchas fire closed in and threatened those buildings—but they survived (maybe with the help of copious Class A foam).

The brother himself had never seen it, since he lives in Virginia, but we went there Wednesday as part of a family reunion.

"They repainted my lizard," he said. "Crappy job." Apparently someone thought his yellow stripes were not bright enough. And the background mural had been cropped as well, although only he would have noticed that.

One change was the effect of the September 2013 flooding, worst in the monument's history. (See pictures here and videos here). Lots more debris piles and fewer picnic tables — maybe those washed into the Rio Grande.  The visitor center is still sandbagged.

Another is that visitors are now strongly encouraged to park in White Rock and take a free shuttle bus the last eight miles to the visitor center. Apparently this does not apply to those staying in the park campground and/or just driving to the Frey Trail head, judging by the number of cars there. (The bus also stops at the trail head.) There are a few other exceptions too—see the link.

But after years of seeing the main parking lot fill up in the spring and summer and having to turn visitors away, the NPS has taken a new stance.

May 24, 2014

A Blanket of Stupidity Has Descended on Our County, Part 3

Part 1: When is a "rattlesnake" not a rattlesnake?
Part 2: An Unnecessary Death

It was only ten o'clock when we left home after the bear shooting to do some shopping in Pueblo. But we had barely left the mountains for the prairie when my cell phone rang: "This is a CodeRED alert . . ."  It was a fire call.

I turned in by the corral at the bottom of Jackson Hill and went tearing back westward. Never mind that all my wildland gear was at home — I could grab a hard hat, gloves, and radio at the station and be well enough ready for what was, I felt in my bones, a bogus alarm.

For the fourth time this month, we had this situation:

1. Someone who is (a) relatively new to the area or (b) mentally and culturally disconnected welcomed the warmer, sunnier weather by building a fire outdoors to burn pruned branches, etc., without bothering to check with the sheriff's dispatcher first. (The sheriff, as fire marshal, has to give the OK for controlled burns.)

2. Someone else, made nervous by all the wildfires of the last few years, calls in the alarm.

After cruising the area of the smoke report with two other firefighters in one of the brush trucks, we stopped at another member's place and discovered him in conversation with his neighbor — the one who had the fire. He had already been made aware of his mistake, so after a little conversation, we put the truck back in the house, and M. and I headed for Pueblo an hour late.

But there was more to come!

Coming home, we hit a roadblock, improvised with the tanker truck utilized by the county coroner's septic tank-pumping business. For some reason, that struck me as hilarious. Who would want to run into that?
A 64-year-old local man was taken into custody for evaluation after an armed standoff with law enforcement officers this afternoon.
A 64-year-old local man was taken into custody for evaluation after an armed standoff with law enforcement officers this afternoon. - See more at: http://www.chieftain.com/news/region/2581206-120/county-armed-chieftain-coleman#sthash.CJNxg6eQ.dpuf
He ended up being taken to a hospital — with no shots fired. Amazing. The location was a house by the highway, hence the roadblock.

We had turned around and gone home another way — another fifty miles — and as we approached this area we passed a parade of law enforcement vehicles leaving the scene, even an armored car — it's truly a miracle that they didn't just shoot the house to pieces . . . and start another fire.

After supper, we watched an episode of Justified just to unwind. Watching Timothy Olyphant as Marshal Raylan Givens just seemed like light entertainment.

I just don't get the psychology of the "I'm in my house and will shoot anyone who comes near." On my last newspaper job, I covered such an incident — a man and his dog barricaded in a little frame house in town, me braced against a cop car, wishing that my telephoto lens was bigger than it was, since I was a block away.

Eventually smoke billowed from under the eaves—he had set the place on fire—and the police rushed in. I think the dog got out OK as well.

It is not the same as "suicide by cop" exactly. Like the man yesterday— he gave up, and now he is in Parkview Medical Center mental health unit for the time being.

And a male, age 64 — that seems so typical. I had a certain old Beatles song in my head the rest of the evening.

May 23, 2014

A Blanket of Stupidity Has Descended on Our County, Part 2

Read Part 1, When is a "rattlesnake" not a rattlesnake?
Click to enlarge.

On the 19th I combined a scout camera photo of a young bear with a bear-in-the-trash incident (same bear?) to make a blog post that tried to hit the "cute zone."

I should probably just leave "cute" alone. As for the bear, he is dead.

About 7:20 yesterday morning (the 22nd) as I was dressing to take Fisher for his walk, I heard a gun shot. I wanted to believe that it was something else.

We took our walk, came home, and Fisher, out on the veranda, alerted to something. I looked where he was looking, and there up in a big pine tree was a bear with blood on his side.

I called the sheriff's dispatcher and asked for a wildlife person. In about five minutes, one of the area district wildlife managers (what Colorado calls a game warden) called back. Twenty minutes later he was here, slipping his rifle from the scabbard behind the truck seat.

The warden moves for a clear shot at the wounded bear.
After he shot, he holds up his hand: "Look, I'm shaking. I just hate to have to destroy of those magnificent creatures." And he is talking about how he loves bears above all and even has a tattoo of bears under his shirt.

What had happened was this:

We have new neighbors, the kind who having moved from a town to a five-acre lot in the woods, think that they are now deep in the Alaskan bush and must defend themselves against all dangers.

They are well-armed and have four-wheel-drive vehicles, but they did not know where their well water came from until I told them.

Right away, the guy pissed off us and some other neighbors by target-shooting his fave AR-platform .308 rifle from his front yard and also sending .22 bullets zinging across a Forest Service road where someone else was walking (or so told us — and him).

Yesterday morning, he saw a bear in his dumpster, let his dog out, the bear swatted at the dog, and he shot it.

But "Mr. Tactical" did not kill it. He let it walk away, wounded. It came onto our property, climbed a tree, and suffered for over an hour until I saw it and called for the game warden.

Then his wife comes over to where the bear is lying, all "ohmygod there's a three-month-old baby in the house and the bear was around the house and I have baby chicks inside and we love animals because we have a dog and a canary!" Et cetera.

And then M. referred to her husband as a "murderer," and things threatened to become very un-neighborly indeed.

The warden stayed calm and reminded her (and Mr. Tactical when he finally showed up, standing back at a distance) that they could have called for an evaluation of the situation, maybe even a live-trap to remove the bear.

Shooting the bear just for poking into the garbage is flat illegal. But he did not cite them, because he was just over the line into another DWM's territory, and any law-enforcement action will be up to her. Naturally we are hoping that she gets his attention with a hefty fine.

At least these people are only renting, so maybe they will move on.

By ten o'clock, the incident was over — but the day was not. There was more to come.

May 22, 2014

A Blanket of Stupidity Has Descended on Our County, Part 1

This is not a rattlesnake (Wikimedia Commons).
For an appetizer, consider this post from a Facebook page for residents of my little mountain county:
It's that time of year...rattlers are coming out of hibernation. Wherever you are please be watchfull. Listen to your pets, they know when something isn't right. My dog had this one pinned out in our yard this afternoon. She didn't go near it, but new [sic] it wasn't right. 
(Warn Uncle Joe, cuz he's a-moving kind of slow.)

The attached photo was a picture of a bullsnake, non-venomous and not a threat unless you are a mouse.

Although they have no rattles, bullsnakes will vibrate their tails as a threat display. This produces such reactions from Homo sapiens as this from the same Facebook post:
All Rattlesnakes I see gets to meet my 44 mag with snakeshot. I always like to say hi.
Thanks for sharing, Dave E.

There is more.

May 20, 2014

Sheriff's Deputy Warns Cat Not to Shit in Neighbor's Yard

From the sheriff's blotter in the Cañon City Daily Record.

¶ Colo. 115, Brookside, report of over 30 goats in the road. Goats fled the scene before deputy arrived. 

¶ Colo. 115/Mackenzie, Cañon City, reporting party called to advise that a subject wearing a mask and dressed in black ran across the highway and into a building. Deputies checked the area with negative contact.  

(Always black in these reports. At least if "subject" wore orange, he might be a prison escapee. The only building there is the ruined Fawn Hollow Tavern, which was a "bucket of blood" roadhouse in the 1940s–1950s.)

¶ U.S. 50, Cañon City, reporting party requested assistance in retrieving her husband from his girlfriend's residence. Deputy advised the parties to work it out, as the husband wouldn't come out until the wife left the area.  

¶ 1500 block Chestnut, Cañon City, reporting party complained that the neighbor's cat had been leaving presents in her yard. Deputy said he would contact the neighbor and warn the cat.  

There was also an actual bank robbery where some 19-year-old robbed a bank in the town where he lived without even bothering to put on a mask. He was quickly caught.

May 19, 2014

The Teddy Bears' Picnic

Beneath the trees where nobody sees 
They'll hide and seek as long as they please 
 'Cause that's the way the Teddy Bears have their picnic.
When do the bears emerge from hibernation? And when do they start appearing around the house? A neighbor picked up some on their scout camera, about three miles away, earlier this month. This young (subadult) bear had its picture taken on the 16th, about ten minutes' walk from the house.

Two large bear turds are circled.
Then this morning, while M. and I were eating breakfast outdoors, Lt. Fisher of the Garbage and Carrion Location and Disposal section located and was trying to dispose of a ripped-up sack of garbage on the other side of the wooded ravine in front of the house.

And there was another similar sack and similar bear turds only yards away. Yes, the bears had been having a picnic.

Internal evidence pointed to the garbage coming from the neighbor across the road. She said she had put out her trash on Tuesday, but that the garbage driver "hadn't taken it."

Or maybe she had told her son, the aspiring "dark arts painter," to roll the wheelie bin out to the road, but he never did it. So the bears found it. Whatever. Let's just listen to Der Bingle sing the song.

May 15, 2014

Keeping the Southwest Chief in Southern Colorado, We Hope

Union Depot, Pueblo, Colorado. It's just offices now.
A small crowd gathered at Pueblo's Union Depot (which currently sees only freight trains pass by) on Wednesday, May 14th, to watch Gov. John Hickenlooper sign a bill that represented one step toward keeping Amtrak's Southwest Chief train running through western Kansas, southern Colorado, and northern New Mexico on its way between Chicago and Los Angeles.

First, Pueblo's favorite roots-music band, the Haunted Windchimes, played all the train songs in their repertoire as people gathered.

The Haunted Windchimes playing at the depot.
There were political operatives in tie-less blue button-down shirts and blue blazers, old rail-fan guys wearing train-themed caps, actual Amtrak employees, elected officials from the local, county, and state levels, and various people who unite in one idea, namely that train travel is local, comfortable, does not involve being probed by federal agents with blue gloves, and is environmentally sound.

In other words, when it comes to passengers moved per mile per gallon of fuel burned, trains beat everything else.

Why all the fuss? In essence, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF) is not keeping up the tracks to the standard required for passenger trains. If they are not improved, Amtrak has threatened to reroute the Chief from Wichita-Amarillo-Albuquerque, cutting off western Kansas, southern Colorado, and northern New Mexico — areas that have poor air service and poor bus service.

Kansas has partnered with Amtrak and BNSF Railroad to help fund a portion of the track improvements required along the Southwest Chief route. If the track is not upgraded, Amtrak has warned that it may move its daily Chicago-to-Los Angeles passenger service to a more southern route.
Gov. Hickenlooper says a few words.

On the other hand, southern Colorado officials are more and more seeing an Amtrak route through Pueblo - Walsenburg - Trinidad, as compared to today's route from La Junta to Trinidad, which cuts off the I-25 corridor completely, as good for economic development and tourism.

Either way, M. and I want to keep the train running through southern Colorado, which is why we were there today, applauding with the crowd.

Airlines are increasingly abandoning mid-sized airports. Pueblo keeps a minimal level of commercial air service going only through a municipal subsidy, while Colorado Springs has seen service and passenger numbers decline, even with a new terminal building.

What is going to fill the gap? Trains, I would argue, are the best choice.

May 09, 2014

Waiting for El Niño or Someone Like Him

It is May, and we are awaiting a possible rain/snow storm this coming Sunday evening, the 11th.

But the forecasters are cautiously predicting an El Niño even that could make the monsoon wetter and next winter's snows a little deeper in the Southern Rockies.

Colorado Springs television meteorologist Brian Bledsoe looks for analogs with earlier years in a blog post.
We have several burn scars across the state and more than a few of those reside right here in Southern Colorado.  Waldo Canyon obviously having the biggest impact on population, with Black Forest not far behind.  Despite the flooding that we have seen during the past couple of years, we really haven't had what I would call an active monsoon season.

Granted, we had a big late season round last September, but that was an exception to the rule.
If you want graphics, charts, animations, and graphs, visit NOAA's El Niño Theme Page.

Pop culture reference in this post's title.

May 08, 2014

Blog Stew with Scottish Bones

Jake's Bones is a blog by/about a Scottish boy who picks up bones in the woods and takes them home. "I've been collecting bones since I was six, and I started blogging in July 2009 when I was seven." Now it is a book as well.

¶ On the locavore-new woman hunter axis, Kristen Schmitt's blog City Roots to Hunting Boots chronicles her journey to become a hunter, a bowhunter in particular.
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me. Luckily, my husband has been hunting since childhood and is one of the most valuable resources I have. - See more at: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/locavore-blog/locavore-blog-chasing-arrow-archery-terms#sthash.qRQdfUSg.dpuf
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me. Luckily, my husband has been hunting since childhood and is one of the most valuable resources I have. - See more at: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/locavore-blog/locavore-blog-chasing-arrow-archery-terms#sthash.qRQdfUSg.dpuf
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me.
¶ Part of a discussion on the question "Does hunting make us human?" from David Stallings at The Center for Humans & Nature website. You can read more responses as well from Mary Zeiss Stange, Steve Bodio, Tovar Cerulli, and others.
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me. - See more at: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/locavore-blog/locavore-blog-chasing-arrow-archery-terms#sthash.qRQdfUSg.dpuf
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me. - See more at: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/locavore-blog/locavore-blog-chasing-arrow-archery-terms#sthash.qRQdfUSg.dpuf
Thumbing through back issues of Deer & Deer Hunting, I find myself stumbling over terminology related to archery, bowhunting, and rifle hunting – all words I need to start familiarizing myself with for my future goal (and also so I sound like I know what I’m talking about). Considering that I didn’t grow up within a hunting family, it’s all new to me. Luckily, my husband has been hunting since childhood and is one of the most valuable resources I have. - See more at: http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/blogs/locavore-blog/locavore-blog-chasing-arrow-archery-terms#sthash.qRQdfUSg.dpuf

May 04, 2014

Blog Stew on Horseback

 ¶ Western dude ranchers are having to buy bigger horses for fatter guests.
"Little horses just aren't sturdy enough to hold up in a dude operation in the Rocky Mountains," Kipp Saile said, noting that about 15 of their 60 horses were Percheron mixes, the largest weighing 1,800 pounds.
¶ Colorado's oil and gas-drilling boom is polluting farm land (spills, drilling waste), and oil companies hope that microbes will clean up the hydrocarbons.
The number of spills reported by companies reached a 10-year peak of 578 last year (43 related to the September floods), contaminating an estimated 173,400 tons of topsoil, according to the COGCC data, which come from reports companies are required to file.

While energy companies responsible for spills recover much of the liquid hydrocarbons during cleanups, an analysis of the data shows that roughly 45 percent stays in soil.
¶ Never mind the propaganda about how corn-based ethanol is "patriotic." Even the business press, like Forbes, is moving to the position that ethanol is a loss overall. (Especially when you use High Plains Aquifer water to grow the corn.)

May 03, 2014

Camouflage, Sawyer's Chaps, and Culture War

I went into one of the hardware stores in the next county north recently to buy some saw chain and a new depth-gauge file.
Sawyer's chaps

Then I decided that if Kevlar chaps were good enough for the fire department (we upgraded last year, as well as getting a second saw, a Stihl* with 30-inch bar for taking down big hollow cottonwoods), I should have my own.

So I started looking for my size in the fluorescent orange, but what was this? Camouflage sawyer's chaps. Huh?

Meanwhile, the store's sound system was thumping out Justin Moore's culture-war** anthem, "Bait a Hook," in which the speaker denigrates his ex's new boyfriend:
He can't even bait a hook
He can't even skin a buck
He don't know who Jack Daniels is
He ain't ever drove a truck
Obviously, since no one holding a screaming chainsaw is interested in concealment, the cammie chaps are just a fashion statement.

Yes, camouflage has fashions. Not improvements necessarily, but fashions.

Colorado wildlife photographer and writer Tim Christie, who likes camouflage, wrote in the March/April 2014 Colorado Outdoors how one magazine's editor rejected three-year-old photos: "It's a super photo, Tim, and we could use it except the camouflage clothing is outdated."

"Our advertisers," continued the editor, "appreciate seeing their latest patterns on hunter images in the magazine. It's a reality of the publishing business . . . . You've got about two, or at most, four years after a pattern's been released before camouflage clothing worn by a hunter dates an image."

What is this, The Devil Wears Realtree?

And Christie could only write that paragraph in a state-supported magazine like Colorado Outdoors that takes no ads.

But for culture-war purposes, any pattern on your ball cap or jacket is enough to make a statement — even WW2  "jungle camo" for the retro look. Or Russian klyaska, which you wore before anyone else had ever heard of it.

* Stihl is sure ahead with the brand marketing — hats, shirts, sunglasses. I am waiting for the seat covers and dog collars.

** Aside from Hank Williams, Jr.'s "A County Boy Can Survive" (1982), when did C&W music get all culture-war-ish?

May 02, 2014

Purple Mustard Explained

Image from Southwest Colorado Wildflowers.
Apparently the combination of several dry years, followed by a pretty good late-summer monsoon in 2013 and decent winter snow has produced so much purple mustard (Chorispora tenella) that people in southern Colorado are asking, "What are the purple flowers?"

Westcliffe botanist Christine MacLeod explains all here.

"During the drier years, seeds from many of our high prairie plants, including purple mustard, chose to remain dormant in the soil, contributing to a rich seed bank for years to come. Seeds can stay in dormancy for many years until the conditions are optimal for sprouting. And that is just what they all have done these past few weeks."

It's another invasive Asian species.