The Durango Telegraph Jan. 6, 2022

Pouring one out for Betty

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Jan. 6, 2022 Vol. XXI, No. 1 durangotelegraph.com

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T H E

O R I G I N A L

I N D I E

W E E K L Y

L I N E

O N

D U R A N G O

&

B E Y O N D

Drive-by history

Waste not

On the money

Unassuming garage along 550 in Ironton has a story to tell p8

Farm to Summit fuels adventures, circular food economy p9

Dark, humorous novel takes on Southern racial prejudice p11

2 n Jan. 6, 2022

telegraph

lineup

4

4 La Vida Local

A present from Christmas past helps writer get his man on

4 Thumbin’ It

Lighting the way

by Zach Hively

5 Word on the Street 6-7 Soapbox

8

8 Local News

Drive-by history Ironton structure a historic remnant of ski and religious dreams

9 Let’s Dig In

by Nancy Lofholm / Colorado Public Radio

11 Murder Ink 12-13 Stuff to Do

9

13 Ask Rachel

Food for thought Farm to Summit makes backcountry meals with a mission

by Sinjin Eberle

14 Free Will Astrology 15 Classifieds

11

15 Haiku Movie Review

On the money

On the cover: Blazing sunset over Vallecito this week./ Photo by Missy Votel’s new iPhone

Dark, humorous novel takes on Southern racial prejudice

by Jeffrey Mannix

boilerplate

EDITORIALISTA: Missy Votel missy@durangotelegraph.com ADVERTISING SALES: telegraph@durangotelegraph.com STAFF REPORTER: Jonathan Romeo jonathan@durangotelegraph.com

T

he Durango Telegraph publishes every Thursday, come hell, high water, beckoning singletrack or monster powder days. We are wholly owned and operated independently by the Durango Telegraph LLC and

STAR-STUDDED CAST: Zach Hively, Sinjin Eberle, Jeffrey Mannix, Lainie Maxson, Rob Brezsny and Clint Reid

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We’re only human. If, by chance, we defame someone’s good name or that of their family, neighbor, best

friend or dog, we will accept full responsibility in a public flogging in the following week’s issue.

Although “free but not easy,” we can be plied with schwag, booze and flattery.

telegraph

Ear to the ground: “If your face was a cheeseburger, I’d eat it.”

– Kids really do say the darndest things, especially when talking about their love of cheeseburgers.

thepole

RegularOccurrences

Durango’s 11 Put this in the strange crime file. Over the holiday weekend, two people suspected of breaking into and living in a closed downtown Durango motel came up with rather bold explanations when caught by cops: not only were they authorized to live there, they worked there as well.

It may not be as masterfully planned or skillfully executed as George Clooney and his Ocean’s 11 heists, but hey, it’s Durango.

The first incident happened on New Year’s Eve after two actual employees of a construction company leading a renovation at the Durango Downtown Inn, 800 Camino del Rio, saw a man shatter a window with a hammer and then enter inside. Another giveaway he wasn’t employed – he wasn’t wearing shoes. Gonna give a zero on stealth points there.

When Durango Police arrived, they went to the room and called for the man to come out. According to police records, when the man eventually exited the room, he appeared confused. He went on to explain that he worked for the business as a security guard. He didn’t have any identification, sure, but the owner of the hotel asked him to watch over it. And hey, officers also noted the man was now wearing tall work boots and “miscellaneous tools,” so, that seems official, right?

But here’s where the man made another damning mistake: he changed his story, several times.

He couldn’t remember the owner’s name, but was hired on good faith. Then, on second thought, he was actually under self-contract for his own personal business. Oh wait, no, he was a painter.

Turns out, officers found about $14,000 in damages in the room that the man, Matthew Darnell, 32, was staying in. There was even fresh graffiti with “Darnell” written in multiple spots.

I mean, we get leaving a “calling card” at the crime scene. But really? Your actual name?

Then, on New Year’s Day, officers were again called to the inn after another person was spotted illegally entering a hotel room. When officers made contact with the individual, Christopher Prewitt, 39, he had gone a step further, putting on a yellow safety vest and holding a clipboard before welcoming officers. “Christopher claimed to be an inspector for radiation and told us that it was not safe to be inside the hotel,” officers wrote.

Yeah, he was arrested too, especially after investigators found he had a plethora of stolen checks, credit cards and financial information from inside the hotel. Oh, and he also allegedly lit a fire in the bathtub and attempted to put it out with a (also stolen) fire extinguisher.

Another undoing for both these suspects, Cmdr. Ray Shupe said, was that the men were well known to officers, having a long rap sheet of crime in the area. “Officers have dealt with them often and knew they shouldn’t have been in there,” Shupe said. “(The excuses) were ill-advised, I would say.”

Both men were charged with burglary as well as a range of other associated offenses, and earned a D+ in stealth points for their crimes. And we really, really hope there’s no Durango’s 12.

Jan. 6, 2022 n

3

opinion

LaVidaLocal Zippopotamus for Christmas I thought I didn’t want much for Christmas until I got it: a great big pocket-sized validation of my manliness and manhood.

It came, as masculinity and virility often do, wrapped in tissue paper.

My aunt mailed it along with a Christmas card that promised “some fun memory items for your little house on the prairie.” I’ll admit I retracted a bit upon reading that, out of concern not for the diminutive phrasing for my home (which has nothing to prove, by the way), but for the literary reference.

I’m man enough to admit I never read “Little House on the Prairie.” I read Nancy Drew books instead. Who didn’t? She was basically like both Hardy Boys in one person with a fast blue car. But “Little House on the Prairie,” like all its sister books by Jane Austen, was never the librarian’s recommendation for a growing young man like me. Besides, I’ve seen the movie and have no desire to relive the scene where Amy burns Jo’s book.

That horrible moment might be what my aunt alluded to in her note. For inside the tissue paper was a collection of my grandpa’s artifacts, prized among them Papaw’s Zippo lighter with his name etched on the side. Perfect for setting flame to all my worst work – and sealing rope ends, and lighting pipes, and lighting scented candles, and maybe some incense, too.

I used to think manliness was created by mere acts of manliness, like stopping to fix a stranger’s flat tire or my monthly chin-up.

Now I know better – manliness is tangible, like the Swiss army knife I haven’t seen anywhere around here for a couple months now. Or like the worn brass plating on this exquisite hinged rectangle, that musical clink when I thumb it open, that charming clunk when I flip it shut. Sure, the lighter’s lid doesn’t stay precisely shut anymore, and it’s not throwing sparks, and the wick is probably asbestos. But it’s great in a survival situation if it works right, and more than that, it was Papaw’s. He was a real man – a good man – for at least as long as he carried this lighter.

And now it is with me.

Words can’t describe the shift in my being with this tool in my hand, but I will use them anyway: I feel capable. I feel cool. I feel like part of my Greater Purpose on This Earth is to restore this lighter to service, and whatever comes after will simply be me completing my missions and setting the world to rights.

First things first, however: I needed to learn how a Zippo lighter works.

It turns out this is easier than finding out how a typewriter works or a semi-truck engine, because there are a LOT of Zippos in the world. Like, they still make 70,000 a day somewhere in Pennsylvania, despite the existence of 70 years’ worth of Zippos. And most of these are bought up by the people who make videos about Zippos for a living, to be watched by the other people who make videos about Zippos, despite the fact that Zippo technology turns out to be as sophisticated as nail clippers.

Seriously – you put some highly flammable fluid in the insert, which is soaked up by custom-made felt pads or else by cotton balls like you Little Housers use to remove cosmetics. The wick – which actually was asbestos – wicks the fluid to the top. If you flick the wheel before all the lighter fluid evaporates into the atmosphere, it doesn’t do anything, because it turns out Papaw’s flint insert disintegrated sometime in the last three decades, so there are no sparks, and I’m left making another run to the smoke shop.

But that’s OK! Because when you have found your Greater Purpose as a man, running to the store for supplies is not an inconvenience. It’s a chance that someone different will be working the register and you can show off your Christmas present one more time to someone who will listen, because they are getting paid to be there. It’s a chance that a person will have a flat tire along the way, and all they need to fix it is a manly man, and I can call one for them. It’s a chance that one of these people, maybe, just maybe, knows where the heck I put my knife.

– Zach Hively

Sign of the Downfall:

Thumbin’It

4 n Jan. 6, 2022

Croc-Off

President Joe Biden granting Rosa Sabido, an undocumented immigrant who has been living in a sanctuary church in Mancos, a stay of deportation for one year, according to Westword magazine.

Devastating fires on the Front Range destroying an estimated 1,000 homes and businesses in an alarmingly quick timeframe, reinforcing fears that nowhere is safe from wildfire amid extreme drought.

Table to Farm Compost receiving the first approval in La Plata County for a major compost facility, which will put food waste and scraps toward good use for sustainable soil production.

The first avalanche death of the season after a skier was caught in a slide near Cameron Pass. While all this snow is welcome and much-needed, with it comes increased avi risk – be safe out there.

The end of 2021, and with it, memories of the Jan. 6 insurrection, the botched Afghanistan exit, massive wildfires, Bernie Sanders’ mittens, supply chain breakdowns. Oh, and the passing of Betty White. Brace yourself, here comes 2022.

Reports that human urine is seriously impacting Colorado’s high country lakes after scientists discovered high caffeine levels. So, cut back on the Starbucks and Mountain Dew, and relieve yourself at least 100 feet from bodies of water.

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After writing four Signs of the Downfall centered on Crocs, I made you a promise last year to never again write about them. At first, I thought I was gonna break that promise by pointing out that we’re all doomed, given that “rubber stiletto clogs” now exist. But, as it turns out, these abominations are made by Paris-based fashion house Balenciaga, and these knockoff Crocs sell for $625 at Needless Markups … um, oops, I meant Neiman Marcus. Honestly, can you imagine paying $700 for foam shoes that cost pennies to make? What a crock of shoe.

WordontheStreet

Q

With the New Year a time of reflection, the Telegraph asked, “What are three words you’d use to describe 2021?”

Sims

“Stinky.

Binky.

Twinkies!”

Alex

“Ridiculous.

Original.

Spiritual.”

Richie

“Lows.

Highs.

Dirty Fingers.

(That’s four, but we’ll let it slide).”

Kevin

“Sucked...

Big...

(Hey this is a family publication!

But, we think you know where this is going...)”

Eli

“Drunk.

Disorderly.

Deadly.”

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Jan. 6, 2022 n 5

D-Tooned/by Rob Pudim

SoapBox New fire station a mess I have spent a lot of time contemplating what made the Durango Fire Protection District pursue the purchase of the 9-R Administration property, and the series of events that has led to that situation. DFPD did not get what it wanted in the past, a location for new facilities. This was apparently decided against by a few people, a select minority.

Now, the DFPD board and the Fire Chief are mad, disappointed and determined to find a location no matter what, even if residents who all support their mission and work get thrown under the bus. This creates a situation that causes distrust, disappointment and division. I care about this matter in so many ways, and I write this letter to illuminate what I see is at stake and what is to gain.

I encourage DFPD to apply pressure on the City and pursue its goal without taking the residents as hostages and using them and the downtown they hold dear as bargaining chips.

Relationships are priceless and delicate, and the relationships between fire, emergency and law enforcement personnel with residents are trustworthy. Everybody must, under all circumstances, strive to keep it that way as we have a common goal: community through safety, civility and health.

We will only reach well-informed decisions by having adult and inclusive conversations without guilt, blame,

shame and ego. I encourage DFPD to slow down the process and assess the unwanted consequences that relocating to the 9-R site automatically expose the DFPD workers and the Durango residents to, things that can be avoided through such a conversation.

I do not know a single person who is against DFPD getting new and optimal facilities; I am willing to bet that all residents want that.

The location, however, is not a great choice, which has become evident per a petition that has gathered more than 1,000 signatures in less than two weeks.

The petition, calling for inclusion and due process, was signed or supported by former and current firefighters, EMT personnel, nurses and doctors, carpenters, electricians, teachers, farmers and children – you name it, all walks of life.

I’m convinced that thousands of citizens will support a move for DFPD to find another more appropriate site without the problems and impacts of the currently proposed site. I believe the public will be there when it is time to firmly support the elected officials who will be tasked with the decision to find you that new location.

The citizens do not want to be left out of the process – they want to make this happen with decisionmakers and want to feel proud of having been a part of supporting DFPD and its needs.

Durango Mayor Kim Baxter has made it

clear that she is more than willing to talk with DFPD about alternative sites. Now citizens are waiting for DFPD to accept the invitation, one that gives the district a chance to start fresh, include the general public and move forward with integrity with all parties involved.

If DFPD makes the choice to do so, I know many highly esteemed community members who would be more than willing to facilitate and broker any such meetings.

In closing, I feel the need to say that I

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witnessed a DFPD board member say: “But why are people so against the fire department?” That is not the case. The resistance DFPD is experiencing is one of demand for accountability and mutual respect. Citizens must be able to debate and contest law enforcement and fire/safety entities’ opinions and plans in the public space without fear of repercussions and shame.

Otherwise, I do believe that the idea of freedom and democracy crumbles.

– Lars Hansen, Durango

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6 n Jan. 6, 2022

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Not good for democracy

Unlike the end of 2020, I’m not looking forward to the New Year. It has been one year since the Jan. 6 coup attempt instigated by Donald Trump. That started months before the election with his bogus and undocumented claims of ballot fraud.

After the election came all those court challenges, all dismissed for lack of evidence, and his recorded effort to badger an elected official in Georgia to “find” enough votes for Trump to win. Wouldn’t that be solicitation to commit election fraud?

Then House Republicans, with very few exceptions, supported his effort to throw out the certified Electoral College votes that declared Joe Biden the winner. The Jan. 6 coup attempt wasn’t just the rioters who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol.

But as the months have passed, the GOP coup collaborators have been busy trying to rewrite the reality of what happened back then – that it was no big deal. They want us to believe it wasn’t a violent coup attempt with threats to kill Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or defenders who thought they were about to die. It was freedom-loving patriots exercising their First Amendment freedom of speech and their outrage at the theft of the 2020 election, thus helping to perpetuate the Big Lie with new lies. Or the alternative lie, that it was Antifa.

Trump continues to promote his lie that he won by a landslide and the election was stolen from him. In all this time, he has shown zero evidence, although some of his supporters have put

out some seriously bizarre conspiracy theories on how it was done.

The only real documentation is that Trump has a long history as a habitual liar.

But a majority of Republicans apparently believe Trump’s election lie. And there’s a good chance the GOP will take back control of Congress this fall. Will that spell the end of democracy as we know it?

The GOP has played a long game since at least 2000 to create single-party rule state by state until they are ready to turn the entire country. They’ve done that with political gerrymandering and various forms of voter suppression. Since Trump’s loss, GOP-controlled legislatures have further suppressed voting, especially targeting urban precincts that tend to vote for Democrats.

They’ve criminalized innocent minor mistakes by voters. Will those prosecutions vary according to the hapless voter’s party registration? GOP controlled legislatures have criminalized minor mistakes by those processing ballots, those helping poorly informed voters to register, or those providing food or water to voters standing in long lines (probably after polling places have been consolidated in urban minority precincts).

If all that fails to turn election results to the GOP, Red state legislators are claiming the right to overturn results, including the Electoral College in 2024, that don’t go their way. With that, our democracy is gone.

Anyone who wants to keep our democracy will need to be very engaged this year.

– Carole McWilliams, Bayfield

Packing on the powder We all dissed Ullr now paying each shovelful Don’t forget a tip – Karen Carver, Durango

Stop killing wolves Several months ago, it was reported a family of wolves were spotted in northern Colorado, which was exciting since the state just voted to introduce wolves. But now, there’s only one lone wolf left. What happened? I assume hunters killed the family, just as the slaughter of wolves happening now in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and other Western states.

Wolves were an endangered species when Trump delisted them, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is behind the slaughter, using methods of the 1800s by killing pups in dens, dynamiting dens, snares and aerial shooting. This is against the mission of Fish and Wildlife, which is to protect wildlife for the benefit of people, not just extreme hunters. This is wrong and Fish and Wildlife needs to be stopped.

When an endangered species is delisted, this should not give the OK to kill 95% of the population, which is the goal of these states, yet it goes on with the Biden administration doing little. Wolves are keystone species, essential to the health of any ecosystem. So contact the Biden administration and Fish and Wildlife to stop this killing of magnificent, intelligent creatures with complex social lives. And donate to Defenders of Wildlife

where you can get a toy wolf as a Christmas gift when you donate, or other organizations: Environmental Action, Western Environmental Law Center, Friends of Animals and others.

Also, news of the presence of endangered animals, such as a wolf family, should never be publicized.

– Margaret Mayer, Durango

End the filibuster

In November 2020, millions of voters like me went to the polls and cast a ballot for Joe Biden. Now, with a relentless GOP attack on our voting rights underway, I’m asking President Biden to deliver on his promises.

It’s time for Biden to go further than talking about supporting voting rights legislation. We need him to come out and fully support ending the filibuster so the Senate can finally pass voting rights legislation, like the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. With the filibuster intact, these bills have no chance of passing. Senate Republicans blocked the Freedom to Vote Act from even coming to a debate! We need the president to use his power of office to pressure the Senate to end the filibuster and clear a path for voting rights.

We can’t out-organize voter suppression. History will remember how President Biden handles these attacks on our right to vote. I’m urging him to do the right thing.

– Donald Wiseman, Bayfield

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Jan. 6, 2022 n 7

LocalNews

Not just any old garage Relic alongside Red Mountain Pass tied to Supreme Court ruling

by Nancy Lofholm Colorado Public Radio

S

even miles up Red Mountain Pass from Ouray, just after the kinks of Highway 550 smooth out into the straightaway of a high-altitude area known as Ironton Park, sits a building alongside the road.

The building is a thick-walled structure made of rocks that are embedded in stucco.

It looks like a large garage. If drivers on Highway 550 notice the structure, they might mistake it for another remnant of the area’s once-bustling mining industry. But the building isn’t connected to mining at all, said Andrew Gulliford.

Gulliford, who teaches history at Fort Lewis College and writes history books about the West, noticed the structure and pulled his car over to look at it.

“It looked like a large industrial garage, but with no gas pumps or anything,” he said.

“I was intrigued.”

Guilliford’s curiosity was satisfied by the Ouray County Historical Society and another driver with a connection to the garage. He learned that the garage had been there since the 1940s. It had been part of a long-gone retreat for a religious sect whose practices informed a Supreme Court decision about religious freedom.

But the garage’s story begins with a failed ski area. In the late 1930s, two Ouray businessmen decided to build a ski resort in Ironton Park. They constructed a lodge from bricks and timber salvaged from a nearby defunct smelter, built a lift to serve an 1,800foot run and dammed streams to create a lake. They had then-Colorado Gov. Ralph Carr out to showcase the ski area with a big publicity splash.

But the ski resort never opened. While the history is murky, some people speculate that this was due either to the ski run being in an avalanche chute or to the partners being unable to agree on whether alcohol should be served in the lodge. World War II

8 n Jan. 6, 2022

This 1940s stone garage is just off Highway 550 between Ouray and Silverton./ Colorado Public Radio rationing also likely played a part.

Enter the religious sect.

The Saint Germain Foundation was founded in 1930 after Guy W. Ballard, a mining engineer, went hiking on Mount Shasta in California and said he encountered a being who introduced himself as Saint Germain. In foundation depictions, the being was bearded, had luminous large brown eyes and bore a passing resemblance to Jesus. Ballard said that Saint Germain gave him teachings referred to as “I AM,” which he later laid out in a series of religious lessons and books.

The I AM movement grew spectacularly during the dark days of the Depression. Ballard charged for the lessons he said Saint Germain had imparted to him, and eventually some disgruntled followers filed suit alleging they had paid for bogus teachings.

Ballard died – or “ascended” as I AM teaches – in 1939. His wife, Edna Ballard; son, Donald Ballard; and a few other church officials had been carrying on with the sale of the lessons, and in 1942 they were convicted of mail fraud.

To escape all the bad publicity and legal hassles, members of the foundation moved to Ouray and bought the old ski area.

They appealed their convictions, and in 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Ballard in the Ballards’ favor, viewed as a major victory for the First Amendment.

The late Justice Robert Jackson wrote, “I can see in their teachings nothing but humbug untainted by any trace of truth.” But the ability of individuals to believe “humbug” was upheld by the ruling. Basically, it found that people can believe things that can’t be verified.

With that legal burden lifted, the ski lodge became the Saint Germain retreat.

Some members built cabins nearby. The church also built a radio tower that broadcast I AM lessons to the surrounding area.

“It was regarded as quite a miracle in the 1940s because we didn’t have the technology then that we have now,” recalled Bud Thayer, a longtime Saint Germain member.

“So, the whole thing was fantastic. We never had a failure the whole time.”

Church members also placed carillon bells in the basement of the lodge and a musician would play Sunday morning concerts. Residents of Ouray would drive up on Sunday mornings and park along the highway to listen to the carillon concerts.

The Saint Germain Foundation’s time in the San Juans ended after the retreat burned down in 1952. A church member was trying to melt icicles from the lodge roof with a blow torch when the roof caught fire. Thayer said the building burned too quickly for help to come from Ouray because it had been built from old mine timbers that were extremely dry.

telegraph

The church planned to rebuild, but that didn’t happen. The property was sold and eventually became public land.

Remnants of the lodge’s foundation, the garage, a storage building and other stone structures and twisted metal rails are all that is left of ski and religious dreams.

Church members still visit, and the Saint Germain Foundation continues. It has more than 300 temples and sanctuaries around the world, including one in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Denver.

As for the garage, Thayer said that it was used to store furniture and other items that were donated to the church. He said it was made large enough so that a semi-truck could back up and unload items that would eventually be moved to Saint Germain temples around the world.

Gulliford would like to see the site added to the Colorado State Register of Historic Places and possibly the National Register of Historic Places because of its link to the Supreme Court ruling on religious freedom, which paved the way for other religious sects that came later. He believes travelers who stop on the side of the road would be surprised to learn its history.

“It is so important,” he said, “because so many other groups in the 20th Century profit from that critical decision.”

For more from Colorado Public Radio, go to www.cpr.org.

Let’sDigIn

Farm to Summit’s Anasazi Beans and Rice – which happens to be the author’s favorite – made with locally grown produce, including upcycled farm veggies that otherwise would have gone to waste./ Courtesy photo

Waste not Farm to Summit fuels not only backcountry adventures but a circular food economy

by Sinjin Eberle

W

henever I daydream about getting away from my desk, grabbing some solitude and escaping from it all, my mind usually drifts toward trips into the backcountry. Big views, smelly tents, my tired, aching body drifting off to sleep as the sun sets behind a distant butte, a heavy backpack to carry it all. I like the rough and tumble of backpacking but figuring out the perfect food has never been much fun – and honestly, I don’t know anyone who thinks they have backcountry nutrition dialed. Packing lots of calories that can stand up to heat or cold for multiple days is tricky, and the choices are usually heavy foods that take a bunch of preparation or lightweight gut bombs that leave you unsatisfied and certainly not craving your next meal. Creative food at home can be a joy; backpacking meals are often as much a test of endurance as the trip itself.

Louise Barton (known to friends as Lou) watched a situation like this unfold in late 2020 while working with a group of Forest Service colleagues. As an ecologist by training, she was conducting botanical research in the

Louise and Jane Barden Yellowstone backcountry and noticed some of her coworkers trying different freeze-dried, just-add-water meals and complaining about either bland or extremely

telegraph

salty flavors, tummy rumbling consistencies and generally unpleasant vibes.

“I was on a 14-day fieldwork trip, and the guys I was with just whined about the food the entire time. They were complaining constantly about the taste, how expensive they were and how upset their stomachs were. I felt like there had to be a better way,” she explained. It got Lou wondering if she could create something better, that tasted good and did not leave you feeling like you just suffered through five days of flat oatmeal in a row.

Before even leaving Montana, Lou floated the idea of creating a better backpacking meal with her partner Jane Barden, who grew up farming on her parents’ 150-acre farm in Michigan and has been working on and around farms, local food systems and fine dining for years. It was her commitment to not wasting food that spawned the inspiration for their concept. At the time, Jane was volunteering at Fields to Plate Produce, an organic farm located in the Animas Valley.

“They had a bunch of seconds and damaged vegetables that could not be sold – carrots especially, but even their small crops,” she said.

Jan. 6, 2022 n

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10 n Jan. 6, 2022

The before and after of Farm to Summit’s Harvest Curry. Currently operating out of Durango Artisan Foods, the company plans to move to its own space on North Main in March./ Courtesy photos Lou recalls going out to the farm one day, and there was a bunch of broccoli that couldn’t be sold because it had gotten sunburned but otherwise was fine. “There was nothing wrong with it, the color was just off,” she said.

This was when Lou and Jane saw an opportunity to merge two of their goals: reduce food waste and provide something delicious in the backcountry. And the obvious choice was to start with local produce.

“It just felt like the right thing to do,” Lou said.

By spring 2021, Farm to Summit dehydrated meals was born.

Over time, they heard from more farmers in the area and were able to diversify what combinations of prepackaged meals could be created. “We kind of let the farmers tell us what our ingredients are going to be, which is fun,” Lou said.

I first met Jane and Lou (they recently married and are now Barden together) where many food-related side hustles dip their toes in the water – the Durango Farmers Market. I had just come home from a five-day, 50-mile death march in western Grand Canyon where we were hauling 60-pound packs through gnarly, off-trail terrain. I relied on two “other brands” of freeze-dried foods to save weight and fuel the miles (we were hauling lots of water since drought conditions gave my buddy and I no confidence in finding flowing springs.) Like Lou’s fieldwork experience, my meals were either bland or wince-inducingly salty. Certainly not inspiring to want to go back for seconds. Upon discovering the Farm to Summit booth at the market, with their snappy kraft paper packaging (which Jane described as “omnidegradable” – recyclable, compostable and biodegradable), I loaded up on a few varieties to try at home.

While hasty meals in between endless Zoom calls is not exactly the target market

that Jane and Lou envisioned, I’ve had the luxury of trying out a variety of their meals in a focused, non-exhausted setting.

The Anasazi Beans and Rice is my favorite so far, with its mixture of locally grown Anasazi and black beans with rice and quinoa as the base (perfect protein, anyone?). It also includes vibrant flavor from tomato, zucchini, onion and celery, with a mild red chile sauce to round it all out.

The Thai Red Curry is great as well, and as a total hot-spices sissy, I was able to not heat bomb my tastebuds by ignoring the included Sriracha spice pouch. But if you like that kind of thing, be my guest! Lastly, I gave the Garden Mac and Cheese a whirl, since I thought that if you want to test something that could become a big sticky mass in your stomach, this is probably it.

Egg noodles with white cheddar cheese, zucchini, squash, kale, chard, spinach and bell peppers in a light and nicely seasoned sauce. They hit the sweet spot between creamy and not too runny with this one.

They also have been doing a variety of instant drink mixes as well, like Chile Mocha with coconut milk, Double Shot Latte (yes, the caffeine of two shots of espresso!) and a Turmeric Latte with coconut milk. I usually resort to Starbucks VIA for my backcountry coffee hit, so giving these a try is high on my list.

While all these offerings are great, it’s how Farm to Summit takes the next step toward addressing food insecurity and food waste that is most impressive. By working with and sourcing nearly all their produce from local farms – like Beet Street, Long Table Farms, Banga’s and Sol Vista, among others – which might have ended up throwing away seconds or over-harvested veggies, they have created a new element of the local, circular economy of food that didn’t exist before. Jane and Lou told me about the hundreds of pounds of carrots, kale and broccoli that they were able to keep out of the waste stream this

telegraph

year and put into meals that are honestly tasty. And while designed to support serious, athletic endeavors in the backcountry, they are not so heavy as to slow you down.

Layered across everything else is an ethic of giving back even more to community efforts. “If we are getting upcycled produce that would normally be going to food banks, we did not want to take away from them, so we decided to do something different, and more,” Lou said. “We promised to give 2% of sales to a local nonprofit tackling food waste.”

Their first donations of 2021 went to Durango’s Good Food Collective, and they hope the donations will continue to grow as their business gains more traction.

While they have been producing their suite of meals at Durango Artisan Foods over the past year, Farm to Summit is planning to open a brick-and-mortar space this March. They are currently remodeling the old Animas Chocolate shop at 2800 Main Ave. to house their production, packaging, shipping and retail space. In the meantime, you can find their meals at several places across town, including Durango Artisan Foods, Durango Natural Foods, Pine Needle Mountaineering and through the Farm to Summit website (www.farmtosummit.com). Backcountry Experience will likely be carrying them again as backpacking season revs up in the spring.

I have another 60-mile Grand Canyon trudge coming up this spring, where I will be putting Farm to Summit meals to the test under real-world, tough conditions.

And while I can’t yet predict how that will go, I can say that my deskside testing so far has confirmed what many of us already know – real food, made without a bunch of preservatives, additives and massive amounts of sodium, can taste really good and fuel our bodies for adventures away from our keyboards. And that is something I can get really stoked about. ■

MurderInk

The murders keep coming Dark, humorous detective novel takes on Southern racial prejudices

by Jeffrey Mannix

P

ercival Everett is one of the best known American writers you’ve never heard of, and his most recent novel, “The Trees,” joins an opus of short stories, poetry, children’s literature and essays.

In his spare time, Everett, 65, is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He hails from Georgia, received a Master of Arts from Brown University in Providence, R.I. and he’s Black, with a noble anger for tyrants, which he finds lurking behind every bespoke suit, autocrat, badge and loudmouth.

Moreover, Everett writes as automatically and gracefully as the soaring flight of a bird of prey. As Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright and James Baldwin before him, Everett carries on the mission of conscientious objection with dark humor and oblique but cutting criticism.

Everett “The Trees” is allegorical. The setting is Money, Miss. in 2018, the site of the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was accused of flirting with and touching a married white woman named Carolyn Bryant. Till was

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hanged three days later by a vigilante group whose henchmen, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were acquitted.

Bryant eventually recanted her story 50 years later, maybe – the truth is hard to come by in the South.

Now, in 2018, in Money, a series of unbelievable killings begins that evoke the Emmett Till lynching, with the gruesome murder and disfigurement of the two sons of Bryant and Milam. As is customary with Everett, there’s another shoe to drop – an additional murdered victim is a Black man who disappears from the morgue before the tetchy, inconvenienced Sheriff Red Jetty arrives.

When there’s another string of murders, and that same Black corpse is spotted on the scene and disappears again, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation sends down two investigators from Hattiesburg, Jim Davis and Ed Morgan – both Black, unwelcome and far more talented than Sheriff Jetty and his halfwit deputies. And when there’s a fourth tortured murder scene, the FBI sends Special Agent Herbie Hind, a no-nonsense investigator who causes authorities in Money to go apoplectic – oh, and did I mention that Special Agent Herberta Hind is a Black woman?

Everett is a natural for a story about tragic, absurd

and darkly humorous Southern racial prejudices, and he’s put the absurd murders in the language of the 1950s while not dressing the sets with costumes and old clichés. But references to Black people haven’t changed much, so be prepared for a lot of unwashed bigotry and Dixie ignorance.

Meanwhile, the murders keep on coming, now crossing the country to Elaine, Ark.; Longview, Texas; Omaha, Neb.; Bisbee, Ariz.; Tulsa, Okla. and as far as Chicago, keeping our clueless cast of investigators meeting in front of an empty whiteboard every day with pads of unused sticky notes.

The characters, too, keep on coming completely formed and flawed. There’s Mama Z, a 100-year-old sort of spiritualist who has a file on every lynching in Money going back even before her time, a waitress who appears and disappears and Doctor Reverend Cad Fondle, the coroner who hasn’t any training in death or crime that he didn’t learn from his daddy during his tenure as an officer of the local Ku Klux Klan.

“The Trees” is a book you should not miss. Everett is an iconic Black writer who was born perhaps a generation too late for Black literature to immortalize him at the level he indubitably deserves. He is, nonetheless, a writer of great distinction, and you, dear reader, will be remiss not to march down to Maria’s Bookshop to buy this $16 paperback and ask for your Murder Ink 15% discount.

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Jan. 6. 2022 n 11

StufftoDo

Thursday06 Southwest Economic Outlook, 8-11 a.m., Student Union Ballroom at Fort Lewis College.

Keynote speakers include Laura Lewis Marchino from Region 9 and Richard Wobbekind from Leeds School of Business.

Heartwarming Soup Sale, 5 p.m., sales help local families with financial assistance throughout the winter, 725 E. 2nd Ave. Bingo night, 5 p.m. every Thursday, Fenceline Cider, Mancos.

Adam Swanson plays, 5:30 p.m.., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave. Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave. Smelter Mountain Boys play, 6-9 p.m., 11th Street Station.

Powerhouse Trivia Night, 6:30 p.m., Powerhouse Science Center, 1295 Camino del Rio. Beam Me Up Starlight Trivia, weekly 7:309:30 p.m., Moe’s Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Deadline for “Stuff to Do” submissions is Monday at noon. To submit an item, email: calendar@durangotelegraph.com

Geeks Who Drink Trivia, 8-10 p.m., The Roost, 128 E. College Dr.

Friday07 Cousin Curtiss plays, 5:30 p.m., Mancos Brewery.

Larry Carver & Jack Ellis play, 5:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave. Live music, 5:30 p.m., The Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave. Reeder & Spencer play, 6 p.m., 11th Street Station.

Sierra Nevada Yeti Cooler Giveaway, 3-4 p.m., Purgy’s, Purgatory Resort.

Grand Opening party, 5 p.m., Mountain Monk Coffee, 558 Main Ave.

“In Search of Joy, Gardens of Color,” an exhibit by Chris Vicari, Charleaux Designs. Opening reception 4-7 p.m., Union Social House, 3062 Main Ave. Exhibit runs through January.

Open mic night, weekly 7:30-9:30 p.m., Moe’s Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Adam Swanson plays, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.

Wednesday12

Open mic night, 6-8 p.m., Mountain Monk Coffee, 558 Main Ave.

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.

Second Saturday Songwriter Series, 6 p.m., The iNDIGO Room at iAM MUSIC Institute, 1315 Main Ave. #207. Featuring Cousin Curtiss and ShadowTrapp.

Sunday09 Silverton Flying Dogs Sled and Skijor Race, all day, Silverton.

Know the Snow Rando Race, 8 a.m., Purgatory Resort. Proceeds benefit the Joe Philpott and Peter Carver Avalanche Scholarship. $30. Advance registration required. For info. go to: www.purgatory.ski/events

Animas Museum’s Second Saturday Seminar Series, 1 p.m., Animas Museum, 3065 W. 2nd Ave. This week’s talk will feature “The Bankers of St. Mark’s” by Dr. John Boyd.

Ian Lennox plays the Bear Bar, 2-4:30 p.m., Purgatory base area.

San Juan Basin Archaeological Society presentation, 7 p.m., via Zoom. Dr. Anna Osterholtz will discuss Sacred Ridge, an Ancestral Puebloan site that was buried under Lake Nighthorse. More info at sjbas.org.

Chapman Ski Hill is open. Hours: Mon. – Fri., 3:30 - 8 p.m.; Sat. – Sun., 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. For more info. go to: www.durangogov.org/chapmanhill.

Demo Day, all day, Purgatory Resort. $20 for a full day of demos. For info. go to: www.purgatory.ski/events

The Hive Indoor Skate Park is open, offering open skate and skate lessons. Waivers required. For schedule and online waiver, go to www.thehivedgo.org

Open Mic, 1 p.m., Mancos Brewery.

Intentional Consciousness for the Future w/ Ewiah, 2 p.m., Mountain Monk Coffee, 558 Main Ave.

Upcoming Free legal clinic, Jan. 14, 4-5 p.m., Ignacio Public Library, 470 Goddard Ave.

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.

People We Know play the Bear Bar, Jan. 15, 2-4:30 p.m., Purgatory base area.

Six Dollar String Band plays the Bear Bar, Jan. 16, 2-4:30 p.m., Purgatory base area.

Saturday08

Silverton Flying Dogs Sled and Skijor Race, all day, Silverton.

Ben Gibson plays, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.

Ongoing

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave. SW Race Series - Pagosa Nordic Season Opener, 8:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. www.durangonordic.org

Daryl Kuntz plays, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave.

Monday10

Bluegrass jam, Jan. 16, 4-6 p.m., Mountain Monk Coffee, 558 Main Ave.

Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Diamond Belle Saloon, 699 Main Ave. Live music, 5:30-8:30 p.m., Office Spiritorium, 699 Main Ave.

Alpine Bank Full Moon Howler, Jan. 16, 6-9 p.m., Durango Nordic Center. Trails pass required, rentals available. www.durangonordic.org

Tuesday11

Ouray Ice Festival & Competition, Jan. 2023, Ouray Ice Park.

Acoustic Music Jam, 5-7 p.m., all instruments and styles welcome, vaccinated players only, 11th St. Station.

Singer/songwriter Carter Sampson Pop Up Performance, Jan. 21, 7 p.m., Smiley Café.

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AskRachel

Coffeeholics, harshing all the mellows & no touching Interesting fact: Coffee can make you tired because of something called “adenosine receptors.” Try it.

Go read about them and see how tired it makes YOU feel.

Dear Rachel, Is it true that coffee makes some people sleepy?

Are these the same people who order an espresso after dinner while I have been on an abstinence program since 10 a.m. for fear of insomnia? What would it be like to live life with the ability to imbibe caffeinated wonders at all hours of the day and night? Is there some way I can alter my genetic sequence to be one of these people?

– Coffee Anon Dear Overstimulated, If this is you on an abstinence program, then boy howdy do we need to tap into you as a natural resource.

Or at least a roadside attraction. I want to fuel you up and let you rip so, so badly. How many questions in a row can one person ask? Would you ever run out of questions? Would you ever ask the really important questions to change the course of humanity? Or will we all just put in our earbuds to tune you out?

– Half caf to the brim, Rachel Dear Rachel, I’ve made precisely one new friend during this pandemic. It’s a neighbor, and we take our dogs on walks together occasionally. I love her

Presented by Community Concert Hall. www.durangoconcerts.com.

High Counry Hustle & Morsel play, Jan. 21, 7 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr. On-Snow Avalanche Awareness Course, Jan. 22 or 23, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., Andrews Lake. Free, preregistration required. To register or for more info., go to www.thesanjuans.org.

Joel Racheff plays the Bear Bar, Jan. 22, 2-4:30 p.m., Purgatory.

Late Night Radio with Motifv play, Jan. 22, 8 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr. Durango Great Decisions International Affairs Discussion Program, begins Jan. 25, with meetings on different topics every other week on Tuesdays from 11:45 a.m.-1:45 p.m. at the Durango Public Library.

More info. at www.lwvlaplata.org.

dog. And she’s nice enough. But man, she just has so much junk going on in her life all the time. She’s not a downer! She genuinely tries to smile and put a happy spin on things. But always by the end of the walk we’ve dug into some new pit of negativity. Any tips on how to keep things sunnier?

– Bright Side of Life Dear Painful Optimist, Positive thinking is overrated. In fact, now that we’re in the Age of Omicron, I’ve been encouraging both of my friends to think negative. Negative thoughts only!

Because negative is positive, and positive is bad news bears. I want everyone around me to be a bunch of Negative Nancies! Take your walks at a leash’s distance from each other, and bask in that glow of negativity surrounding you, protecting you, cradling you.

– It’s always sunny in Durango, Rachel

Email Rachel at telegraph@durangotelegraph.com

Dear Rachel, I have officially lost my touch in the dating game. I no longer know how to tell the difference between friendly contact, flirty contact and flashing lights with runway signage contact. We’re normalizing so many other things.

Can we normalize Mulligans for people who misread signs and/or miss them altogether?

Some kind of relegation league, where we can earn a shot at joining the big leagues again?

– Out of Touch

Dear Touchscreener, You and that coffee person together are reminding me of the best burn I’ve ever heard in person. A guy trying to act all suave with his barista said he likes his coffee like he likes his women. The barista leaned in, touched his arm, and said, “Oh honey, our coffee’s only three dollars an hour.” Now I don’t even care if she stole that line. It was clear that her arm-touch was not an invitation for more. If you need aloe vera after you’re done flirting – no go, my friend.

– Red light, Rachel

The Mysto Really Big Magic Show, Jan. 26, 6:30 p.m., Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Dr. Magical and Mystical Snowdown, Jan. 26-30, 2022. www.snowdown.org.

4Corners Riversports Red Hot Relay, Jan. 29, 10 a.m. – 12 noon, Durango Nordic Center. Proceeds go to the youth Nordic program. www.durangonordic.org.

Dustin Burley plays the Bear Bar, Jan. 29, 2-4:30 p.m., Purgatory.

Silverton White Out, 10-hour fat bike extravaganza, Feb. 5, Silverton. www.whiteout.com.

McDonald’s Winter Triathlon, Feb. 5, 9 a.m. – 12 noon, Durango Nordic Center. For individuals or teams to complete a winter triathlon consisting of a ski, fat bike and snowshoe legs. durangonordic.com

Algorithm free since 2002.

(A good thing on so many levels.)

Deadline for “Stuff to Do” submissions is Monday at noon.

To submit an item email: calendar@durangotelegraph.com

Giving you the news the old-fashioned way for nearly 20 years.

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Jan. 6, 2022n 13

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FreeWillAstrology

by Rob Brezsny ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the fantasy tale "The Wizard of Oz," a tornado lifts the hero Dorothy from her modest home in rural Kansas to a magical realm called Oz. There she experiences many provocative and entertaining adventures. Nonetheless, she longs to return to where she started from. A friendly witch helps her find the way back to Kansas, which requires her to click her ruby slippers together three times and say, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." I suspect, Aries, that there'll be a different ending to your epic tale in 2022. At some point, you will decide you prefer to stay in your new world. Maybe you'll even click your ruby slippers together and say, "There's no place like Oz, there's no place like Oz." (Thanks to author David Lazar for that last line.)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Fifty-five percent of the people who live in Toronto speak primarily English or French. But for the other 45%, their mother tongue is a different language, including Portuguese, Tagalog, Italian, Tamil, Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin. I wish you could spend some time there in the coming months. In my astrological opinion, you would benefit from being exposed to maximum cultural diversity. You would thrive by being around a broad spectrum of influences from multiple backgrounds. If you can't manage a trip to Toronto or another richly diverse place, do your best to approximate the same experience. Give yourself the gift of splendorous variety.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): One of your primary meditations throughout 2022 should be the following advice from “The Laws of Human Nature,” a book by motivational author Robert Greene. He writes, "In ancient times, many great leaders felt that they were descended from gods and part divine. Such self-belief would translate into high levels of confidence that others would feed off and recognize. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You do not need to indulge in such grandiose thoughts, but feeling that you are destined for something great or important will give you a degree of resilience when people oppose or resist you. You will not internalize the doubts that come from such moments. You will have an enterprising spirit. You will continually try new things, even taking risks, confident in your ability to bounce back from failures and feeling destined to succeed."

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CANCER (June 21-July 22): I would love to unabashedly encourage you to travel widely and explore wildly in 2022. I would rejoice if I could brazenly authorize you to escape your comfort zone and wander in the frontiers. It's not often the planetary omens offer us Can-

cerians such an unambiguous mandate to engage in exhilarating adventures and intelligent risks. There's only one problem: that annoying inconvenience known as the pandemic. We really do have to exercise caution in our pursuit of expansive encounters. Luckily, you now have extra ingenuity about the project of staying safe as you enlarge your world.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I suspect that your life in 2022 might feature themes beloved

by Leo author Emily Brontë (1818–48). "No coward soul is mine," she wrote, "No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere." I suggest making that one of your mottoes. Here's another guiding inspiration from Brontë, via one of her poems: "I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: / It vexes me to choose another guide: / Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding; / Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side." Here's one more of Brontë's thoughts especially suitable for your use in the coming months: "I'll be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty!"

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): What reversals and turnabouts would you like to experience in 2022, Virgo? Which situations would you like to transform dramatically? Are there imbalances of power you would like to rectify?

Contradictions you'd love to dissolve?

Misplaced priorities you could correct? All these things are possible in the coming months if you are creative and resourceful enough. With your dynamic efforts, the last could be first, the low could be high, and the weak could become strong.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Everything good I've ever gotten in my life, I only got because I gave something else up," wrote author Elizabeth Gilbert. That has often been true for me.

For example, if I hadn't given up my beloved music career, I wouldn't have had the time and energy to become a skillful astrology writer with a big audience. What about you, Libra? In my reckoning, Gilbert's observation should be a major theme for you in 2022.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Author C. S. Lewis wrote that we don't simply want to behold beauty. We "want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it." If there were ever a time when you could get abundant tastes of that extravagant pleasure, Scorpio, it would be in the coming months. If you make it a goal, if you set an intention, you may enjoy more deep mergers and delightful interactions with beauty than you have had since 2010.

telegraph

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian singer-songwriter Tom Waits began his career in 1969. He achieved modest success during the next 11 years. But his career headed in an even more successful direction after he met Kathleen Brennan, who became his wife and collaborator. In a 1988 interview, Waits said, "She's got the whole dark forest living inside of her. She pushes me into areas I would not go, and I'd say that a lot of the things I'm trying to do now, she's encouraged." In 2022, Sagittarius, I'll invite you to go looking for the deep dark forest within yourself.

I'm sure it's in there somewhere. If you explore it with luxuriant curiosity, it will ultimately inspire you to generate unprecedented breakthroughs. Yes, it might sometimes be spooky – but in ways that ultimately prove lucky.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn-born Muhammad Ali was far more than a superb professional boxer. He was an activist, entertainer and philanthropist who gathered much wisdom in his 74 years. I've chosen one of his quotes to be your guide in the coming months. I hope it will motivate you to rigorously manage the sometimes pesky and demanding details that will ultimately enable you to score a big victory. "It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down," Ali said. "It’s the pebble in your shoe."

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): At a pivotal moment in his evolution, Aquarian playwright Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) swore an oath to himself. I'll tell you about it here because I hope it will inspire you to make a comparable vow to yourself about how you'll live your life in 2022. Author Robert Greene is the source of the quote. He says that Chekhov promised himself he would engage in "no more bowing and apologizing to people; no more complaining and blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time. The answer to everything was work and love, work and love. He had to spread this message to his family and save them. He had to share it with humanity through his stories and plays."

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Here's what Piscean author Anais Nin wrote in one of her diaries: “When I first faced pain, I was shattered. When I first met failure, defeat, denial, loss, death, I died. Not today. I believe in my power, in my magic, and I do not die. I survive, I love, live, continue." According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Pisces, you could claim her triumphant declaration as your own in 2022, with special emphasis on this: "I believe in my power, in my magic. I survive, I love, live, continue."

This will be a golden age, a time when you harvest the fruits of many years of labor.

classifieds

Deadline for Telegraph classified ads is Tuesday at noon. Ads are a bargain at 10 cents a character with a $5 minimum. Even better, ads can now be placed online: durangotelegraph.com. Prepayment is required via cash, credit card or check.

(Sorry, no refunds or substitutions.)

Ads can be submitted via: n www.durangotelegraph.com n classifieds@durango telegraph.com n 970-259-0133 n 679 E. 2nd Ave., #E2 Approximate office hours: Mon: 9ish - 5ish Tues: 9ish - 5ish Wed: 9ish - 3ish Thurs: On delivery Fri: Gone fishing; call first

Announcements

tential of growing to full-time. Competitive benefits and a flexible work schedule are also offered. Interested applicants should send a cover letter, resume, and three references to foundation.careers@ local-first.org by January 9th, 2022. https://foundation.local-first.org/

RSE Handyman Service Home repair yard work odd jobs 970903-0449.

Join a Growing Team The Community Foundation SW CO is seeking community-minded individuals to fill two full-time positions in January.

The executive-level Finance & Operations Director requires 3 years minimum finance experience. The entry-level Community Outreach Manager for marketing & events requires 1 year minimum events/marketing experience. Benefit packages included. Find details to apply at swcommunityfoundation.org/blog.

Lowest Prices on Storage!

Inside/outside storage near Durango and Bayfield. 10-x-20, $130. Outside spots: $65, with discounts available. RJ Mini Storage. 970-259-3494.

HelpWanted

‘Don’t Look Up’ ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Idiocracy’ had a terrifying kid

Harmony Cleaning and Organizing Residential, offices, commercial and vacation rentals, 970-403-6192.

– Lainie Maxson

ForSale Harmony House Music Studios offers enjoyable lessons on guitar and other fretted instruments to students of all ages and abilities. Over 30 years’ experience as instructors and performers in Durango and the Four Corners. Terry Double and Richard White provide lessons for most styles of music, from jazz to rock, folk and classical. We also offer studies in music theory and composition. Our spacious studios are located in Bodo Park at 570 C Turner Dr. For more info. and scheduling, call Terry, 970-903-8738 or Richard, 970-749-6854.

HaikuMovieReview

For Sale 1. Authentic Amish swivel/glider rocker with matching gliding ottoman/footstool! Real wood in lol natural maple with neutral fabric-covered cushions. $1600 new, from The Amish Connection in Albuquerque NM. Like new! Asking $1000. 2. Round metal pipeframe daybed with trundle. Includes 2 twin mattresses, 2 sheet sets, 1 comforter, 4 pillows. Rarely used, in great shape! Asking $400. Will consider reasonable offers.

575-952-0038.

BodyWork Enlightened Heart Bodywork A blend of Ortho-Bionomy®, Wise Womb Medicine, belly work, sound healing, and yoga. Nurture, nourish, and love yourself to wholeness. $15 off first session. Contact Brandy 719-250-5706.

Lotus Path Healing Arts Offering a unique, intuitive fusion of Esalen massage, deep tissue & Acutonics, 24 years of experience. To schedule call Kathryn, 970-201-3373.

Massage by Meg Bush LMT, 30, 60 & 90 min., 970-759-0199. massageintervention.life Voted best massage in Durango 18/19/20. Couples, cupping, local CBD. Reviews on FB + Yelp. 970-903-2984

CommunityService SJBPH Vaccine Clinics Free vaccine mobile clinic provided by San Juan Basin Public Health in partnership with Jogan Health. Pfizer (12+), Moderna (18+), and J&J (18+) are available. Contact 970-247-5702 or visit https://sjbpublichealth.org/covid-19-vac-

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Reruns Home Furnishings New inventory including holiday bar and glassware, serving ware, cool décor, side tables and lamps … Come in today!

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Wanted Cash for Vehicles, Copper, Alum, Etc. at RJ Metal Recycle. Also free appliance and other metal drop off. 970-259-3494.

Make a Local Impact!

The Local First Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, is seeking a motivated and entrepreneurial individual to lead this innovative and exciting organization. A leader to build on existing programs such as renewable energy, healthcare, the creative economy, and a living wage is being sought. Position is part-time with the po-

Services Marketing Small and Local Businesses Media, website building and content editing, copywriting and editing, newsletters, blogs, etc. for small, local, independent or startup businesses. www.forward pedal.com or email jnderge@gmail.com

telegraph

Jan. 6, 2022 n 15

Get ready to lose yourself.

Cheers to a new year!

Issue 18 of The Gulch is out now!

The Alternative Resource Variety of Strains • Hash/Concentrates • Edibles • Tinctures • ATM Bodo Park (Durango)

Grandview (Durango)

Cortez

REC: 9am-8pm MED: 9am- 6:45pm 72 Suttle Street, Units F/G 970.259.3674

REC ONLY: 9am-8pm 37 CR 232 970.426.4381

MED & REC: 9am-8pm 1104 E. Main St., Cortez 970.565.6500

16 n Jan. 6, 2022

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