The Durango Telegraph, Oct. 5, 2023

elegraph

the durango

No wrong turns

A 21-Howitzer salute to avi forecaster Jerry Roberts

Got weeds? Goats a win-win in fight against invasives, fires

It’s alive!

Letting nature take its course in mine mitigation

4 Espress-no!

Dehydration, regret and the pitfalls of a hand-me-down espresso machine by Zach Hively

5 Powder pioneer

A 21-Howitzer salute to legendary avi forecaster Jerry Roberts by Jonathan Thompson

8

Back to nature

Tree-growing experiment shows promise in reclaiming mine sites by Jonathan Romeo

RegularOccurrences

4 La Vida Local

5 The Land Desk

6 State News

7 Writers on the Range

8 Top Story

10 Between the Beats

11 Murder Ink

12-13 Stuff to Do

13 Ask Rachel

14 Free Will Astrology

15 Classifieds

15 Haiku Movie Review

On the cover

Ear to the ground:

“Woohoo. Time to start sitting on the couch and yelling at the TV.” – NHL season. Duh.

To the rescue

The City of Durango recently announced a new late-night bus service for those a little too … overserved … to drive home at the end of the night.

the pole

The service, called “DuranGO” (get it?), is a “nighttime, curb-to-curb, on-demand bus service” for people looking to responsibly get home, or wherever you want to end up.

According to the City of Durango, an app will be available where you can call a bus from 8 p.m. - 12 midnight, seven days a week. Tom Sluis, a spokesman for the city, said he was not aware of plans to expand the service until closing time around 2 a.m. And why are you out that late anyway? Nothing good can happen (OK, maybe sometimes it does).

The pilot program is set to launch midOctober, so stay tuned for more info and how to download the app.

The service appears to be filling the void while The Hive’s Buzz Bus is temporarily suspended. Executive Director Kelsie Borland said the nonprofit was able to raise enough to get the bus back on the road when it broke down a few months ago, but does not have enough funds to offer late-night service. In the meantime, The Hive has been using its bus for youth and special events.

Over and over

We swear we didn’t copy and paste this from an old story: the town of Silverton, voted on whether to allow off-highway vehicles in town. Once again.

A month of music

10 years of iAM, gypsy punk, techno house and Junkies homecoming by Stephen Sellers

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Riders stop at the top of the new Durango Mesa Park bike trails to consider spicy or mild downhill options. If you haven’t sampled the plush new trails yet, get after it./ Photo by Missy Votel

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We won’t get into the entire backstory, but ever since Silverton first allowed OHVs to drive in town limits in 2014, it’s been a contentious issue, to say the least. Over the years, the town has held several back-andforth votes on the issue. In 2021, residents voted to oust the vehicles from town.

Residents against OHVs in town say it disturbs the quality of life. Those for it, usually business owners, says it drives sales.

Well, the town held another vote Oct. 3, and this time it wasn’t even close. Residents voted 286 to 128 to keep OHVs out of town limits, representing a 69% to 29% vote.

Double shot

I am not a mechanic, but let me tell you this: my pickup truck won’t start, the engine block is covered in coffee grounds, and I cannot be certain these two truths are related.

It didn’t have to be this way. My middle school math teachers drank eight cups of coffee a day – I trust her count since she was, and may still be, a math teacher –and anytime she called me to the overhead projector to scrawl out math work, her radius of breath smelled like dehydration and regret.

I swore then that I would never become dependent on coffee. No caffeine headaches for me. No cheap coffee-centric stabs at humor. No tragic breath radius.

And I stuck to it. I made it through college – graduated, even! – on five cups of coffee, one bought each year at the library coffee shop to welcome autumn. Four, if you don’t count the time I spilled the newfangled fad called a “pumpkin spice latte” down my own pants leg while flirting with an actual woman and promptly ran far, far away.

My coffee story could have ended there. I never owned a coffeepot, never developed a taste for creamer. Sure, once I became a professional I started making an occasional pour-over as a mid-morning reward for having successfully checked my email. But that didn’t make me a Coffee Drinker. It made me a drinker of GOOD coffee. All for the taste – never for the fix. I sipped, but I did not inhale.

Looking back, the road was paved with good intentions and burlap sacks. A romantic, practically erotic, encounter with a French press. The mysterious sliver of orange peel accompanying an after-dinner espresso. The intense chewability of a proper Turkish coffee. A stint serving at a café (as many a writer does, upon learning the going market rate for words). This café employed the best and sexiest barista this side of the Atlantic, who greeted me every shift with an Iberian-lilted “Coffee, my friend?” That unfurled me like a morning glory with the promise of cappuccinos, cortados, lattes, Americanos and espressos served with that little glass of bubbly water that I was never sure if it was meant to cleanse my palate before or after the espresso. And I didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking him because he really was so cool and so sexy, so I always asked him to go help a customer instead while I drank my bubbly water unobserved.

You can’t settle for Folgers after that.

Thumbin’It

The U.S. Supreme Court looking at new state laws that attempt to control social media content. Oh god, please start with my mother’s Facebook account.

Arizona canceling leases that allowed a Saudi-owned farm to pump unchecked amounts of groundwater in a state that’s already a bit arid.

The federal government avoiding a shutdown. Great – now can we fasttrack the aforementioned mother’s Facebook account thingy?

The real fun began when I recently became my own sexy barista, thanks to a hand-me-down espresso machine from a couple much further along on their snobbishness journey than I am. This thing is a marvel. I would shower with it, if I could; after all, it does produce hot water much more quickly and reliably than my actual shower.

It is also an objective, unforgiving critic, this machine. If I want a perfect shot, I have to earn it with my artistry and my touch. Just the right grind on just the right quantity of beans, tamped with just the right proportion of my body weight. The coffee must be sung to the night before with just the right lullaby, so it is rested enough to release just the right oils under pressure from water that was itself once sung to by a preferred pod of humpbacked whales. Voila! A shot of espresso that is most likely either under- or over-extracted, leaving me with a Rubbermaid bin of spent coffee pucks and a tender longing for Augusto to make me a cappuccino.

They say you save money by making coffee at home. The way my electricity bill has spiked since adopting a Breville, I’m not certain this is true. Yet I compensate for all the costs of my new art practice by repurposing that spent coffee in my scant garden.

Or I did, anyway, until the day my truck didn’t start, and I popped the hood to find an impressive collection of dry coffee pucks stashed under the air filter.

I, unwittingly, have been caffeinating the neighborhood pack rats. And they are JACKED UP – their second most prevalent collection (behind secondhand coffee) is chunks of cholla cactus, which are so snared in wires and so buried in coffee that I can’t identify which chewed wires are keeping the truck from starting.

I can’t win against rats like these. Touch a coffee puck and it crumbles in place. Touch a cholla nub, and I crumble in place. Hose out the engine compartment and the rats reassemble the nest overnight. Set traps and they avoid them like a purist avoids Starbucks.

If I could bait traps with tempting assertions – say, “Mr. Coffee produces a superior brew” – I have a feeling that would lure these rats in. They have taste, clearly, and could not resist taking such an assertion to the mat.

But since that is impossible, I’m left with only the hope of driving them and their high standards far, far away – as far away as my college dating life – with a liberal application of pumpkin spice. After I pull myself another double shot, of course. Just one more.

– Zach Hively

SignoftheDownfall:

A Colorado man facing felony poaching charges after allegedly killing a bear and two cubs for no reason. Well, we have our leading “Jackass of the Year” candidate now.

A new report that says rising temperatures will reduce the amount of suitable areas to grow coffee by 50% by 2050. OK – just gonna say it now, expect no Telegraph in 2050. Or by that time, maybe we’ll get AI to do it.

Disney sued by a 30-year-old woman who suffered “severe” injuries allegedly caused by a “wedgie” while going down a water slide. The real question – what’s a 30-year-old doing on a water slide?

Would you like dies with that?

Alonniea Fantasia Ford, a former Houston-area Jack in the Box employee, was sued last week for a time back in 2021 when she pulled out a gun and shot at a family in the drive-thru after they complained about missing curly fries. Yes, the fries were actually missing, and yes, the family was visiting from Florida. Ford was sentenced to one year of “deferred adjudication” that she completed recently, but the Floridians didn’t think the nothing-burger sentence was enough, so they’re suing for $250K. However, this is obviously the Floridians’ fault, because nobody else would argue about fries with someone who looks like this.

No wrong turns

Remembering the life of Jerry Roberts, legendary avalanche forecaster

by Jonathan Thompson

At the end of a full, rich life of mountains, poetry, dogs, humor and friendships, Jerry Roberts, 75, shouldered his backpack and headed down the trail to meet some buddies on el otro lado, the other side. Scoot over, Basho. Make room, Georgia O’Keeffe. Bukowski, Leonard Cohen, Frida Kahlo – crack a bottle of pisco and raise a welcoming toast, please.

Roberts was born in Cañon City, the son of Win. C. Roberts and Doris M. Roberts, and grew up with his two older sisters. Roberts relished the freedom to develop – as Emerson once put it – “an original relation to the universe.” His “universe” was the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and his “original relation” was defined by mountaineering. Jesuit brothers at a local Catholic high school introduced him to climbing, snow camping and skiing (leather boots, cable bindings, willow branches taped underfoot in lieu of proper skins), and by his early teens, he was summiting the range’s tallest peaks.

Wanderlust plus a motorcycle equaled the West Coast: Berkeley, anti-war rallies, Zen Buddhism, the Beats, LSD. Roberts’ formative encounters with the 1960s counterculture inspired a steadfast empathy for the underdog and an enduring practice of Buddhist mindfulness, particularly the art of attention known as haiku. He worked with the American Friends

Service Committee, helping conscientious objectors find alternatives to military service during the war in Vietnam, and soaked up the radical literary scene before returning to the Rockies.

Still a young man, he led groups of youth into the high country for Outward Bound, bonding with his fellow instructors, many of whom became lifelong friends. He traversed the length of Colorado on skis over the course of two winters, guided in the Peruvian Andes, threw his sleeping bag down just about wherever. Though much of what he accomplished in the backcountry could be called hardcore, Roberts’ style was less sporty than soulful – an ongoing quest for simplicity, camaraderie, laughter, focus, “the space between thoughts.”

A growing interest in the physics of steep snow, rooted in both a naturalist’s childlike curiosity and an adventurer’s need to learn the dangers of the wilderness, attracted him to Silverton and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) San Juan Avalanche Project in 1972. Roberts’ participation established his reputation in the burgeoning field of American snow science and led to what he considered his only “real job” – lead avalanche forecaster for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Winter after winter, storm after storm, he monitored the hundreds of avalanche paths that threaten highways in Southwest Colorado, deciding when to close the roads and when to call in the Howitzer, the Avalauncher and the helicopter bombs to preemptively trigger dangerous slides. Channeling his Zen heroes, who sat atop cushions and counted their breaths as though it were a matter of life and death, he meditated wholeheartedly, 24/7, on the intricate dynamics of weather and place, precipi-

tation and topography. Scribbling impromptu haiku from the driver’s seat of his official CDOT pickup mid-blizzard wasn’t just a way to relieve stress but a means of deepening his awareness, his commitment to noticing in the present tense. For instance: columns, needles, stellars bounce off

midnight windshield

Roberts co-authored a book, “Living and Dying in Avalanche Country” and was an adjunct teacher at Prescott College for 23 years. He was also a renowned educator and mentor to a generation of avi forecasters and ski guides. In his 60s, semi-retired, he found new meaning as a weather forecaster for movies and television (“The Hateful Eight,” “Better Call Saul”). He also took up Tenkara fly fishing, always careful to send his two labs into the water first, so as to give the trout a warning, and kept busy with his inimitable blog, “The Robert Report” (pronounced “Ro’Bear Re’Por” after Stephen Colbert’s first comedy show). During his last weeks, as the autumn equinox approached and fresh snow dusted the alpine ridges, he held court for visiting friends at his home in Ridgway and watched a final cycle of the moon – waxing, full, waning – at the side of his wife, Lisa.

Roberts is survived by his wife Lisa Issenberg; sisters Jo Ann Roberts Paugh and Kae Roberts Kendall; nephews Jim Embleton and Mike Javernick; nieces Kim Javernick and Julie Kendall Porter; his labs Django and Paco; in memory of his nephew Billy Kendall; and by friends too numerous to count. Donations in his memory should be directed to Big City Mountaineers, a nonprofit organization that introduces disadvantaged youth to the transformative wonders of nature.

Roberts’ last haiku, written for his compadre George Gardner, who died on the Grand Teton, reads:  departing morning dream two old men —  butterflies float on gentle breeze

A beautiful poem, indeed, but this one from 20 years ago might convey even better his approach to living (and skiing), his “original relation to the universe,” his smiling, generous, bighearted advice: follow instincts enjoy the ride more right turns than wrong

A memorial will be held on the vernal equinox 2024.

Land Desk is a newsletter from Jonathan P. Thompson, author of “River of Lost Souls’ and “Sagebrush Empire.” To subscribe, visit: landdesk.org  ■

Roberts

Jerry Roberts, a pioneer in American snow science, passed away recently at the age of 75.

Black out

What’s up with the new Colorado license plates sans mountains?

by Mike Lamp Colorado Public Radio

If you’ve driven around Colorado lately, you’ve surely seen them. Black license plates with white letters and numbers. Their ubiquity has a lot of Coloradans wondering, as part of Colorado Public Radio’s Colorado Wonders series, what’s up with them – and where can I get one?

We put that question, and a bunch of others about license plates, to Chris Hochmuth, who manages license plate inventory for Colorado’s Department of Revenue.

Turns out, those black license plates are a reissue of ones issued in 1945 and popular from the 1950s. Purchase of the latest iteration of these license plates benefits people with disabilities.

“This came out of a bill last year,” Hochmuth said. “They brought back the black, red and blue backgrounds, along with the green plate with the white mountains. So the green plate with the white mountains came first in 2022, and then the red, black and blue came (in) January of 2023.”

So how do you get one, and can you get one if your registration is still active?

Yes, Hochmuth said, just go to the DMV. The fees are prorated – it’s $25 annually to have the plates – and you can switch your plates out right away.

So aren’t people going to miss the mountains on the regular Colorado license plates?

“We did think about it a little bit, but the bill was very specific about the background,” Hochmuth said. “So we just reached back into the archives and pulled out the black and white plate, the red and white plate, the blue and white plate, and tweaked up the colors and issued them.”

New license plate designs have to be approved by the state legislature.

“Usually what happens in case of a special license plate … a group of people who have a particular interest

or a nonprofit get together,” Hochmuth said. “They submit the paperwork to the department. They run a petition and collect about 3,000 signatures to demonstrate interest. They run a bill through the state legislature. Once they’ve approved it, the governor signs off on it. We issue their plate.”

Speaking of those mountains, though, you might be wondering if they represent a specific set of mountains

in Colorado, and if you can go see them. Nope, Hochmuth said.

“They’re just a representation,” he said. “You can’t line it up and make it match any set anywhere. It was just a drawing by the folks who help us design plates, and it just made a good representation of the beautiful Colorado Mountains.” ■

For more from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org

Colorado has just reissued a black-on-yellow license plate from the 1940s as a new option for residents that will directly benefit people with disabilities./ Photo by Hart Van Denburg/CPR News

Firefighting goats

Hungry livestock can be a forest’s best friend

by Dave Marston

Goats are particularly good at one thing: eating. Unlike a horse or cow that leaves noxious weeds behind, goats eat the whole menu of pesky weeds, bushes and small trees. That means goats can be one of the answers to the growing problem of tinder-dry, highly flammable forests.

In Durango, former firefighter Jonathan Bartley runs a business called DuranGoats, along with partner Adrian Lacasse, and it’s so popular, they’re booked daily. Their herd usually works along the wildland-urban interface of the San Juan National Forest, clearing undergrowth around private houses in heavily wooded, steep areas at the town’s periphery.

Thanks to his work, Bartley has come to a conclusion about newcomers to the West: “When people move here thinking, ‘I’d love to live in the woods,’ they’re probably making a big mistake.” If they do choose to live surrounded by trees or next to a forest, though, he has advice.

Because utilities cut off electricity during fires, he suggests buying a generator to keep sprinklers for irrigation running. He also advises homeowners to install a metal roof to repel wind-driven sparks. Always, he adds, have a go-bag ready with your most important stuff if flight becomes necessary. Most of all, he wants homeowners to create flame breaks around their house with gravel while also cutting back trees and shrubs within 30 feet of the house.

That last bit of advice is key. Fire-

fighters triage neighborhoods, he said, picking winners and losers. They tend to give defensible homes extra resources while deciding that the brushy, overgrown properties are lost causes.

Bartley knows fire well. He worked for a private company called Oregon Woods as part of a hand crew of 20 based in Eugene, Ore. There, the Holiday Farm Fire started within a half-mile of his house. From that experience, he learned that our approach to wildfire is backward: “We react, rather than manage landscapes ahead of time. Spending a few million dollars on fire mitigation would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars.”

These days, he said, “I’m still fighting fires – just with goats.”

Bartley is quick to point out that fire itself is beneficial to forests. Even Cal-Fire, the firefighting arm of the state of California, says on its website, “Fire removes low-growing underbrush, cleans the forest floor of debris, opens it up to sunlight and nourishes the soil.”

The problem across the West, Bartley said, is so many unmanaged, dense forests full of deadfall and brush – “ladder fuels” – that allow fire to climb into tree canopies. “By the time wildfire gets into the treetops to become crown fires,” Bartley said, “firefighters have evacuated and are miles away.”

Everyone knows that Western wildfires are becoming worse. Half of the 10 biggest fires in the U.S. this century all burned in this region. When wildfires grow massive and super-hot, they destroy forest ecosystems, leaving nearly sterilized

bare ground that’s perfect for flammable cheatgrass to invade. That sets up burned areas to burn again, often quickly.

Bartley has big ambitions for his goat herd, which can clear a quarter-acre in a day. DuranGoats charges $400 daily, he said, much less than the cost of a crew of landscapers armed with weed whackers and loppers on hilly, broken terrain. Moreover, the goats’ sharp hooves churn the dirt and fertilize it with poop and pee, setting up a regenerative cycle that improves the soil.

In northwestern Montana, former journalist David Reese has a similar business called Montana Goat. His herd moves daily, and once the animals strip leaves off small trees and gobble up the cheatgrass and knapweed, he said, it’s quick work to chainsaw small trees and dead branches.

Like Bartley, Reese has found he has almost more business than he can handle.

He plans to scale his herd to 400 goats, while Bartley aims to build up to 100 goats. Both are angling for bigger contracts from homeowners and also government agencies.

Finding four-legged workers is easy. “A male dairy goat has a life expectancy of a week,” said Bartley. “They’re not plump like meat goats, have no dairy value and often are dispatched at birth.”

Extra income for DuranGoats comes from outdoor weddings. Festooned with wildflowers and bells, goats roam the grounds and are a favorite with all the guests, even pitching in as ring-bearers, or in a pinch, groomsmen. But like any single man at a wedding, they have a wandering eye, which means that flower arrangements can be gobbled up quickly.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. ■

10.18.23

THURSDAY 10.19.23

EVENTS HELD IN DURANGO & PAGOSA TICKET INFO:

Jonathan Bartley, left, and Adrian Lacasse of DuranGoats./ Courtesy photo

It’s alive!

Experiment to plant trees on mine waste a surprising success

by Jonathan Romeo

In 2016, Gretchen Fitzgerald, a forester then with the San Juan National Forest, had a rather unconventional idea: What if we planted trees in a pile of mine waste?

As the restoration forester for the district, Fitzgerald identified one of the many areas around Silverton impacted by legacy mining in the San Juan Mountains, a site known as the Brooklyn Mine, just northwest of town.

“Looking around that site, I saw some seedlings naturally creeping around from the side,” Fitzgerald said in an interview with The Durango Telegraph this week. “So I said, ‘Let’s try it.’”

Indeed, there are almost countless sites around Silverton still feeling the effects of mining in the region, which thrived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Mining continued with boom and bust cycles over the years, until the last mine closed in 1991.

In mining’s wake, heavy metal loading continues to dump into the Animas River, affecting water quality throughout the watershed and aquatic life. It all culminated in 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency triggered the Gold King Mine spill, releasing three million gallons of mine wastewater into the Animas.

Ultimately, the series of events led to the EPA’s long-anticipated Superfund designation in 2016 for nearly 48 mining sites around Silverton, known as the Bonita Peak Mining District. Part of that clean-up effort included the Forest Service, and Fitzgerald started to wonder whether a tree-planting project on mine waste could restore the landscape and stabilize affected soils. It was a risk, as something like that really hadn’t been attempted before.

“It’s an experiment,” she said in 2019, the year the trees were planted in the ground.

Now, five years later, Fitzgerald has since moved onto the Sequoia National Park in California. Her trees, however, are doing remarkably well. This summer, in the first

monitoring of the site since 2019, it was confirmed that nearly 100% of the trees survived and are thriving.

“It’s exciting,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s a lot of mines around there. We could expand this and do more work.” Nasty business

The Brooklyn Mine site is located about 12 miles northwest of Silverton, off U.S. Highway 550, and is considered among the worst polluters in the Animas watershed.

According to federal records, miners first bored into the mountainside for its reserves of gold, silver and zinc in the early 1900s. The mine operated on and off over the years, with the most recent mining activities happening in the 1960s through the 1980s.

Ultimately, the Brooklyn Mine shut down, leaving behind a complicated mess to clean up.

Peter Butler, co-founder of the disbanded Animas River Stakeholders Group, said the Brooklyn Mine was included in a list of the top 33 polluting mine sites in the region. He said the wastewater coming out of the mine leaches a

The Brooklyn Mine, northwest of Silverton, is among the worst polluters in the Animas River watershed. An innovative restoration project successfully planted 900 trees on a mine waste rock pile to help repair the landscape./ Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service

fair amount of heavy metals into Mineral Creek, a tributary of the Animas River.

“It’s one of the higher-priority sites,” Butler said previously. “It’s a drainage with a fair amount of metals.”

Because the mine is located on Forest Service land, the agency led some smallscale restoration projects beginning in the 1990s. But renewed attention was given to the mine with the creation of the Bonita Peak Superfund site in 2016.

That’s when Fitzgerald stepped in.

“I got this idea that we don’t have to accept this hillside of sediment and rock,” she said. “All of our efforts from mine restoration are centered on toxic mine water and not really addressing the landscape around the mine.”

Keep it local

For the project, Fitzgerald collected seeds from Engelmann spruce that were located right onsite. The seeds were then sent to a nursery to mature for two years. In 2019, about 900 spruce trees, as well as an estimated 300 flowers and 30 willows (also harvested locally), were planted by volunteers and interns.

The trees were planted directly on a pile of rock that miners would take out of the mountain and dump just outside the mine entrance. Miners would extract valuable metals, leaving behind the potentially

harmful waste pile.

“It’s a harsh environment,” Fitzgerald said. “This particular site is not considered toxic, but it does have a lot of heavy metals in it. We weren’t sure if (the vegetation) would take or not.”

In the short-term, if the project were to turn out successful, the trees could help stabilize the hillside, keep waste rock out of the water and restore the landscape. Long-term, however, it could set a new precedent for future restoration projects on impacted mine sites.

“Part of it was trying to find out what kind of vegetation would grow on these sites,” she said.

However, Fitzgerald, who helped facilitate the planting of nearly 2.2 million trees across Southwest Colorado over a 20-plusyear career, left to take on a new challenge in Sequoia National Park in 2021. The project sat dormant – that is until recently.

Braving the elements

With Fitzgerald’s departure, on top of the pandemic, the Brooklyn Mine site fell to the backburner. However, Amanda Kuenzi, community science director for the Mountain Studies Institute, said there was renewed interest in the Brooklyn Mine site this spring.

“There was never a monitoring plan in place, which was unfortunate, because it

would have been nice to have scientific design,” she said. “But we had been wanting to get back up there for a while.”

After securing a grant from the National Forest Foundation, MSI recently took Silverton High School students on a field trip to the Brooklyn Mine site to do restoration and stewardship work. It also provided a chance to check on the trees.

“We saw a close to 100% survival rate,” Kuenzi said. “It’s really awesome.”

A couple factors might be at play in the tree’s survival. For one, biochar (a type of charcoal made from things like wood or crop leftovers) was used to improve the soil. And, because the trees had two years to mature before planting, it’s likely they were better able to withstand the elements.

And perhaps most telling – it appears the forest was on its way to natural regeneration.

“There are baby trees of all ages up there reestablishing on that site,” Kuenzi said. “It seems like the forest is healing in that area and reclaiming the land.”

Nature’s got it from here

A few other replanting projects have been conducted on the impacted lands around Silverton, but it appears nothing on the scale of Fitzgerald’s project. Recently, the EPA and partners planted willow stakes to the beaver pond section of

the North Star waste dump, just southwest of town. And, Trout Unlimited planted willows on the Ben Franklin Mine north of Silverton.

Meg Broughton, spokeswoman for EPA, said the agency is always looking for innovative ways to restore mine sites. Abraham Proffitt, spokesman for the San Juan National Forest, said he was not aware of any other Forest Service-led replanting projects.

“But personally I’m curious if it could work somewhere else,” he said. “I’m intrigued to see they survived and what it could mean for other mine sites, so I hope this continues.”

As for the long-term plan at the Brooklyn Mine, the Forest Service did not respond to follow-up requests for comment. Previously, a much larger restoration project, which included restoring adjacent wetlands, was planned at the site. But the status of those projects is also unknown.

As for the planted trees, Fitzgerald said that having a monitoring plan in place would help for research purposes. As for the trees themselves, she said nature will likely do its thing.

“They’re growing and probably don’t need anything,” she said. “They look beautiful. And it’s fun to be able to try something and to see these successes.” ■

Not cooling off

Though summer’s gone, concert scene is heating up

by Stephen Sellers

Greetings, dear readers! Join me on a detour, won’t you? I recently attended a restorative yoga class led by the wonderful Deb Buck, and what an experience that was for this yoga-curious lad. I highly recommend taking one if you haven’t tried it. Deep in a sustained shape that I didn’t know was possible for my body to make, under the flickering light of tiny, faithful candles dancing in the dark, she whispered to us, “The time of transition is here. The transition from warmth to cold, from summer to winter, from day to night… .”

Something struck me as incredibly profound about this. In the middle of yet another deep transition in my own life, sacred little bass player/DJ tears distilled upward, an emotional osmosis, into my eye pillow. Thank you, Deb, for holding the space. What a special place we live in!

The time of letting go of the light and warmth outside and nurturing those sustaining forces at home is here in more ways than one for all of us, I imagine. Our innate capacity to meet these changes in life, season, work, relationship – heck, playlist selection for some of you – is much vaster than we can imagine. We are beautiful creatures, beyond our understanding on most days. May we be reminded of this in the most unsuspecting of ways this month with the music that fills our lives.

Within the live music industry, a time of great transition is upon us as well, as we move from the grassy, green fields of Buckley Park to our beautiful, warm, shared spaces nestled in the Animas City Theatre and the Community Concert Hall, to name a few. Here’s a look at some of the not-to-miss events coming up as the leaves fall. Namaste … and see you on the dance floor.

• iAM Music Fest – Oct. 5-8: Come celebrate 10 years of the kickass nonprofit iAM Music. It brings amazing opportunities for youth to learn music in our local schools and throw killer festivals. Heavy hitters Nosotros, Blue Honey, High Country Hustle, J Calvin and Tone Dog are in the mix for this installment. Get pumped. For the full line up, schedule and more information, visit at iammusicfest.us

• The Expendables featuring Claire Wright, Fri., Oct. 13, 7 p.m: The Expendables, with their 25-year career, are coming to town, and this one is definitely not to miss. This group is known for its completely unique mix of punk/surf/reggae/metal. The band has put the miles in on the road and know exactly how to throw one hell of a party. Their incredibly talented and sunshinefilled friend Claire Wright joins. Get your tickets now, as this one will definitely sell out. animascitytheatre.com

• DeVotchka – Sat., Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m: The Denver-based but globally sought-after indie heavyweights, DeVotchka, return to the beautiful Community Concert Hall with their effusive blend of gypsy punk and gothic country music. This is the show of the month to help you settle into the spooky season. durangoconcerts.com

• Punk Rock Breakfast – Sun., Oct. 15, 10 a.m: If you know, you know. If you don’t – well come on down to Anarchy Brewing. With Pussyfoot, Acid Wrench and Neighborhood Skeletons, this is sure to be a family reunion for the Durango punk scene and open invitation for folks to join the party. You don’t need any more information. Just come!

• BabyDel’s in the Holy Church of House of Techno – Fri., Oct. 20, 7 p.m: If there’s one show this month for me to not miss, this is the one. But, I like

to feel kick drums and heavy bass wash through my cells and safely dance with a few hundred friends and strangers to disco and house bangers. Joining Del will be the Denver-based Dirtee Disco, a rising star known for eclectic mixes ranging from disco, techno and afro-house. Is this my twin flame? animascitytheatre.com

• Stillhouse Junkies – Oct. 27-28, 7 p.m: Local legends the Junkies are directing the ship home for what has become a yearly ritual of back-to-back sold-out shows. Night one features Golden Shoals, and night two features Never Come Down. It’s a sure sellout, so don’t sleep on it if you wanna dance! animascitytheatre.com

• Long Beach Dub All-Stars –Sun., Oct. 29, 6 p.m: What was the ashes of Sublime turned into the Long Beach Dub All-Stars, and they are coming to Durango?! Being raised by “40 Oz. to Freedom” in middle school, I’m just speechless. And, you should be, too. A landmark booking. Let’s go! animascitytheatre.com

• Liver Down the River & River Spell – Tues., Oct. 31, 7 p.m: Liver family unite for this liminal evening of bluegrass, funk and beyond. Word on the street is a drummer and full horn section are coming along for the ride, so expect absolute total Halloween night mayhem. More information is available at animascitytheare.com ■

DeVotchka plays FLC’s Community Concert Hall on Sat., Oct 14.

Small town, big secrets

Hapless traveler uncovers the dusty corners of rural Midwest

by Jeffrey Mannix

You’ve heard me say this before, and I’m sure you will have to put up with me saying it again. As cultivated writers are drawn to crime fiction, literary crime novels are coming from the big publishing houses every month now, whereas 10 years ago, they would have scoffed at the idea.

And I reckon you could also be fed up with me issuing must-read recommendations – fed up only if you’re not reading Murder Ink reviews. Whether you’re fed up or poised with two twenties in hand, here is the next installment of absolutely mustread books. It includes quite possibly the most must-read novel of 2023; it’s just that good.

“Distant Sons,” by Tim Johnston, published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, bores into your head just a moment before it interferes with your heartbeat. A 400-page book, this book will take most of a month to read, what with all that dry-eyed staring over the uncoiling circumstances and heartbreaking winces over unintended consequences.

The story of 26-year-old Sean Cortland driving from Billings, Mont., to Madison, Wis., to check out the rumor of work is what we see when we crack open the book. Two hours short of Madison, the engine in Cortland’s pickup overheats. He’s a few miles from the Mississippi River in Woebegone, Minn., as he pulls over, cars and trucks barreling past him and countryside without even utility poles.

A good old boy in a white Dodge pickup, piled neatly with firewood, stops, opens the passenger window and asks Sean what the problem is. He asks, too, if Sean is a carpenter after seeing the big tool box in the bed of Sean’s truck. “Yes, sir, I’m a carpenter.”

After a little investigative chitchat, Lyle, the firewood guy, says he’ll take Sean back to a mechanic he

some reputation, Lyle offers up that the old stonemason Marion Deveraux in the big house outside of

town needs a carpenter.

In this small highway town on the Mississippi River a few miles from Wisconsin, as in all rural settlements, what they call a tavern is the social, food, libations and disagreement center with a jukebox, dance floor, bar and kitchen.

There is also a steady circulation of law enforcement encamped in the parking lot after midnight to break up fistfights. You’ll meet angelic bartender Denise Givens, a sweet, good-looking, hard worker taking care of her grumpy, wheelchair-bound father.

Also part of the cast will be another traveler walking on the highway: Dan Young. Sean passes him going to the lumber yard and turns around to check on the lone walker as Lyle did for him. And to get started with the unintended consequences that make this story real, Dan and Sean go to work together on Deveraux’s job.

Also, we get back to seeing more clearly the characters and the machinations of a little spot on the planet peopled by the imperfect characters Johnston paints so well.

“Distant Sons” is an affecting slice of life in a typical soiled community with well-kept but tense secrets that spring from dusty corners because of the authenticity of Sean Cortland, the carpenter.

Forty years ago, three children disappeared without a trace, leaving a collective scar that people worry about new eyes seeing all this time later. And the local tavern creates drunks who grow mightier with each shot – one of whom belittles the new carpenter and pays the price of defeat and humiliation in his own town by a man of courage and decency.

“Distant Sons” is a richly embroidered tapestry of longing, defeat, lonely love and murder. You’ll have to wait until Oct. 17 for your hardcover copy. Order yours from Maria’s Bookshop with your 15% Murder Ink discount. Read this book. ■

Thursday05

Andrew & the Middleman play, 5 p.m., Ska Brewing, 225 Girard Ave.

Ben Gibson plays, 5 p.m., Balcony Bar & Grill, 600 Main Ave.

Community Harvest fruit gleaning, 5:30-7:30 p.m., location at goodfoodcollective.org/harvest-fruit

Thursday Night Sitting Group, 5:30-6:15 p.m., Durango Dharma Center, 1800 E. 3rd Ave, Suite 109.

FLC’s Campus Champs, 6-8 p.m., FLC Clocktower. FLC Cycling celebration featuring cyclocross race, campus champs main event, downhill time trial, and free drinks and music.

Buffalo & the Heard play, 6-9 p.m., 11th St. Station.

Bluegrass jam, 6 p.m., Durango Beer & Ice, 3000 Main Ave.

Trivia Night, 6:30 p.m., Powerhouse Science Center, 1330 Camino del Rio.

First Thursdays Songwriter Night, 7 p.m., iNDIGO Room, 1315 Main Ave.

Spoketober Bike-In Movie, featuring “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” 7 p.m., Durango Rec Center.

“Eurydice,” presented by FLC’s Theater Department, 7:30 p.m., FLC’s MainStage Theatre. Durangoconcerts.com

iAM Music Fest Pre-Party, 8-10 p.m., iNDIGO Room, 1315 Main Ave.

Friday06

Free Friday Yoga, 8:30 a.m., Lively (a boutique), 809 Main Ave.

Gary Walker plays, 10 a.m.-12 noon, Jean-Pierre Bakery & Restaurant, 601 Main Ave.

Open Meditation, 12 noon-1 p.m., Durango Dharma Center, 1800 E. 3rd Ave, Suite 109.

First Friday Art Crawl, 4 p.m., downtown Durango.

Author Talk: Becca Lawton and Jessica Tanner, 4 p.m., Maria’s Bookshop, 960 Main Ave.

“A Terrifyingly Creative Event,” featuring a creepy night of community art, 5-7 p.m., Durango Arts Center, 802 E. 2nd Ave.

iAM Music Fest, 5 p.m., downtown Durango, info at iammusicfest.us

Bread for Manna, fundraiser for Manna Soup Kitchen, 5-8 p.m., 1100 Avenida del Sol.

Ben Gibson plays, 5:30 p.m., 701 Public House, 701 E. 2nd Ave.

Live music, 6-9 p.m., Union Social House, 3062 Main Ave.

“The Tempest,” presented by Merely Players, 7 p.m., Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center.

Improv Night, 7 p.m., Durango Arts Center, 802 E. 2nd Ave.

Live music, 7-10 p.m., 11th St. Station.

Nicolò Spera (10-string guitar) plays, 7:30 p.m., Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, 419 San Juan Dr.

“Eurydice,” presented by FLC’s Theater Department, 7:30 p.m., FLC’s MainStage Theatre.

iAM Music Fest – Late Night Party, 9 p.m., Animas City Theatre.

Reggae Dance Party, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., Roxy’s, 693 Main Ave.

Saturday07

4CORE’s Beyond Solar Tour + Soiree, info at fourcore.org

Durango Fall Blaze, gravel and road tours to benefit FLC Cycling scholarships, 8 a.m., FLC.

Durango Farmers Market, 9 a.m., TBK Bank parking lot, 259 W. 9th St.

Bayfield Farmers Market, 8:30 a.m., 1328 CR 501, Bayfield.

Apple Days, 9 a.m.-12 noon, located at Durango Farmers Market, 259 W. 9th St.

Durango Fire Protection District’s Safe Driving Event, featuring free food, car inspections and family events, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., 182 Sheppard Dr.

iAM Music Fest – Artist/Music Brunch, 11 a.m., Lola’s Place, 725 E. 2nd Ave.

iAM Music Fest, 3 p.m., downtown Durango.

Ben Gibson, 5:30 p.m., The Office, 699 Main Ave.

Karaoke, 6 p.m., Durango Beer & Ice, 3000 Main.

Live Music, 6-9 p.m., Union Social House, 3062 Main Ave.

Community Yoga, 6-7 p.m., Yoga Durango, 1485 Florida Rd. Donations accepted.

“The Tempest,” presented by Merely Players, 7 p.m., Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center.

Basilaris plays, 7-10 p.m., 11th St. Station.

“Eurydice,” presented by FLC’s Theater Department, 7:30 p.m., FLC’s MainStage Theatre.

EDM Party, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., Roxy’s, 693 Main Ave.

iAM Music Fest – Late Night Party, 9 p.m., Animas City Theatre.

Silent Disco, 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m., 11th St. Station.

Sunday08

iAM Music Fest – Artist/Music Brunch, 11 a.m., Lola’s Place, 725 E. 2nd Ave.

Alex McCue plays, 12 noon, 11th St. Station.

Vinyl Sundaze, 12 noon, Lola’s, 725 E. 2nd Ave.

Live music, 12:30 p.m., Durango Beer and Ice, 3000 N. Main Ave.

“The Tempest,” presented by Merely Players, 2 p.m., Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center.

Feed the People! free aid for homeless community members, 2 p.m., Buckley Park.

Sunday Funday, 6 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Monday09

Art Warriors, art and aikido. Kids ages 8+, 1-2:30 p.m. Free admission. Register at durangoaikido.com.

Happy Hour Yoga, 5:30 p.m., Ska Brewing, 225 Girard St.

AskRachel

Back from time-out, rhyme with no reason & email guilt

Interesting fact: Email predates the World Wide Web. The first email was sent in 1965, or maybe 1971. Either way, it’s still sitting unread in my inbox.

Dear Rachel, COME BACK why did you leave us with Phoebe, what did you say to piss people off enough that you got suspended from the Telegraph? I didn’t know that was even possible. The whole point of the Telegraph is that you’re not full of yourselves and you’re free to have some personality, well that and quality fire starters if you hoard back issues all summer. Whatever you did, please repent so we can see you again!

– Hunger Strike

Dear Rabid Fan, I spent the last week locked in a room with barred windows high in the cinderblock wall. Hey, at least I had wifi, which was good, because my bread and water didn’t come with a print edition Tele. I went online, and that’s how I saw the one-star Google review that the Tele is “biased, one-sided and ignorant,” and I realized THIS was probably the d-bag who called and nearly got me canned (but not really). If you don’t get hate mail in this biz, you’re probably trying too hard to be unbiased, both-sided and smart, which no one (and I mean no one) has ever accused me of.

–

Slanted, Rachel

Meditation and Dharma Talk, 5:30 p.m., Durango Dharma Center, 1800 E. 3rd Ave.

Community Harvest fruit gleaning, 5:30-7:30 p.m., location at goodfoodcollective.org/harvest-fruit

Comedy, 7:30 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Tuesday10

Community Yoga, 4:30-5:30 p.m., Yoga Durango, 1485 Florida Rd. Donations accepted.

Bluegrass Jam, 5 p.m., General Palmer, 567 Main.

Dan Carlson & Nina Sasaki play, 5-7 p.m., Lola’s Place, 725 E. 2nd Ave.

Author Talk: Eilene Lyon, 6 p.m., Maria’s Bookshop, 960 Main Ave.

Dear Rachel,

As I read from one of your fans that her mother is anti vax, well I would tell her, “Mom, it’s OK. I will get paid if you die from not getting vaxed. I will get your SS and Medicare because it goes into the BIG Government pot known as the USA.” You also can buy TP for Rachel to TP Pumpkin Head’s house. Hey, no shortage of TP now because we got vaxed for Covid. Hey hey, vax today.

Dear Patriots,

– Uncle Sam and Mother Liberty

Despite your good intentions, you just inadvertently made the best case I’ve ever seen for NOT getting vaccinated. This reads like Donald Trump had a concussion, except for that last rhyming part, because I’m pretty sure that’s too sophisticated for him. I need to know, as a point of comparison, what you wrote like before getting the jab, and if even then you enlisted unwitting people in your TPing schemes.

– Poke poke, Rachel

telegraph@durangotelegraph.com

unrequited letters? Or do I just delete the emails and pretend these people don’t exist?

– Return to Sender

Dear Rachel,

I have a few emails in my inbox that I never responded to, for no good reason. It’s now been enough weeks (months?) that acknowledging their emails in my reply will just be awkward for us all. Am I better off pretending that I’m writing to them out of the blue, without ever making note of their

Rotary Club of Durango, featuring speaker Taylor Lennox Irwin, of Esoterra Ciders, Strater Hotel, 699 Main Ave.

“The Tempest,” presented by Merely Players, 7 p.m., Merely Underground, 789 Tech Center.

Open Mic Night, 7 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Wednesday11

Restorative Yoga for Cancer, 9:30-10:45 a.m., no cost for cancer patients, survivors and caregivers, Smiley Building, 1309 E. 3rd Ave. Find info and register at cancersupportswco.org/calendar.

Green Business Roundtable, 12 noon, Powerhouse Science Center, 1333 Camino del Rio. Featuring Marty Pool, sustainability manager for City of Durango.

Dear Unknown Recipient, Why take any action at all? You could simply cease to take action until your inbox hits five digits of unread emails. Plausible deniability, baby. It’s unrealistic to think that anyone these days can possibly respond to every email. As soon as it’s off the first page, it’s dead to me. And with all the hate mail I get, that first page fills up in no time flat.

– Eternally unread, Rachel

Trivia Night, 7 p.m., Bottom Shelf Brewery, Bayfield.

San Juan Basin Archaeological Society, featuring author Shelby Tisdale, 7-8:30 p.m., FLC’s Lyceum Room.

Open Mic, 7-9 p.m., EsoTerra Ciderworks, 558 Main Ave.

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

Karaoke Roulette, 8 p.m., Starlight Lounge, 937 Main Ave.

Ongoing

“The Return of the Force,” art exhibit exploring the influence of “Star Wars” on Native artists, FLC’s Center for Southwest Studies. Exhibit runs through August 2024.

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’ve been doing interviews in support of my new book “Astrology Is Real.” I’m asked this question: “Do you actually believe all that mystical woo-woo you write about?” I respond diplomatically, “How profoundly hypocritical I would be if I did not believe in the ‘mystical woo-woo’ I have spent my adult life studying and teaching!” But here’s my polite answer: I love and revere the venerable spiritual philosophies that some demean as “mystical woo-woo.” I see it as my job to translate those subtle ideas into well-grounded, practical suggestions that my readers can use to enhance their lives. Aries: Work with extra focus to actuate your high ideals and deep values in the ordinary events of your daily life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I’m happy to see the expanding use of service animals. Initially, there were guide dogs to assist humans with imperfect vision. Later, there came mobility animals for those who need aid in moving around and hearing animals for those who can’t detect ringing doorbells. In recent years, emotional support animals have provided comfort for people who benefit from mental health assistance. I foresee a future in which all of us feel free and eager to call on the nurturing of companion animals. You may already have such friends, Taurus. If so, I urge you to express extra appreciation for them in the coming weeks.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini author Chuck Klosterman jokes, “I eat sugared cereal almost exclusively. This is because I’m the opposite of a ‘no-nonsense’ guy. I’m an ‘all-nonsense’ guy.” The coming weeks will be a constructive and liberating time for you to experiment with being an all-nonsense person, dear Gemini. How? Start by temporarily suspending any deep attachment you have to being a serious, hyper-rational adult doing staid, weighty adult things. Be mischievously committed to playing a lot and having maximum fun.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Cancerian comedian Gilda Radner said, “I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn’t itch.” Let’s use that as a prime metaphor for you in the coming weeks. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you will be wise to opt for what feels good over what merely looks good. You will make the right choices if you are committed

to loving yourself more than trying to figure out how to get others to love you. Celebrate highly functional beauty, dear Cancerian. Exult in the clear intuitions that arise as you circumvent self-consciousness and revel in festive self-love.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The amazingly creative Leo singer-songwriter Tori Amos gives this testimony: “All creators go through a period where they’re dry and don’t know how to get back to the creative source. Where is that waterfall? At a certain point, you say, ‘I’ll take a rivulet.’” Her testimony is true for all of us in our quest to find what we want and need. Of course, we would prefer to have permanent, unwavering access to the waterfall. But that’s not realistic. Besides, sometimes the rivulet is sufficient. And if we follow the rivulet, it may eventually lead to the waterfall.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Do you perform experiments on yourself? I do on myself. I formulate hypotheses about what might be healthy for me, then carry out tests to gather evidence about whether they are. A recent one: Do I feel my best if I eat five small meals per day or three bigger ones? Another: Is my sleep most rejuvenating if I go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 7 a.m. or if I sleep from midnight to 9 a.m.? I recommend you engage in such experiments in the coming weeks.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Take a few deep, slow breaths. Let your mind be a blue sky where a few high clouds float. Hum your favorite melody. Relax as if you have all the time in the world to be whoever you want to be. Now read this Mary Oliver poem aloud: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): An Oklahoma woman named Mary Clamswer used a wheelchair from age 19-42, because multiple sclerosis made it hard to use her legs. Then a miracle happened. During a thunderstorm, she was hit by lightning. The blast not only didn’t kill her; it cured the multiple sclerosis. She recovered her ability to walk. Now I’m not saying I hope you will be hit by a literal bolt of healing lightning, Scorpio, nor do I predict any such thing. But I suspect a comparable event or situation

that may initially seem unsettling could ultimately bring you blessings.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): What are your favorite mind-altering substances? Coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar or tobacco? Alcohol, pot, cocaine or opioids? Psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD or MDMA? Others? All the above? Whatever they are, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to reevaluate your relationship with them. Consider whether they are sometimes more hurtful than helpful, or vice versa; and whether the original reasons that led you to them are still true; and how your connection with them affects your close relationships.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In his book “Meditations for Miserable People Who Want to Stay That Way,” author Dan Goodman says, “It’s not that I have nothing to give, but rather that no one wants what I have.” If you have ever been tempted to entertain dour fantasies like that, I predict you will be purged of them in the coming weeks and months. Maybe more than ever before, your influence will be sought by others. Your viewpoints will be asked for. Your gifts will be desired, and your input will be invited.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): William James (1842–1910) was a paragon of reason and logic. So influential were his books about philosophy and psychology that he is regarded as a leading thinker of the 19th and 20th centuries. On the other hand, he was eager to explore the possibilities of supernatural phenomena like telepathy. He even consulted a trance medium named Leonora Piper. James said, “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper.” I bring this to your attention, Aquarius, because I suspect you will soon discover a white crow of your own. As a result, long-standing beliefs may come into question; a certainty could become ambiguous; an incontrovertible truth may be shaken. This is a good thing!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): If we hope to cure our wounds, we must cultivate a focused desire to be healed. A second essential is to be ingenious in gathering the resources we need to get healed. Here’s the third requirement: We must be bold and brave enough to scramble up out of our sense of defeat as we claim our right to be vigorous and whole again. I wish all these powers for you in the coming weeks.

Great selection of boots, jackets, sweaters and jeans from brands like Madewell, Patagonia, Sundance & Kühl

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-Wed: 9ish - 5ish

Thurs: On delivery

Fri: Gone fishing; call first

Announcements

Earn Your Master of Social Work (MSW) From the University of Denver (DU) here in Durango – for the twoyear program starting in fall 2024. Classes are held on Fridays. For more info contact Janelle.Doughty@du.edu or www.du.edu/socialwork.

KDUR is Celebrating 50 years

Staff is on the hunt for past DJs. Hopefully you have a fond memory, a story or maybe even some recorded material! If you do, please email station manager Bryant Liggett, Liggett_b@fort lewis.edu or call 970.247.7261

Classes/Workshops

Yoga and Mental Health

5 week free group class for teen and pre-teen girls. Mondays, 4-5:15pm, Oct 16-Nov 13. Learn simple and accessible tools to help deal with stress and manage your mood Inner Peace Yoga Therapy Studio Room 20A @ Smiley. Registration required. Sign up at https: //innerpeaceyogatherapy.com/loca tions/durango/

Wanted

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

ForSale

TaoTronics 4k Action Camera

New and in the box. Comes with user guide and all accessories that came with it: waterproof housing, handlebar/pole mount, mounts, battery, tethers, protective back cover, USB cable and lens cleaning cloth. $50. J.marie.pace@gmail.com

Reruns Home Furnishings

Brighten up your space with furniture and décor for moving in like dressers, cabinets, kitchenwares, nightstands, rugs, lamps and coffee tables. Looking to consign smaller furniture pieces … 572 E. 6th Ave. Open Mon.Sat. 385-7336.

Services

Marketing Small/Local Businesses

Media, website building and content editing, copywriting and editing, newsletters, blogs, etc. for small, local, independent or startup businesses. www.the saltymedia.com or email jnderge @gmail.com

Harmony Cleaning and Organizing

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

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.

BodyWork

Massage by Meg Bush

LMT, 30, 60 & 90 min., 970-7590199.

Lotus Path Healing Arts

CommunityService

Poet Laureate

The Durango Poet Laureate committee invites La Plata County residents to apply for the first ever Durango Poet Laureate Program. There are two positions available, a youth and an adult, to create a vibrant platform for local poets to share their work and engage with the community while acting as a representative of the poetic arts. Applications are being accepted until Oct. 16. For more info and to apply, visit durangogov.org/library or visit the Durango Public Library, 1900 E. 3rd Ave.

HaikuMovieReview

‘The Estate’

Great cast, including adorably repulsive David

Duchovny

– Lainie Maxson

Volunteers Needed

Alternative Horizons is always in need of volunteers to staff our hotline. AH supports and empowers survivors of domestic violence. Training and ongoing support provided. For more information call 970-247-4374 or visit alternativehorizons.org/

Voted Durango’s Best

2009 Honda Civic SI

High road mileage, 6-speed, good condition as per mechanic. 970-7696907

Now accepting new clients. Offering a unique, intuitive fusion of Esalen massage, deep tissue & Acutonics, 24 years of experience. To schedule call Kathryn, 970-201-3373.

Durango’s2ndAnnual

giveaways , andmore!

VIEWEVENTS

CelebratecyclingcultureinDurango mthisOctoberduringSpoketoberfeaturing orethan25uniqueeventsforalltoenjoy,includinggrouprides ,

bikeclinics , concerts , contests ,