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My quick morning bike ride in Telluride is a grunt up Mill Creek Road then a fast downhill home, with a short stop at the creek at the bottom so Gina the dog can cool out. ...

04 June, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to hear Eileen Burns' conversation with Balloonmeister, Peter Procopio]

by Eileen Burns

photo credit: Steve Cieciuch

BalloonFest_0652 BalloonFest_0657 Up, up and away:  The 26th annual Telluride Balloon Festival flies this weekend, June 6th and 7th, with daily launches from Telluride's Town Park.  Balloonmeister Peter Procopio and 15 of his colleagues will begin inflating their multi-colored hot air balloons at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.  Weather permitting, balloon pilots will launch around 7 a.m. and fly towards the Valley Floor, or wherever the wind may take them. “We’ve all had dreams of drifting along with the breeze,” stated Procopio.  Although staying within the valley and keeping below 12,000 feet is challenging for the crew, Procopio admits that flying in Telluride is worth the effort.  “The people are so inviting and the town is so beautiful, we look forward to coming back each year,” he explained.
 
A highlight of the festival is the main street Telluride Balloon Glo.  To get a closer look at the beautiful designs of the participating balloons, you’ll want to gather with the locals on Colorado Avenue, Saturday evening, around 8:45 p.m.  When the burners are lit, not only do the balloons light up the street, they also light up the beautiful historic buildings.  It’s a sight to remember.

04 June, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Eileen Burns' conversation with William DeMille]

by Eileen Burns

All-mini-ag Monday, June 1, noon– 1p.m., Wilkinson Public Library, William and Vernie DeMille, founders of MiniAg and owners of Paradox Valley CSA, host the first of a four-part series of seminars, "MiniAg Garden". 

MiniAg is all about teaching people how to grow food in their own backyard.  Today's topic: "The 15 Minute Farmer." The talk centers around the power of drip irrigation, the benefits of intensive gardening, how to build healthy soil and time management. 

For 35 years the DeMilles have been raising organic fruit and vegetables, along with beef and dairy cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, and all kinds of poultry.  They moved to the region from Northern Missouri after discovering the nutrient rich Western  mountain soil of Paradox, Colorado. There they established their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm.  CSAs provide local shareholders with baskets of fresh seasonal food year round.

01 June, 2009 /

[click "Play" buttons to hear each conversation with Dr. Ptak] Dr. Jeff Ptak is the surgical dermatologist at the Telluride Medical Center. He is also aboard certified plastic surgeon (since 1989)...

26 May, 2009 /

On Monday, May 18, staff and volunteers from TASP met the crew from San Juan Outdoor School at the Bilk Creek Wall for some climbing instruction. TASP is adding climbing to its Summer schedule for people with disabilities. Monday's session included training in safe belaying...

24 May, 2009 /

Sus and I were away from Telluride for quite a while this Spring, and hit the ground running last week when we got home. Getting through accumulated mail, writing, editing and publishing our regular stories, along with the excitement of covering Mountainfilm for the...

23 May, 2009 /

[click "Play" button to listen to Chef Ming]

Chef Ming is MC, Telluride Mountainfilm food symposium

Wok_18_la Award-winning chef/entrepreneur Ming Tsai is the keynote speaker of Telluride Mountainfilm's Moving Mountains Symposium, a gallimaufry of ideas on the subject of food.

If we are what we eat, Americans could be in deep poop. About one-third of the nation's adults are now obese. Deep in the Heartland, Americans still chant "Supersize me," while beyond our borders, the threat of hunger has long been attached to humanity like Peter Pan's shadow. 

Less is certainly not more when it comes to water and raw materials to grow food. When we spice the pot with increasingly unpredictable weather patterns (which decrease agricultural production), it will take a miracle or a second Green Revolution to increase food production to meet the demand by 2050, when the much quoted UN  population estimate of 9.1 billion becomes reality.

21 May, 2009 /
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer sends us a Summer Poem

The 31st annual Telluride Mountainfilm Moving Mountains Symposium is on the subject of food: the pending crisis and fruitful options. In their third year as organic fruit growers, longtime Telluride region locals Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and husband Eric are part of the solution.

010 It was not their dream. One day, they just did it. Their 70-acre orchard, New Leaf Fruit, located on the Gunnison River north of Delta, produces peaches, pears, apricots, cherries, nectarines and apples. They have two children together, five-year-old Finn and 10-month-old Vivian, who was born at the orchard last apricot harvest. Eric's other daughter, Shawnee, worked at the orchard three years ago and loved it so much she is now in graduate school in international development, focusing on sustainable agriculture in Latin America. Rosemerry's most recent poetry collection, Holding Three Things at Once (Turkey Buzzard Press, 2008), is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and explores the world of mothering, orcharding and communicating with each other and our environment.
19 May, 2009 /

[Click the "Play" button to hear Gene Baur]

Editor's note: Animal activist/author Gene Baur is coming to Telluride for Mountainfilm's Moving Mountains Symposium about food.  Listen to his podcast to learn more about his Farm Sanctuary and how the one-time McDonald's talking head wound up rescuing and providing refuge for farm animals.

Gene-1 Fido au gratin? Perish the thought. For activist/author Gene Baur of the Farm Sanctuary, dining on Babe is no different.

The cover of his best-seller, "Farm Sanctuary, Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food" says it all: there's Babe, alive and well. On the back cover, you will find an image of The Man cuddling up to a Holstein. The endorsement by Dr. Jane Goodall (the gorilla lady) is the final nail in the coffin: "Filled with hope, this book is written for all who strive for a more compassionate world. I highly recommend it." Who doesn't want to be considered compassionate, especially when it comes to our four-legged friends? The package is enough to make a person swear off bacon cheeseburgers forever.  And that's Gene's point.

19 May, 2009 /

[Editor's note: Click the "play" button to listen to Telluride Mountainfilm guest Chef Ann Cooper talk about why she thinks the National School Lunch Program needs major tweaking and what she and others are doing to address the challenge.]

Chef_ann_aboutphoto What's wrong with this picture?

While legions of parents are obsessing about whether their offspring are getting enough vitamins or consuming too much sugar and salt, as they are trying in growing numbers to encourage healthy eating habits, at school millions of kids are consuming French fries, processed chicken nuggets and syrupy fruit salad, standard fare on the average commodity-driven lunch menu.

According to Chef Ann Cooper, aka  "Renegade Lunch Lady," the National School Lunch Program is an antique – it was launched in 1946 as a public safety net – in dire need of recycling. She contends  we won't have much hope for future generations of healthy kids unless we begin teaching them what good food really is.

16 May, 2009 /