All Entries in the "Soft News" Category

LOCAL RANCHERS TO START HAY CROP INDOORS

(Gunnison) Due to shifting weather patterns ranchers here will start their hay crop indoors in 2018. The plan, the brainchild of a rural alfalfa cadre, suggests that the hay crop be planted in small pots and placed in sunny window spots in March.
Whether or not the use of trellises and synthetic fertilizer will be employed was not clarified. Although some ranchers have been hesitant to embrace the indoor growing concept most have agreed to give it a try.

“I’ve been stubborn about changing the way I grow hay,” said Gabby Crispe, who irrigates 2000 acres near Baldwin, “but this tomato plant approach to hay makes sense. Over the years I’ve seen drought and flooding and wind and unseasonable frost take their toll. If it ain’t wet weather when the hay’s on the ground it’s low water when we need more irrigation,” he added. “It’s nothing but a shooting gallery when we count on nature to do our bidding.”

Crispe went on to say that of late nature has been a little lax when it comes to helping the rancher.

After the initial steps of planting and nurturing the infant hay crop ranchers will then transplant the seedlings into the pasture and start the irrigation process just like before.

“Only this time the hay will be a month or two ahead of schedule allowing, with any luck, another cutting or two in the fall,” said an agricultural consultant from Weld County. “Over here we have to be very careful with regards to our image with the recent upheavals.”

The disruption, alluded to above, concerns recent squabbling over water rights, saddle sores and grazing on public lands. The conflict reached heated dimensions last month with the seizure of downtown Greeley by vegetarian paratroopers under Simone Tofu, the hero of Head Cheese Hollow. Although the vegetarians have agreed to negotiations, strategic highlands remain in their hands following a frontal assault my elements of the breakaway Downwind Boys, much feared olfactory ruffians from nearby Ault.

“What in the sam’s hell are you talking about?” asked Emma Vulcan, a longtime Gunnison Valley beekeeper and quasi-animal husbandry technician. “First, you talk about growing hay in little pots in the window then about military actions by armed vegetarians over on the prairie. I was just in Greeley last weekend and everything looks the same as it has since Horace was a boy. I used to believe what I read in this paper but now I’m leaning toward the Gunnison Country Times for my information,” she frowned.

According to sources at Cheyenne Mountain, which does not really exist and all, the town of Greeley was sacked on June 21 in a classic pincher movement by the Down Wind Boys.

“That was one of the finest martial maneuvers in Prehysteric America! Since Washington crossed the Delaware! Since the formation of the IRS!” said General Worthington Bulbous from his half-bath logistic proximity Colorado Springs bunker. “If I had ten men of that caliber I could retake the Panama Canal, maybe even Canada!”

Meanwhile clay pot shortages and further rumors as to the legalization of hemp growing in the region have fallen victim to fears of herd cleansing in the aftermath of alleged Greeley atrocities.

– Earl MacAdoo

CLOWN BEHEADING CALLED ACCIDENTAL

(Montrose) A brutal beheading, that’s left restaurateur Ronald McDonald decapitated, has been called accidental by police despite the clown’s burgeoning list of enemies. The mortal incident occurred Friday at closing time when the clown’s baggy outfit appears to have been caught in an unattended chicken grinder, pulling him into the greasy fray one inch at a time, while programmed employees stood by, watching helplessly.

After a few minutes the whole thing was over. The clown had completely disappeared into the machinery and workers went back to cleaning up and clocking out. It was only after this that police were notified.

“It’s no big deal,” said one middle manager. “His head will grow back. It’s happened before. We’ve warned him not to wear his clown suit in the kitchen but he won’t listen. No one tried to save him because beheadings are not covered in our employee handbook and corporate reprisals here are rather harsh.”

Readers will recall a somewhat related occurrence last October, when Wendy, the Burger King and Col. Sanders were inadvertently sucked into a nuclear street sweeper/dog food compressor while jogging along Highway 50 north of town. Despite an all-out search their mangled bodies have yet to be recovered.

Physicians exploring the range of McDonald’s healthy insurance policies have determined the cause of death to be acute, aggravated macro decollation.

“At least it was a clean cut,” said one doctor.

It was not clear at press time whether or not a service would be held for the decapitated clown or if employees would be paid for attending said event.

– Sir Otis of Liver

ADOPT A WASHBOARD HALTED

(Montrose) The never popular Adopt-A-Washboard Outreach has finally been terminated according to unreliable sources here. Seemingly doomed from the start, the concept hit rock bottom with summer rains created more washboards than usual on local dirt roads. Liabilities increased, belts were tightened and the population backed off.

“We had hoped that most of the severely rutted roads would be adopted by local families and civic organizations while the slightly washed out sections would be arrogated by summer tourists and hunters,” said coordinator Everett Tinkleholland, executive director of Edith Bunker National Forest, just west of here.
Operated like the successful Adopt-A-Highway Program, the Washboard agenda was aimed at relieving the inconvenience of road damage without calling in state agencies in big orange trucks.

“What happened here is that we discovered a certain comfort, almost a pride in dirt roads,” said Tinkleholland. “Folks around here like dirt roads and will take what goes with them, even washboards.”

Funding for the procedure, reaching epidemic proportions this summer, will be shifted to more appropriate arenas such as building scenic view overlooks and removal of road kill within thirty days of initial impact.

– Warren of Wexley

“I challenged you to a drool!”
– Kid Saliva to Aaron Slobber, Bloody Hill, 1884

Anasazi may have dined on venison

(Gunnison) Anasazi tribes who may well have resided along Fossil Ridge before real estate prices drove them to lower elevations, may have subsisted on venison stew. Artifacts discovered at locations such as Gunsight Pass and the East Fork of Adler Creek indicate that the Ancient Ones often relied on venison as a mainstay in their otherwise tedious diet of roots and berries.

Pottery and wood carvings found near ruins are often adorned with primitive images of herd animals and feasting, due to the inability to store meat for long. Jewelry, often created from deer and elk horns, points to this direct food chain as well according to scientists. Surviving shreds of clothing, although quite out of style by now, indicate the use of larger mammal hides.

“Prior to the introduction of corn and kinnikinnick these migratory stone agers probably fished in alpine lakes that dot the landscape,” said legendary archaeologist Dutch Gulch, for whom both Henry Mountain and Henry Lake are named. “We’ve found evidence in the form of discarded test line and salmon egg jars previously thought to be the trappings of much latter centuries.”

Researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological Warfare facility at Gothic appear to be in concordance with these postulates saying that cave drawings often depict warriors chasing deer, and even elk.

“We presume that the Anasazi wanted to cook and eat these species,” said Anomie Judd of the Elkton Judds, for whom Judd Falls was named. “We know they ate rabbits and fowl due to the unearthing of fossilized fur and feathers in known settlement sites but frankly the practice of eating venison stew was a surprise to us.”

“It is not known if the Anasazi also consumed their wild game in chili or made jerky as early as 600 AD when these half-naked savages supposedly resided in these mountains,” said Gulch, “but be assured we are working on that aspect of the puzzle.”
– Fred Zeppelin

Enchanted Airport Escalator Sends Passengers Flying

(Colona) The county’s only known escalator “whacked out” during rush hour Friday sending unsuspecting passengers flying and their luggage suspended in the thin mountain air.

The incident, blamed on revenge hacking by computer techies on strike at Colona International Airport, resulted in surprisingly few injuries but set flight departures back three hours. The nightly party flight to Nucla was grounded with the full passenger load rerouted to Naturita.

Firemen rescued one commuter hanging from a phony wood beam rafters, while a family from Durango had to be rescued from a damaged security checkpoint that had somehow flooded during the mishap.

According to cyber loiterers on the scene the flowing mechanism halted abruptly then cracked, whirled, whined, bowed and sprung, hurling travelers high into the air.

“It was quite a spectacle,” said one retired cowboy who likened the experience to a mad mechanized bull gone mad.
Federal Aviation experts were quickly dispatched to observe the mess of tangled tread and disjointed escalator steps. None of these people was comfortable disabling rogue escalators and went to lunch.

Several told The Horseshoe that the near disaster had been caused by local cows trampling of cyber optic infrastructure. They promised to install coaxial fiber warning radar in an attempt to outsmart the bovine element.

Readers may recall a similar incident in 2016 when the airport’s main mezzanine fountain plugged up and exploded, sending high pressure spray and cookie-cutter debris all the way into town. After a thorough investigation it became clear that someone had flushed several rolls of toilet paper down in what was classified as a non-terrorist hate crime.

The aeronautic facility will be closed until the escalator is deboned, deprogrammed and pacified. Pedestrians are urged to take the stairs until further notice.

– Gerry Mander

Toole Kicked Upstairs

(Washington) Longtime associate editor at the San Juan Horseshoe, Melvin “Breakfast Meat” Toole, was promoted Thursday although close friends say even he “can read between the lines” as to the paper’s intentions.

Toole himself had little coherent comment. He is supposedly overwhelmed with mindless and unnecessary administrative duties and cannot be contacted for comment.

“Getting kicked upstairs is better than downstairs,” laughed Toole, gesturing toward his groin area, as rabid supporters rallied in the streets below his once lavish, now all but abandoned balcony.

A former high wire legend, the scribe, who once toured with he famous Flying Farcheezies, has a chronic fear of heights, and did not appear on his familiar 14th story precipice. In a letter smuggled out of Horseshoe offices in a baby carriage Toole, 101, said the he sees his reassignment to a 16th story cubby hole as harsh and punitive.

“They are virtually trying to force my retirement but I still have a few good years left,” he whined. “Who will refill the water cooler and keep lead in the electric pencils when I am gone?” he lamented. “Who will call out for Chinese food and write irrelevant quotes on the bathroom walls? Who will decide which cartoons to watch on Saturday mornings?”

Refusing to be driven out of journalism but sitting glumly at his antique waterboard desk Toole said of his superiors: “First I got the cold shoulder then the lukewarm stares, then the pointy-boot.”

The restructuring comes at a difficult time for the newspaper which has just received news that it will be banned from reporting politics here until things warm up.

“That leaves dog shows and county fairs,” said one former proof-reader. “That’s not the stuff of greatness,” she said.

– Billy Mosca