All Entries Tagged With: "San Juan Mountains"
Visiting El Jardin, Antioquia
Tips from the self-propelled experts at Dip Advisor
Don’t step in dog poop.
(Actually these towns are far cleaner than most places in the world. People here are very good about cleaning up after their pets. The problem often rests with a few patos (jerks) and an assortment of free-lance canines that rarely carry around those plastic poop gloves. The absence of paw thumbs also poses a problem for even the most conscientious mutt).
Never wear shorts unless you want to.
(Despite what the guidebooks say nobody gives a damn what you wear or do. As I said to a friend on the street in Andes: “You are just jealous. If you had legs like mine you would wear shorts too”.
Engage
Since there are few gringos here you may get a stare or two from the locals. The best panacea is an enthusiastic greeting which generally calms their fears. (They’ve seen us on the TV crime shows after all). Like everywhere else in the world there are those who have yet to develop socially. It’s not about you but it could be.
Don’t step in horseshit. (Hey it’s a cowboy town. C’mon)
Dig los frijoles.
The aroma of beans cooking in the morning is a secure experience. It’s good for your mental health.
Tell the locals how much you love their town. They won’t be surprised but they’ll take it as a compliment. After all, it is a rare Andean jewel.
Tranquilidad.
Always tranquilo. Noise be damned. Nothings, is perfect. The acoustics are part of the landscape. You’ll get used to it after 10 years or so.
Always greet people before beginning a conversation. It sets the tempo.
Use your GPS to find the closest bano.
And suggest that the local people refrain from using electricity so that you can take that perfect photo without overhead electric wires everywhere. You may get a laugh or a stare depending on the depth of your conversational partner
It’s perfectly natural to talk to dogs. Everyone here does it. Just keep in mind that most don’t speak English. Add food to the conversation and they can translate.
Don’t step in llama shit
Play tango in the morning. The louder the better.
Pray Away the Hay Program Destabilizing Ranchers
(Ridgway) As with many self-righteous revivals there are often pitfalls most notably relating to over-zealous, twisted application and holier-than-thou contingencies within a congregation void of real love and toleration.
Such as it has become with Pray Away the Hay, a faith-based effort aimed at creating a strict theocracy with evangelicals at the stern. A once lauded syllabus outlining a concerted agenda has been shaved down to stubble allowing for the reemergence of heretics and pagans in the county.
Most of those engaged in the petitioning of the Lord with prayer have sordid pasts from drug use to alcohol abuse to a plethora of social ills. They escape from these addictions and substitute salvation tales and the dogmas of those who seek to control their flocks.
And there’s plenty of money in it for the Puritan bosses even thou their followers are suffering due to mindless tariffs and trade wars with China and former allies such as France and Germany. The frustration and misdirection herein has now invaded the ranching community causing fiscal harm and mindless summations not at all related to the spirit but rather to the pocketbook.
The promise of a bailout by the Trump people has turned into a fiasco where they only ranchers receiving money are of the big dollar corporate variety.
“We started evening vespers back in March but the hay is still there,” said Charley Tonne, who earned a doctorate of divinity at the University of Downtown Delta in 1980. “We hopped it all up during the summer months with rodeos and parades but still nothing changed. Last fall we introduced a more militant approach utilizing tirades of dutiful propaganda and the terrible swift sword of sabotage.”
Tonne, head preacher at the Church of the Once Damned insists on being called doctor even though the level of study is generally compared to a junior high school curriculum.
“I read the Bible and took accounting classes at night,” he said. “Looking back I wish I had taken more classroom work in banking and finance. I excelled in Bible study while securing a grasp of micro-economics. So long as there are the good folk we will have mega churches which have about as much connection to metaphysics as they do to hayfields.
Getting back to Pray Away the Hay, Tonne and his born again followers have suspended the controversial program saying that it is clear that the Creator likes hay and that they “should not be bothering him with incidental issues while heaven and hell collide.”
-Kashmir Horseshoe
“Make Italy Great Again!” – Benito Mussolini, 1925.
RANCHERS PRESERVED FOR PERPETUITY
Ridgway) In an attempt to sustain the cowboy culture, seven local ranchers have been preserved thanks to donations from an assortment of conservation entities.
Although details are sketchy at press time (and the cows are in the corn) it appears that the lucky seven have been soaked in a formula of turpentine, ditch water and honey.
“In just a few hours these guys will not only be protected from the elements and aging,” said an open space advocate, “but never again will we see subdivisions built right on top of their heads.”
Local residents, shocked at first by such new age planning, say rampant development threatens to destroy their lifestyle and that 35-acre rancheros and golf courses often crush their cowboy hats.
More on this as we make it up.
“An agnostic is just an atheist without balls.” – Stephen Colbert
Highway 550 Shipped to Denver
(Colona) Colorado State Highway 550 will be transported to C-Dot bunkers in Denver as part to a plan to repair the road before tourists begin arriving in May. The principal artery will be hauled away in 5-mile increments and restored “in just a day or three months” according to officials familiar with this sort of excavation.
What this means for motorists accustomed to using the thoroughfare was not particularly clear this morning. Royal bridge builders and road maintenance engineers have already begun stockpiling massive piles of beetle kill near the roadway leading observers to believe that material will substitute for the more traditional asphalt. Until we know more it is apparent that venture brain trusts will persevere and the people will endure.
That stretch of highway from Montrose to Ouray has always given us trouble,” said Willy “The Pirate” MacLeish of C-DOT. “And that says nothing of its bastard cousins “The Three Saints” – Red Mountain, Molas and Coal Bank Passes on the way to Durango.
There was no mention of conduits further south to Farmington since C-DOT does not recognize the sitting government in New Mexico and prefers to ignore all reference to the state, much like the EPA, which is allegedly engaged in a giveaway of public lands and the ED, which offers equal and inferior education to all.
The whole damn highway needs a lesson in humility,” continued MacLeish. “The highways in The Pale (The Confront Range) come first and these hick paths can just wait their turn. So what if thy were built based on traffic in 1965.”
– Kashmir Horseshoe
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL CANADIANS:
from Seamus McGinty, Skibbereen, Cork, Republic of Ireland
Please be careful with Harry and Meghan. Centuries ago when we allowed English gentry, not to mention royals, to land on our coast, things went bad fast. Cheers!
Bibliophiles must register in Montrose County
(Simms Mesa) Persons convicted of literary crimes must register with local law enforcement agencies after February 15. These generally well-read, often erudite offenders will remain on a Colorado database for 6 months.
After that time these bookish felons must renew/update vital information including address and telephone number so as to earn a safe conduct passage, dismissively referred to as a library card during more archaic periods of book burnings and pious interdiction.
Person deemed guilty of risk levels higher than 1.5, on a scale of 1 to 10, will be monitored for indications of loud talking, loitering and in some cases destruction of checked out items. Overdue fines could be levied and usually are when the person fails to honor his/her contracted responsibilities according to Penal Code 86R-Y, established in 2008.
Furthermore, the much-maligned Bookends Project demands that suspect persons must submit to indiscriminate ordeals and surgical diagnosis if behavioral patterns persist. Physicians may then prescribe colorful pills and failsafe injections (inoculations, vaccinations, flu shots) in hopes of driving out the parasitic demons of these so-called bookworms.
Bibliophiles who ignore this warning could face fines (compiled daily), loss of inter-library privileges and banishment to the Dark Ages.
-Tommy Middlefinger
For more turn to Celtophiles- Scourge of Connemara in your prayer books.
County Votes on Changing Era Milestones
“Before Marie and After Marie”
(Ridgway) Long-accepted era abbreviations BC and AD may soon become BM and AM around these parts if voters here have their way. The new designations, honoring the late Marie Scott, a legendary rancher in Pleasant Valley, will be adopted immediately if the referendum passes.
The proposed measuring tools BM (Before Marie) and AM (After Marie) are expected to have an impact in a community where the many of the new residents are not familiar with the generous Scott who ran a tight ship, managing her large ranches hands-on. In so many ways she lived a lifestyle akin to the 19th Century.
“If she liked you, you could have anything she had,” said Bill Domka, a former neighbor who grew up around Scott. “If she didn’t like you, you best not come onto the property.”
The icon of it all, Marie Scott outside her home near Ridgway the 50s
The secular time capsules, indicating centuries before and after the Christian era are generally well balanced. The new eras are lopsided since Marie wasn’t born until 1896. (She passed in 1979). Before and during her life of Ridgway was still a wild place. Then, following her death it began to change – some for the good – some not, depending on one’s perspective.
“That’s only 83 years to the outsider but when one considers the impact she had locally it all makes sense,” said another rancher who worked with Marie for over 6 decades.
It is hoped that the new era milestones will encourage newer residents to embrace the rich local history of the region rather than settling for a transitory status in a poor man’s Telluride. Woman in particular don’t have to look far for inspiration. No saint, Marie exhibited the qualities necessary for survival in what was certainly a world and vocation dominated by men. She was tough enough to win and kind enough to help a lot of people along the way.
Those of us who knew her remember her fondly in her cowboy duds with that red hair and rouge on her cheeks. She wore Levis or Wranglers but never washed a pair. When they got dirty she simply bought more giving the old pairs away or throwing them in the garbage. That was her very own brand of extravagance, her luxury. Not the least bit eccentric she talked to her dog a lot, delivered steaks from Safeway to needy families at Christmas, and loved to drive her red jeep all over her land, checking cows, inspecting ditches and giving the forest service hell for one thing or another.
A classic original, she and her world will never be replaced.
– Kevin Haley
