All Entries Tagged With: "San Juan Mountains"

Jack’s Cabin Librarian Accused of Grand Larceny

(Almont) A veteran librarian here has been accused of stealing more than $10,000 from Gunnison County. The alleged theft was reported this morning by library examiners from Powderhorn who say they were tipped off due to unpaid utility bills.

Jack himself later confided that, although he was quite liberal with rental agreement, he had no received a rent check in three years.

Whether the suspect is part of a larger conspiracy to bilk other libraries is yet to be determined although authorities, bored during a lull in mass tourism, say that is a distinct possibility. No names were released because the accused thief’s family were once miners.

“The missing cash was found stored in three cellophane bags marked “Warning: May Contain Toxic Ingredients, said one investigator. “Most is in the form of crisp $50 bills with assorted change totaling $10,346.93. It was a clever attempt to throw us off and might have worked if the office was larger.”

Authorities ask that anyone with information on suspicious behavior in and around Jack’s Cabin to call Crime Shoppers or simply come forward. A small reward is offered.

“You don’t need to borrow trouble.” – cowboy saying

M. Toole | May 15, 2019 | Comments 0

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Rewrite the following headlines for clarity and concision. Note: These are headlines found in reputedly reputable local papers.

1. Snowpack Could Lead To Flooding.

2. Senior Citizens Getting Older Says Government Study.

3. Energizer Wabbit Wounded By Gwouse Hunters.

Take ample time to finish your work. No cheating please. That comes later on the job.

Section II Proof-reading skills

Find as many mistakes as possible in the following passages:

1. Armed with a spanking new set of murals I began to thawr out. Instantly I knowed I could, be brake-dancing the Horizontal, Two-step with any, woman mechanic in, town. instead of inhaling another round of whiskey and sleeping with the billiard rack in the liquor closet.

2. The sky was about as redd as your average cowboy’s knees at the beech in July and near’s cloudy as The cramp cookie’s general atttitude. That’s a sure sign that flatland touristas are zoned in on the vicinity,” spat one cowpuncher as he precariously landed an above average wad in a patch of pickled sagebrush.

3. “It’s sinful enough fer me,” said Clem. “Ether the driver around this parts are getting dumber or everyone in Montrose owns at yeast six vehicles.”

4. My father was an olde Indian fighter while my mother was an old Indian. I myself have taken up a career in real estate.

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M. Toole | May 14, 2019 | Comments 0

Irish-Danes Demand Seat on Security Council

(Queens) The recently recognized, DNA-legitimate ethnic group, the Irish-Danes contends it will not rest until it has secured a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Threatening to return to the bloodthirsty days of all out pillage, plunder and piracy on the Irish and English coasts, the terrifying warriors affirmed that they are ready to take their place at the world’s banquet table or die trying.

“We will feast in New York or Valhalla,” said Thorgeson Brian McGinty, king of those that go a- viking with a terrifying trademark: Warriors wear nothing but a sword, shield and footwear, red hair flying, balls to the wall.

These fierce and able madmen (products of centuries of mutual cavorting on rainy nights in Ireland) are generally quite the spectacle, drawing throngs of adoring women to the shore. Historically, other eye witnesses were few and far between since most had fled to the interior at the first sign of the swift dragon ships on the horizon.

“It’s all up to the delegates,” said McGinty. “We can sit quietly and play with our ties like the others or go a-viking. Either way we will have our fun.”

Wooden ships, the long preferred transport of the hearty brigands, have clogged up both the Hudson and the East Rivers since Tuesday, bringing river traffic to a virtual standstill. These Celtic Norsemen have fleeced a fleet of beer trucks and broken a plethora of noise ordinances but police are wary of approaching them.

One police officer told a tale of depravity and deplorable merrymaking saying that the red-haired devils had absconded with several taxi cabs and were headed to the Hamptons for the weekend.

“They are insisting that we give them Brooklyn,” he said.

In a related piece the Dail Eireann today banned the use of the Irish language in that island country in hopes of revitalizing that ancient tongue.

“If we tell them it’s against the law to speak it they’ll all be studying up on it and a resurgence will follow. The pubs will soon be full to the brim with the beautiful chatter, said an uppity source from the lower house of the Irish legislature.

The British tried to destroy everything about the Irish culture in 700 years of occupation, including the application of genocide in the West, but that hasn’t worked out so well for them.

– Fred Zeppelin

M. Toole | May 13, 2019 | Comments 0

HAT TRICK RESURGENCE IN HOCKEY PUCKS

The Hat Trick Ranch (aka Last Pinos Ranch) has survived years of rough going and come out smelling like a rose…or maybe a puck. After decades of close-to-the-bone cattle ranching, the place now prides itself on producing the finest organic hockey pucks on the planet.

Back in 1975 the old place looked like it was going the way of the Cookie Tree and other legendary spreads in the Uncompahgre Valley. The talk was of flooding the place and building a mass reservoir. First it was downtown Ridgway, then Billy Creek, then the Lower Dallas, then and the present site on the shores of Spud Hill.

It’s all due to a prudent Raynell “Cheery” Campbell, whose family homesteaded the sagebrush, cedar and dried river bottom acreage in 1889. By 1980 she had found herself “poor on the feeding end but rich on the way out” and it led her to capitalize on her best natural resource.

Then Raynell and her team reached out.

In 1983 she bought her first puck press from a small Toronto sausage maker, dragged it over the Rockies and began producing cow pies as round and perfect as hockey pucks. Passing motorists would marvel at field after field of pucks drying in the Colorado sunshine.

Puck bovines were common in Europe before World War I but the art of processing the discs was lost in the shuffle until the 50s. Above we catch a glimpse of Cheery Campbell’s aunt Berna during a milking expedition in Reims in 1916 with one of those special cows.

“My neighbors thought I was a moron but genius is never detected by the blind and frightened,” she said sipping a double Campari and soda on the rocks in her quasi test range — a three-acre ice rink specifically designed for quality control.

In only three years she had sold over 2 million of the rubber-coated dung discs. Customers included school programs, junior hockey associations and later even the National Hockey League.

“When we found the right industrial dryer and a sealer that could stay off the sauce, we went into full production and raised the bar overnight,” she spat.

“It takes special type of cow to drop a hockey puck. You gotta know what you’re looking for at the sale barn,” said explained. “It ain’t the color or size of the animal or even what it is fed,” she continued. “It’s more about attitude and wanting more out of life.”

Campbell’s cows, which she lovingly calls thoroughbreds, don’t look all that much different from your run-of-the-mill bovine…to the uninitiated…but to the staff at Hat Trick knows a hockey popper when they see one.

The connection between cows and hockey pucks was unheard of around these parts until Hat Trick Ranch got the ball rolling in the 1970s.

And they’ve seen many. The healthy herd that currently grazes in the grass of the Mañana Creek ranch numbers in the low thousands. Although generally tranquil the cows are ultra-sensitive and visitors are reminded to stay on the their own side of the fence.

The face off at Hat Trick Ranch is the innovative rural subcultures that have spawn a host of satellite industries. Tourists gobble them up along with colorful brochures and T-shirts.

“It’s all in our secret formula which combines just the right amount of the stuff you sling with the stuff that holds it together,” she reiterated.

– Sally Peaches

“I don’t spit in the beer of the devil, if the devil don’t spit in mine.”

-Mint Juleps on Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box

M. Toole | May 11, 2019 | Comments 0