Redstone January / February 2021

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VOLUME 21, NUMBER 12

LYONS, COLORADO

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JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

B •R •I •E •F •S The ice rink is open LYONS – Thanks to Mother Nature and cold temperatures, the ice rink is open – as long as it stays cold.

For the 2020-2021 winter season masks are required when you cannot maintain six feet of space from another person outside your household. Please adhere to COVID safety protocols when using the rink.

Skate rentals are available on weekends, when rink is open from noon to 4 p.m. The ice rink is weather dependent. Check out all the info online.

The town is also offering ice skating lessons. Beginner, intermediate lessons for kids. Private lessons for adults.

Winter reading program LYONS – Start the new year right by signing up for the library’s first winter reading program: Warm up to Great Books. The program will run from January 15 to March 15, 2021, and features challenges for early literacy, K-12, and adults.

Simply log your reading and activities and unlock badges to earn tickets for prize drawings.

Help the library name its bear LYONS – Lyons has a new resident whose address is the corner of Fourth and Railroad Avenues.

Created by local artist Anita Miller, the sculpture, depicting a large bear with a book-reading boy in its lap, was installed at the library in November. Dave Papuga of Lyons Lawn and Landscape generously donated his time, a lift, and a trailer in the effort to relocate the bear from Miller’s garage to the library.

Help the library name the new sculpture. Submit your suggestions at https : // lyons. colibraries. org / name- that- sculpture /.

Continue Briefs on Page 7

A pair of sandhill cranes touches down in the flooded fields of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. In the late fall, large flocks of greater sandhill cranes migrate from the northern Rocky Mountain region to fields near the Rio Grande in central NM. Their distinctive croaks and whistles punctuate the winter season along the river.

Photo by Jane Selverstone, a retired geologist who now divides her time between hiking, photography, music, and knitting.

Town Board hears new development plans for Main St. and High St. and other issues

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LYONS – New development may be coming to downtown Lyons. Developer/Realtor Andy Sepac from Boulder asked the Lyons Town Board if they would consider his proposed redevelopment of the Soda Fountain and Red Canyon Art building, 400 Main St. and the metal building at 425 High St. where Defined Motion is located, as economic development so he could use Lake MacIntosh water shares in lieu of Colorado Big Thompson (CBT) water shares for his development project.

The town requires developers to dedicate water shares to the town as part of their development package. Lyons buys its water from Longmont and Longmont requires dedication of CBT water shares along with water tap fees for new development. Longmont has agreed to accept Lake McIntosh water shares for affordable housing and economic development projects.

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Town Clerk Delores Vasquez said the last time the town purchased Lake McIntosh water, the shares cost between $10,500 and $11,000 per share. She said that Lyons has not purchased CBT water shares for over a year, but at that time shares cost about $71,000 per share.

Seapac said that the owners of Defined Motion were interested in either developing their building themselves or working with Sepac to develop the site together. He said that they were very sentimental about the site and their connection to the community.

At the 400-402 Main St buildings Sepac said that he would keep the existing sandstone façade and perhaps add new large windows or a Bistro garage door. The upper portion would be replaced or painted and 3 new condos would be added. If the project at 425 High St. is included in the Main St. project, the High St. building would be replaced with four live/work town homes with shop spaces on the

street level and living spaces above.

Sepac continued to refer to the owners of Defined Motion Dance Studio, 425 High St., Jasmine Lok and Ali Kishiyama, as “the girls” until Trustee Miller asked him not to, saying that they are grown women. Technically girls are age 16 and younger and over age 16 they are referred to as ladies or women.

Trustees Miller and Hollie Rogin said they did not think this development met the economic development qualification.

Trustee Kenyon Waugh said that CBT shares were ridiculously expensive and if Mr. Sepec is willing to make an investment in the town he should be supported.

Mayor Nick Angelo said to the board that all development requires risk. “When somebody comes to town and is willing to take a risk we should give them every opportunity to be successful.” But he added that he wanted to hear what Longmont had to say.

The two businesses at the 400-402 location already have water shares and water taps. It would just be the three new condos that would need water shares and water taps. The condos would be market rate housing, not afContinue Town on Page 4

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REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

LYONS O B I T U A RY Deborah DeBord December 11, 1949 – ecember 18, 2020 PINEWOOD SPRINGS – Deborah grew up in the oil patches of Louisiana and the bayous of Houston, Texas, so she beat her feet to the academic cool of the University of Texas at Austin as soon as she could. She liked it there so much she stayed until she’d earned her Ph.D. She taught English to foreign students and Spanish to high school students, spent summers in Mexico, backpacked through Central America, and when she’d had enough made her way north to teach English as a Second Language at the Univer-

sity of Colorado in Boulder, where she met her second husband Jim Ramsay.

Together they visited scores of countries on all but one continent. She got to touch an iceberg in Antarctica, the stone in Blarney Castle, an Icelandic horse’s mane, the roof of a polar bear’s den in the Arctic, and the hearts of countless students, friends, and perfect strangers lucky enough to be the recipients of her little “gifties.” Deborah and Jim were able to realize a shared dream of living in the forest on a river in the Colorado mountains. Their house in the mountains has hosted intimate dinners, writing and cooking retreats, storytelling circles, and live music indoors and out.

Deborah refused to let her blindness hold her back from anything, and she was so well adapted to a sighted world that

She wrote Cooking with Feeling…and other useful senses, a cookbook with adaptive techniques for the visually impaired, and provided members of the Stonebridge Farm CSA with recipes and tips for preparing the variety of veg the earth and the barterers heave up each week. Her cookbook can be downloaded from http://www.savorypalette.org/downloads.

Her friends remember her as brave and irreverent, intuitive and compassionate, and an absolute blast to be around.

Deborah is survived by her husband Jim Ramsay of Pinewood Springs, her brother Steve DeBord of San Antonio, Texas, and her sister Kathryn DeBord of Houston.

Donations can be made in her honor at World Central Kitchen, https : / / donate. wck. org /.

many acquaintances were unaware that she was impaired at all. She was an accomplished writer as well as an educator, a gourmet cook, an avid reader, a consummate storyteller and a zany humorist.

Lyons Fire has sworn in nine new firefighter candidates

By Interim Chief Steve Pischke Redstone Review LYONS – It is a new year, and as such Lyons Fire is bringing on new recruits to bolster its current firefightPischke ing staff. On Wednesday, January 6, Lyons Fire Protection District swore in nine new firefighter candidates.

For the next six months, these candidates will spend every Saturday, and several weekdays every month, training on the many facets involved in becoming a firefighter with Lyons Fire Protection District.

Our candidates will learn how to drag a hose off a fire engine, hook it to a fire hydrant, and turn the hydrant on in order to provide water to fight a fire.

They will practice donning and doffing their structure firefighting gear so much

that it will become automatic to them. As a team, they will learn how to build fire lines to combat the spread of a wildland fire and gain familiarity with our wildland brush trucks and the Fire District. They will learn and practice swiftwater, lowangle and high-angle rescue techniques, which are all important skills in our district. And that’s just the beginning. The list is long with everything they’ll cover in the first six months.

“Get Some Lyons Love” winter tourism campaign

By Brianna Hoyt Redstone Review LYONS – The Lyons Main Street Program has been working with the Colorado Tourism Office to create a winter campaign to encourage COVID-friendly winter tourism in Lyons. The “Get Some Hoyt Lyons Love” winter campaign is designed to share Lyons’ winter offerings to Front Range travelers, to highlight the town’s many COVID-safe outdoor experiences, and to promote local businesses.

For nearly a year, people have been staying at home doing their best to protect their own health and the health of their community. Many of our neighbors in the greater Front Range are looking for escapes, distractions, and self-care remedies. This campaign will aid Lyons in capitalizing on this collective need and showcasing a unique brand of “Lyons Love” to the Front Range market.

The “Get Some Lyons Love” campaign positions Lyons as a convenient and safe escape from the indoor doldrums of the pandemic. Lyons can be a salve to the ills that many are feeling from the pandemic whether they’ve been inflicted by the virus or not. Businesses as well as people are feeling the effects of the stay at home-orders.

Small businesses have struggled to shift their business models to cope with the changing public health orders.

Many Lyons businesses also rely on summer tourism,

Most importantly though, they will learn how to work as a team. They will become a part of the Firefighter family and will learn how to keep themselves, and their team, safe while helping the community. Being a firefighter these days is hard, and it takes a lot of time away from family and friends. We appreciate the commitment every one of our firefighters makes, and we look forward to watching our department grow.

events, and festivals to make it through the winter. The goal of this campaign is to encourage safe tourism in our town and to emphasize our lodging options that offer social distancing, our restaurants that are offering COVID safe options, and our many outdoor winter experiences.

We want to encourage Coloradans to seek respite from the pandemic in Lyons and to escape to the small town with big views and acres of open space and feel the Lyons Love – the community’s unique blend of artsy, downhome, outdoorsy and fun.

However, winter tourism is not the only thing that our businesses need right now. Shopping local to show some Lyons love is more important now than ever. COVID-19 has turned many lives upside down. Lyons local businesses truly need local support during these challenging times. Small businesses throughout the country are working through complicated federal grant and loan programs.

They are applying for complex federal loans and grants while also stretching their creativity to keep their businesses running. Local support will be essential to Lyons economy during the winter. Support can be broader than financial. Positive reviews on social media, websites, and tourism sites can be a great way to encourage visitors to patronize Lyons businesses. Sharing social media posts about Lyons business and tourism offerings is another way to help local businesses gain exposure.

If you would like to take a more direct involvement in Lyons economy, the Economic Vitality Commission is currently recruiting members.

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Steven J. Pischke is the Interim Fire Chief for the Lyons Fire Protection District.

The Economic Vitality Commission acts as the Lyons Main Street Board and works to improve the local economy and support local businesses. If you are interested in participating on the Economic Vitality Commission, see the commission’s website at: https : / / www. townoflyons. com / 187 / Economic-Vitality-Commission.

Brianna Hoyt has worked as a freelance writer with marketing firms to generate content for business websites and social media accounts. She started working for the Town of Lyons in February 2020 as Lyons’ Main Street Manager.

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JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

REDSTONE • REVIEW

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IDEAS New Year’s resolutions don’t bear fruit Editor’s Note: This column was first published in January 2020. Richard Joyce died in February 2020

By Richard A. Joyce Redstone Review PUEBLO – I never believed New Year’s resolutions bore fruit for the most part. When the hunter’s moon rose slowly above the horizon each autumn, its brilliant orange-gold light always reminded me of which resolutions from the previous January I had failed to attain.

Some, of course, were resolutions of abolishment, getting rid of bad habits and behaviors, such as resolving not to lose my temper and cuss my own ineptitude at hammering my thumb instead of the nail I had aimed for; it comes so naturally to a Leo of my type. Other Leos simply cuss out the hammer or nail, a much healthier response.

Always had a few of those resolutions. Never got rid of any behaviors or habits as resolutions, but they did fade out over time and experience.

Well, many did, but to this day, I avoid hammers and nails. My wife is very good with them, I discovered.

Others were resolutions of

achievement in one area or another. I’d resolve to learn Spanish, learn how to play guitar well, learn electronics and computer programming, etc. All on my own, of course, with help from materials found on the internet and on various books and magazines. Each year, the Hunter’s moon saw them all go unfulfilled. After many years, I simply stopped making resolutions. After all, in my case, what was the point?

Then it happened. New Year’s resolutions I would have made, or once had made, began to manifest in my reality.

So in 1994, for example, I simply decided to quit my 26-year-old smoking habit – one I had tried to quit at least ten times during that period – and did. I asked my doctor to prescribe nicotine gum, which he did, and which I chewed for most of that year, and then I just threw the gum away. Haven’t smoked since.

There was no effort, no struggle on my part. It just happened.

There have been many more examples. Last year, for example, around Christmas one of my doctors said that carrying 216 pounds on my five-foot, 11inch frame put me into the obese category.

I didn’t like that characterization, but regardless of the label I also knew every excess

Revolving Loan Fund and CARES Act grant funds continue to support Lyons’ businesses

By Kim Mitchell Redstone Review LYONS – We all know the COVID-19 has had a devastating impact globally. Businesses have had to creatively pivot to keep up with ever-changing public health orders and guidelines. Small business owners have had to navigate through the tangled red tape of federal grant and loan programs to try to keep their businesses afloat. In Lyons, local businesses have tapped into several financial resources available through the Town of Lyons.

In 2012, the Town of Lyons worked with local partners and applied for USDA Rural Development grant funding to create a small business Revolving Loan Fund (RLF).

This created a strong revolving loan fund which has assisted many of Lyons’ small businesses and helped enhance the local economy.

“Funds made available to local businesses through the revolving loan fund program help to retain local businesses and support local employment in Lyons. The funds assist local businesses with startup costs, expansions or equipment purchases and more, and have a long-term impact on our local economy,” noted Trustee Hollie Rogin, who serves as the Board Liaison to the Economic Vitality Commission. “We’ve provided more than $264,000 in local loan support over the past six years.”

New or existing businesses may apply for the funds to help with startup costs or to expand, improve, and update their operations. Each loan application is reviewed by a volunteer committee of local Lyons citizens, and the funds are managed by the town.

From its inception in 2012 through early March 2020, the RLF has loaned $140,000 to nine local business due to

the devastating 2013 flood as well as for other local small businesses to expand their operations. More recently, due to COVID, town staff and the Economic Vitality Commission recognized that local businesses urgently needed funds to help them cope with the economic shutdown caused by COVID-19. The town reduced the interest rate to zero and rewrote the loan terms to delay repayment.

As a result, the RLF has loaned an additional $124,000 in COVID-19 related relief to 14 local businesses. In the first round, $65,000 of COVID loan funds have been paid back to date and much has been reloaned again, to additional local businesses in Lyons, hence the program name revolving loan fund.

While zero interest loans are certainly helpful, grants are even more beneficial. The Town worked with Boulder County to provide CARES Act Grant funding. Twentythree local small businesses and two non-profits were awarded a total of $197,125 in grant funds before the end of 2020. Together, the RLF and the CARES Act Grants have contributed nearly $461,000 in support to local Lyons businesses.

“The RLF is a self-replenishing pool of money that uses interest and principal payments on earlier loans to fund new loans. It provides access to gap financing that many local businesses need to survive this pandemic and be competitive in the future. We’re grateful to have this program available for our local businesses,” said Rogin.

Currently the RLF has $30,000 in loan funds available for local businesses. To learn more about the program, visit https://www.townoflyons.com/RLF. Kim Mitchell is the Director of Community Programs and Relations for Town of Lyons.

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pound was making my Type II diabetes more difficult to manage, even with several medications. I made no resolution about it, but I did stop drinking high fructose corn syrup beverages and eating sweet snacks, reduced the size of my meal portions by a third, increased my water intake significantly, kept almost completely away from alcohol, and a few more things.

I made the changes because they made sense to me, and because as I implemented them, I noticed they were not difficult. In fact, they were easy. Time slipped away and so did the pounds. I dropped 20 in five months, and my doctor reduced one of my diabetes meds when my A1C dropped to and stayed at six (last reading). Now it’s been 12 months, and I’m down 44 pounds, to my college weight.

I had made resolutions about my weight for ten years back in the 1990s and early years of this century, to no avail. But when I stopped and simply took certain actions, something in me took over and allowed what I wanted to happen. A resolution was no part of it at all.

I’m sure there’s a process at work here that I probably will never fully understand, and that’s a problem because I’ve just entered the realm of those whom some term “the Continue Resolutions on Page 14

Lyons received approval to do improvements to the WW Treatment Plant to accept a higher load of BODs

By Aaron Caplan Redstone Review LYONS – For those following the issues and concerns at our wastewater treatment facility, CDPHE (Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment) has approved the construction design improvements that would allow the facility to be permitted to accept a higher load of something known as Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD).

Lyons actually has three different permitting changes in process: a change to accept more BOD, a change on where the effluent from the facility goes back into the St. Vrain creek, and a change from an individual specialized permit to a general permit that small facilities such as Lyons are allowed to use at less expense and procedural requirements.

We have been waiting to begin using the new outfall location in the creek for over a year. That permitting process has been tied up in the renewal of our individual permit, which is in a procedural limbo along with many other facilities across the state. CDPHE is very backlogged and had begun saying some facilities’ renewals would not be looked at until 2022. This was one of the reasons we started looking into using the general permit that the state offers instead of the individual permit. The town did decide to move forward with switching to the general permit which would also include allowing us to use the new outfall location. We were advised this change should be finalized by the end of January. We want to wait and see what requirements we are given under this new general permit before we begin on any construction modifications to allow for the increased BOD. Mediation with Honeywell, the engineering firm behind the building of the new wastewater treatment facility, is also scheduled to resume again next month now that all the attorneys have had a chance to go over their findings from a walkthrough at the facility last fall. This might also change how we handle any modifications made to the facility.

Aaron Caplan is the Lyons Utilities Director.

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PAGE 4

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

INTEREST Lyons Redstone Museum explores Lyons history, bringing the past to life in 2021

By Monique SawyerLang Redstone Review LYONS – One hundred thirty years ago on January 9, 1891, Ben Durr, the editor and publisher of Sawyer-Lang the Longs Peak Rustler published an exuberant editorial about what the coming year would bring for the community of Lyons. An excerpt from that editorial details the expectations of the fledgling community of Lyons: “The year 1891 ... opens auspiciously and hopefully. For Lyons it will be the greatest year in its history, although the past year has been a great one. 1891 will see Lyons incorporated, 1891 will see a splendid water system, of whichever sort the people may choose. 1891 will see a neat town hall, and good local government.

1891 will see a good church building and parsonage. 1891 will see all of 1,600 people. It will see a fine bank. It will see a big new hotel. It will see a host of residences, shops, stores and improvements built. It will see our streets graded and put in decent order. It will see our people jubilant, prosperous, and in shape to welcome all comers, from all parts of the world.”

Much of what he predicted 130 years ago for 1891 did come to pass that year or shortly thereafter. Lyons residents voted in

Circa 1891 photograph of Lyons Main Street looking east from 5th Avenue.

April of 1891 to incorporate as a town and a town government was officially elected soon after. Work began on providing a safe and efficient water supply for the town.

Soon to follow was the organization of the town’s volunteer fire department Lyons Hose Company No. 1 in 1893. A bank operated by E.E. Norton also opened in 1893.

The building boom that had begun a few years earlier with the arrival of the railroad and the opening of the Lyons Depot in 1885 continued into the 1890s with new restaurants, hotels, mercantile stores, a gym, social halls, a town hall, the Stone

Church, and private residences.

With the same enthusiasm that Ben Durr had for Lyons in 1891, the personnel of the Lyons Redstone Museum is beginning to plan programming for the coming year. It is our hope that the museum will be able to open to the public in some capacity in 2021 and once again welcome visitors into our building. Thanks to a grant from the Lyons Community Foundation, museum personnel will continue the research and development of an exhibit on the quarry history of Lyons with an anticipated opening date in 2022. We will con-

Lessons from contact tracing: If you get mild symptoms, get tested and then quarantine

By Janaki Jane Redstone Review LYONS – I am working as a contact tracer. All day long, five days a week, I talk on the phone to people who have tested positive for COVID-19, almost all of whom have symptoms. Most of the Jane people I talk to thought they had a cold, or a mild flu, or a seasonal allergy. Some only had a sore throat for a couple hours in the night or sniffles for a day. Most of these people didn’t even consider that they might have COVID-19. They went merrily on living their lives, going to work, shopping, going to church, sometimes with masks and sometimes without, very possibly infecting others as they went.

Contact tracing is a challenging, rewarding and occasionally a painful job. Sometimes the nicest and most sincere sounding people lie to me, and I find out about it by talking with someone else who knows them. Sometimes people tell me “masks are a placebo” and “I know I don’t have COVID because it’s a hoax.” I’ve talked to people when they were in the hospital, and to the relatives of people who were on ventilators in the ICU. Some of my co-workers have talked to relatives of the person with COVID-19 they were trying to reach because the person they were calling had already died.

Most of the people I have talked to didn’t realize that the symptoms that they had were COVID-19. It didn’t occur to them because our news is full of scary stories of people on ventilators and overcrowded hospitals and mobile morgues. What we aren’t hearing is that all of those

Town Continued from Page 1 fordable housing.

The board debated whether they could label the project as economic development and finally decided that they would get more clarification on the definition of economic development from the Longmont Water Department.

In other matters Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen said that 60,000

extremely sick and dying people could very well have gotten COVID-19 from someone who thought they had a cold, or a mild flu, or allergies, or the sniffles.

COVID-19 can be spread by people with mild symptoms, who didn’t get tested, and didn’t quarantine, and went out anyway and exposed other people. Those other people could get much, much, sicker than the person who infected them. Every day the media is full of information about how mysterious and pernicious and almost capricious seeming this disease is. What is not being shared is the very important information about what the average Jane’s symptoms look like most of the time, and what to do if you do get symptoms.

I believe that we need a widespread public health campaign. It should include the information the public needs, which is: “If you get mild symptoms that feel like a cold, a mild flu or seasonal allergies, it could be COVID-19.

Mask up, get tested at the first sign of symptoms. Then go straight home and stay there until you get the results. Just because your symptoms are mild doesn’t mean someone you expose could not get severely ill.”

doses of the COVID vaccine were coming into Colorado weekly and all their discussions with Boulder County Health Dept. were now concerning distribution.

“Everyone is trying to figure out distribution,” she said.

The board passed Ordinance 1093 to create several layers of protections for utility customers who get behind on paying their utility bills. Attorney Brandon Dittman said that they have done a good

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tinue our efforts to transfer our paper records to on-line resources allowing for improved research capabilities and continue to implement best practices for the display and storage of our treasured collections. We look forward to once again participating in the collaborative educational programming in conjunction with Lyons Elementary School. We anticipate and look forward to being able to once again offer a series of public events on Lyons history on a variety of topics.

In the meantime, you are welcome to explore Lyons history virtually through our website (lyonsredstonemuseum.com) and through the digital walking tour of the Lyons Historic District (https : // theclio.com / tour / 910). Three virtual exhibits created in 2020, Forty Years/Forty Artifacts celebrating the 40-year history of the museum, the Lyons Cemetery Tour, and Colt Family Wedding Attire are available to view on https : // virmuze.com / m / lyons-redstone-museum /.

Thank you for your continued interest in history and supporting the efforts of your local Lyons Redstone Museum and Historic Society. May all the optimism and progress of 1891 be realized in 2021.

Monique Sawyer Lang is the Collections Manager of the Lyons Redstone Museum. She is also a volunteer with the Lyons Food Pantry and a former member/chair of the Lyons Community Foundation Board. She lives in Spring Gulch.

In my job I talk to people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and give them information, including what isolation and quarantine mean and why they work. I ask them questions to get information that epidemiologists use to figure out how COVID-19 spreads and how contagious it actually is. I am not an epidemiologist, I do not have a Master’s in Public Health (MPH), I merely talk to a lot of people who test positive. My opinions come from my experiences and are my own.

If you get the sniffles or a sinus infection, or a cold or flu, or allergy symptoms, please mask up and go get tested. It’s fast and easy at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont to get tested, and there’s testing in Lyons again at the LatterDay Saints Church.

Drive straight there, get tested, and go straight home.

Don’t go shopping, don’t go to work, don’t visit a friend or a store. Wait for the results. If you’re negative, great, keep masking and distancing and washing your hands. If you’re positive, you could have just saved a life.

Janaki Jane writes on issues of mental health and society.

She is co-chair of the Town of Lyons Housing and Human Services Commission and the director of the Wide Spaces Community Initiative, “Creating a Community of Belonging and Personal Safety for Everyone,” a program of the Lyons Community Library. You can read more of her writing at www.janakijane.com.

job on creating multiple protections for customers if their service has to be cut off. “The hope is we never have to do this,” he said.

The board also passed Ordinance 1094 which clarified confusing language in Planned Unit Development (PUD) and overlay districts. The idea was to create more correct and understandable language.

And the board passed Ordinance 1092,

which has gone on since last November when the board voted it down to start over and get more clarification into the wording. This ordinance has been a sticky problem for the board. Although most agreed that they want some regulation for RV and trailer parking in residential areas, opinions vary widely on what those regulations should be. The ordinance was passed 4 to 3 with Trustees Rogin, Miller and Waugh voting against it.

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JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

REDSTONE • REVIEW

PAGE 5

OPTIONS Hunt family donation links Botanic Gardens to pre-flood neighborhood

By Jessie Berta-Thompson Redstone Review LYONS – The Rocky Mountain Botanic Gardens has a beautiful, new red sandstone bench, thanks to a generous donation by Mary Hunt. From 1994 to 2008, she and her late husband Don Hunt were residents of the Foothills Mobile Home Park, on the land where the Botanic Gardens are now. This gift is a bridge between the land’s history as a neighborhood and its new, post-flood life as a public garden. The Rocky Mountain Botanic Gardens is an outdoor space in Lyons dedicated to enjoying and learning about native Colorado plants, taking root between 4th Avenue and Hwy. 7, and between Prospect Street and the South St. Vrain Creek.

The Hunts first lived in Lyons from 1974 to 1978, when they lived on Riverbend Tr. Ct. Don owned and ran a laundromat on High Street called the Wash House, and Mary worked at Longmont United Hospital. Then they moved to Longmont but returned to Lyons when they retired. The Hunts enjoyed life by the river from their home that was located by the current entrance and patio of the Gardens. Don Hunt passed away in 2012. Mary Hunt now lives in Longmont.

Garima Fairfax, longtime Lyons resident and the Botanic Gardens Board of Directors president, recalls how the Hunts “had a beautiful flower garden surrounding their mobile home, with colorful irises that Don generously dug up to share with friends and passersby.” The bench has an iris engraved on it, to honor him with his favorite flower. After filling their yard with plants, Mary Hunt says, “Don ran out of room, so he farmed the other side of the alley, too.” Their garden had a pond full of fish and blooming water lilies, as well as masses of bright tulips in spring.

At the time of the September 2013 flood, the plot of land where the Botanic Gardens is now was home to at

least 37 residents in 13 terested local gardeners, mobile homes, two cabit’s commercially availins and one house, acable and hardy. Lacy cording to an dark veins on the flower examination of records, form nectar guides that kindly provided by Lyons direct pollinators to just Town Administrator the right spot, while also Victoria Simonsen. making the flowers even These structures were more beautiful to mostly destroyed in the human eyes. flood, and the people The Gardens Board were displaced. At the of Directors would like time, Mary and Don’s to extend a warm thanks grandson Joshua and his to Mary for her generoswife Kelly were living in ity and support of our efthe Hunts’ former home forts to create a garden there. The land is now on the spot of her old town property, part of a home. Cathy Rivers, talflood recovery buyout ented designer and Garprogram for high flooddens volunteer, created risk sites, leased to the the bench design. WestBotanic Gardens. ern Stone Company Come spring, there made the bench. A will be flowers blooming group of the Lyons Volaround the Hunt bench. unteers led by Rick DiSLast fall, garden volunalvo installed it between teers planted Rocky snows last month. Future Mountain iris (Iris misvisitors will now have a souriensis) there, as annice spot to sit, surother tribute to Don and Garima Fairfax, president of the Rocky Mountain Botanic rounded by native Mary’s garden. This iris Gardens,scrubs the newly installed Hunt family sandstone grasses and wildflowers PHOTO BY CATHY RIVERS is our local native bench. in the prairie section of species, also known as the Garden, and an imwestern blue flag, and it grows wild throughout the west- portant part of the land’s history will be remembered. ern United States. You might see it blooming in wet meadows on your spring rambles. It is elegant, purpleJessie Berta-Thompson is a member of the Rocky Mountain blue, and a bit smaller than typical garden irises. For in- Botanic Gardens Board.

Happy New Year, Lyons Library lovers

By Kara Bauman Redstone Review LYONS – Start the new year off right by signing up for our very first Winter Reading Program: Warm Up to Great Books. Why Bauman should summer have all the fun? This is Colorado, after all. The program will run from January 15 through March 15, 2021 and features challenges for early literacy, K-12, and adults. Simply log your reading and activities and unlock badges to earn tickets for prize drawings.

We will run the program virtually, as we did with last summer’s reading program.

Access the program and track your activity through the free Beanstack app on your mobile device or via our website.

Beanstack allows parents to manage their children’s accounts so they can help younger ones participate, too! A print copy of the reading / activity log will be available upon request.

Prizes include gift cards to local Lyons shops and restaurants, a one-year subscription to award-winning, ad-free children’s magazines from Cricket Press, an indoor teepee, the Trekking National Parks board game (perhaps inspire what’s hopefully a summer full of family travel?), and more.

Thank you to the Friends of the Library for generously sponsoring this program.

Another upcoming program generously sponsored by the Friends and in collaboration with Colorado Humanities is the next installment in our Colorado author series featuring Sarah Adelman. She is the award-winning author of the memoir, The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes. Adelman will be joining us via Zoom on Thursday, January 14 at 7 p.m.

Please register for the event by emailing info@lyonslibrary.com or by visiting our website and clicking on the Virtual Adult Programming tab under Online Resources.

Even more good news on the Friends front: trivia isn’t dead. While we might not yet be able to gather in person at Pizza Bar 66 for a night of cutthroat pub trivia, teams are encouraged to start binging back episodes of Jeopardy! in preparation for a virtual trivia night. Teams will gather in Zoom breakout rooms from the safety of their own homes beginning at 6:45 p.m. on Thursday, February 11 with trivia to start at 7 p.m. Watch our website, Facebook page, and Friends Newsletter for more information on how to register and donate.

The library now has available for checkout three hotspots. What’s a hotspot?

These devices create a wireless network using cellular data. The hotspot is connected to the T-Mobile network and has unlimited data. The performance you get will vary depending upon your location (the mountains and canyons will be tricky) but tests here in town show a decent connection. You probably can’t stream Netflix to your 60” TV, but you can definitely browse the Internet, check email, and watch some YouTube videos.

You can connect smartphones, tablets, or computers to a hotspot. No device? We also have three Chromebooks available for checkout. Both Chromebooks and hotspots check out for one week at a time.

There’s still time to submit suggestions in the naming contest for Anita Miller’s latest sculpture located at the corner of 4th and Railroad Avenues. Come, visit the whimsical sculpture and dream up the perfect name. The first round of submissions will be reviewed in mid-February.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t take an op-

The library now has available for checkout three hotspots, devices that create a wireless network using cellular data. You can connect smartphones, tablets, or computers to a hotspot.

Three Chromebooks are available for checkout if you do not have your own device. portunity to say farewell to long-time Library Trustee Sandy Banta, whose final term expired at the end of 2020. She served six years on the District Board and was integral in passing our first mill levy and in overseeing construction of the new library facility. We’ll miss her engineer’s mind and great attention to detail.

We welcome new Trustee David Selden, longtime Lyons resident, and recently retired from the National Indian Law Library. The district is still seeking one additional trustee to round out the board of seven and is especially interested in volunteers from Larimer County and BIPOC. One final note, we’ve shifted the hours

we’re open on Saturdays. The library is now available for curbside pickup of materials between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturdays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, and between noon and 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

We’re always available online at lyons.colibraries.org and we eagerly await your call during open hours at 303-823-5165.

Kara Bauman is the Director of the Lyons Community Library and holds an MLIS from the University of Kentucky. She’s an avid fly angler, enjoys craft beer, and in non-COVID times travels extensively to see her favorite band, Widespread Panic.

Happy New Year!

LyonsFarmette.com

PAGE 6

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

EDUCATE Musing on bottled water and the cost to the environment

By Greg Lowell Redstone Review LYONS – Longer ago than I care to remember everyone drank from the kitchen faucet and, in summer, the outside hose.

Lowell If anyone had told me that in the future people would be buying water in bottles, I’d have thought it a hoax rivaling the pan of stringy goo that passed for the “man-eating octopus” I paid a dime to see at a local carnival sideshow.

Granted we’ve learned a lot about what’s in our drinking water (see Flint, Michigan), but the very idea that today consumers pay billions of dollars for water in plastic bottles – water sometimes no better than average tap water – still confounds me.

And the environmental cost of this luxury is astounding.

Consider one of today’s premium bottled waters – Fiji. The label on its distinctively shaped bottle touts that the water “slowly filters through ancient volcanic rock” and “gathers vital minerals that give Fiji its signature smooth taste.” Well, okay, but anybody in Colorado who finds Fiji’s taste compelling should consider that this water is drawn from an aquifer 6,500 miles away, bottled in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles (whose petroleum-intensive production can best be envisioned by imagining each 12-oz. bottle 1/4-filled with oil), then loaded onto one of the many giant container ships that crisscross the Pacific until it reaches a western U.S. port where it is then loaded onto a succession of 18-wheelers (who use 50 million barrels of oil each year in the U.S. to move just bottled water) before it is at last delivered to the local King Soopers to slake your thirst.

If you’re conscientious, you’ll recycle

the bottle but it will be among the only 20 percent of water bottles recycled in the U.S.; the rest with any luck go to landfills but some of the unrecycled 24 billion bottles end up on roadsides or in waterways where they gradually break into microscopic particles that contaminate water and soil and find their way into your food.

Wouldn’t it have been just as easy to turn on your faucet?

protocols in place to ensure the safety of what’s delivered to our homes. While tap water purity varies according to region, the same can also be said for bottled water. The National Resources Defense Council conducted an intensive study of bottled water and found that 22 percent of the water tested contained contaminant levels that exceeded the state health limits. Moreover, in documented taste tests most people

Sure, Fiji water is an extreme case but even locally bottled water carries some of the same environmental price tags, like extraction, shipping and plastic bottles. And while I suspect “green” Colorado’s recycling rates might be higher than 20 percent that still leaves a lot of plastic unrecycled.

Safer? Better?

There have been some horror stories about public tap water, but consider this: municipal tap water is carefully processed and screened for pollutants. There are rigid

could not tell the difference between commercial bottled water and tap water.

Further, muddying the issue are studies that show some of the bottled water being sold is actually municipal tap water. (In fact, according to the Beverage Marketing Association, almost 50 percent of all bottled water sold in the U.S. is tap water that’s been purified.) In theory, you could be buying the very tap water that comes into your home for 300 times the cost.

If you’re concerned about your local

LEAF is eager to host events again in 2021

By Lory Barton Redstone Review LYONS – Happy New Year, Lyons. Like most everyone in our community, we at Lyons Emergency & Assistance Fund Barton (LEAF) are catching our collective breaths this month. It’s our great hope that our work will slow down somewhat in 2021, because this would mean our community is starting to recover from the many difficulties of 2020.

As I analyze the data, I’d like to share that LEAF’s 2020 investment in our community was over 350 percent greater than our investment in 2019. This metric provides important insights: Because of COVID, the need for human services support in 2020 was huge. In spite of COVID, Lyons rose to the challenge and met needs in 2020. And when life got hard in 2020, we all pulled together and people trusted us in tough times.

I look forward to sharing more details as our teams compile year-end data. But for today, these facts speak volumes. Thank you to our supporters – both donors and volunteers.

Thank you, too, to our community for placing your trust in LEAF. If you can partner with us with a financial gift or as a volunteer in 2021, thank you. Too many are still struggling due to the effects of COVID and it’s been a long

season of uncertainty and hardship. Although we see the beginning of recovery on the horizon, we’re not there yet. If you need us in 2021, we’re here. Please visit our website (leaflyons.org) or follow us on Facebook for all the current information.

Lyons Community Food Pantry happens each Wednesday afternoon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. outside of Lyons Community Church. We provide highly nutritious and tasty food, and we’re open to anyone who lives or works in the Greater Lyons area. If good food and healthy community sound good to you, please come to the pantry.

Basic Needs and COVID Grants plus resource matching are available to community members who are experiencing urgent financial needs. Please visit our website (leaflyons.org) to learn how to apply for a grant or resource referral.

Meals on Wheels delivers hot meals and warm “hellos” to people who aren’t able to shop for or prepare at least one nutritious meal per day. The cost of the meals is determined by a very generous sliding scale.

Visit our website to learn more or to request service.

Our Mental Wellness and Addiction Recovery program continues to offer community-based mental health care, usually at no cost. Visit our website or confidentially email mentalwellness@leaflyons.org to learn more.

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helpful services all around our community.

Visit our website to learn more or to apply for help.

We are looking forward to seeing one another “in real life” in the not-too-distant future.

We hope to welcome you back inside the Food Pantry as soon as health experts deem it safe. Our mental health therapist hopes to begin seeing clients and groups in person soon. Our volunteers are so eager to connect more personally with LEAF participants again, too.

And we can’t wait to host some events in 2021. We’ll continue musician-led collaborations with Blue Skye Barn and LEAF’s own troubadour, Arthur Lee Land.

And be on the lookout for volunteer and

water, a better alternative to buying bottled water is to run it through a filter on your faucet or water container.

Big PETs become little PETs. The PETs that comprise most water bottles have the disturbing habit of photodegrading in the presence of light and oxygen. The bottles break down into smaller and smaller – nearly microscopic – fragments that over time enter streams, rivers and oceans and insinuate themselves in the food chain. PETs can also leach into the water in the bottle after as little as 10 weeks of storage and much faster if the bottles are left in the sun, like in a car.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and others have found that PETs are okay to use, but the American Chemistry Council cautions that products made with PET should be used only as indicated by the manufacturer; never reuse anything made with PET. Dispose of it once it’s been used.

(So much for repurposing water bottles.)

More alarming is that one of the PETs used to make single-use water bottles – bisphenol A – is termed an endocrine disruptor, which affects the human endocrine and reproductive system, according to the Endocrine Society. These disruptors change the way the human body makes and uses certain hormones. BPA exposure has been linked to breast cancer and other health problems.

Bottled water does have its place. What would we in Lyons have done after the 2013 flood without the pallets of bottled water that were trucked in? And sometimes the relative safety of a trusted brand of bottled water during travel is necessary. But remember to recycle, don’t use the bottle again and make sure you’re getting more than just resold tap water in the bottle.

And if you really must have pumice-infused water from a Pacific island thousands of miles away, it’s your call. Me, I’ll be drinking out of the garden hose.

Lyons resident Greg Lowell is a Lyons Town Board Trustee and serves as a liaison to the Ecology Advisory Board.

donor appreciation events as soon as it’s safe to be together again. We want to bring our pancake breakfast back this summer.

Finally, it’s not too late to start working on your costume, because we are fully-hopeful that Rave To The Grave will return to its in-person format this year! We’ll keep you informed as we are able to make plans safely. We can’t wait to grow healthy community with you, to spend time together, and to celebrate the strength and unity that makes the greater Lyons area such a special place: 2021, here we come.

Lory Barton is the Executive Director at LEAF, Lyons Emergency & Assistance Fund. Having previously served with local and international non-profit organizations, she’s glad and grateful to partner with so many at LEAF to change our small corner of the world in the Greater Lyons area.

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REDSTONE • REVIEW

PAGE 7

INSIGHT Attacking the capital to overturn a legal election is the type of unhinged performance we are getting used to “When Fascism comes to America, it will be cloaked in American Flags.”

HUEY LONG

By John Gierach Redstone Review LYONS – Print isn’t the best medium for breaking news. In the electronic age, print is better at waiting until the facts are Gierach known and then stepping back to take the long view.

So, I’m at a disadvantage writing this on deadline on January 7, the morning after an attempted insurrection at the nation’s capital that was directly incited by the President of the United States. Just typing that sentence tells me it’ll be a while before that completely sinks in.

Apparently, the idea was to disrupt the normally ceremonial counting of the electoral college vote in a joint session of Congress in order to... What?

Nullify the results of the election in order to install Trump as dictator? That’s what he’d have been if he’d managed to overturn the election, thereby turning the United States into what he previously called the continent of Africa, a shit-hole third-world country.

And of course, this came quickly on the heels of Trump’s now-famous hour-long call to the Georgia Secretary of State trying to get him to change that state’s election results in his favor. It was the kind of unhinged performance we’ve gotten used to where Trump sounds like a spoiled six-year-old one minute and the next like a movie gangster saying, “That’s a cute kid you got there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to her.”

The attack on the capital wasn’t an exercise in first amendment rights, it was sedition pure and simple; an act of treason encouraged by the administration and many Republican members of Congress.

Just in the few hours since this happened, people have already begun to mince words, but if this had taken place in South America or eastern Europe, we’d know exactly

B •R •I •E •F •S Continued from Page 1

Shout out to our local businesses LYONS – The Town worked with Boulder County to provide CARES Act Grant funding for 23 local small businesses and two non-profits in Lyons. A total of $197,125 in grant funding was awarded before the end of 2020.

The staff, the Economic Vitality Commission and the Board of Trustees want to acknowledge and thank our local businesses who are working so hard in this challenging year, following public health guidelines and working together to keep both customers and residents safe.

Show some “Local Love” to our small businesses by shopping or grabbing curbside to-go food in Lyons this winter.

COVID testing sites LYONS – Boulder County Public Health, in

what to call it: an attempted coup.

Luckily, it didn’t work. A few hours later, after the building was secured, Congress reconvened and even Vice President Pence – no great statesman – went through the motions dictated by the Constitution. Ignoring Trump’s instructions to somehow try to overturn the election, he sucked it up and acted as nothing more than a master of ceremonies conducting a formality.

The few foundationless objections some members raised were debated and voted down, and in the small hours of Thursday

that day because Trump and his allies had been telegraphing the punch for weeks, so why weren’t there more officers there? For that matter, once it became obvious what was going on, why did it take so long for reinforcements to arrive?

One obvious reason was that the rioters all happened to be white. If it had been Black Lives Matter protesters who stormed the Capitol building, there’d have been more troops there than you could shake a stick at and not only would there have been no selfies, but they’d have been haul-

morning the votes were certified, making Joe Biden the official president-elect.

We’ll be talking about this for months and in the years to come many doorstopsized books will be written about the Trump presidency, with the election and the violent coup attempt as a final, cliffhanging chapter. One of the many questions that’ll eventually get answered is, what happened with the capitol police? By now we’ve all seen videos of officers stepping aside to let rioters through barriers, not to mention the friendly-looking selfies taken with people ransacking the capital.

Anyone who watches an hour of news every evening knew there’d be trouble

ing the bodies away on flatbed trucks.

It doesn’t take a tactical genius to predict that the Inauguration on January 20 will be the next logical target, so let’s hope they manage to step up the security measures by then.

Biden has a huge job in front of him, but one of the most important will be to decide what to do with what’s now being called the Sedition Caucus. When Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon after he resigned over the Watergate scandal, he said he did it because a trial would have torn the country apart. Maybe it would have, but at least we’d have a precedent in place that a president can be prosecuted for crimes

partnership with Boulder Community Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, will continue to offer free COVID testing in Lyons on Fridays, from 1:30 to 3 pm.

No appointment is needed, and individuals do not need to have COVID 19 symptoms to be tested. Individuals who are 65 years old or older, or who are essential workers, are encouraged to attend. Location: Parking lot of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 200 2nd Ave., Lyons. From 1:30 to 3 p.m. every Friday, weather permitting and excluding holidays. Masks must be worn There is also free testing at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont. Testing is available for anyone who would like to be tested, and individuals do not have to have symptoms to be tested.

Register at https://www.bouldercounty.org/families/disease/covid-19/testing/. Location: Boulder County Fairgrounds, 9595 Nelson Rd., Longmont. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., seven days per week.

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Volunteer – openings on several boards and commissions LYONS – Would you like to have an impact in your local government? Get involved and serve on one of several boards and commissions.

Whether you’re great with budgets, want to save local history or plan a sustainable future, Lyons would love to have your input and service.

There are openings for members of the Budget Advisory Commission, Economic Vitality, Ecology Advisory Board and more. Learn more at https://www.townoflyons.com/180/Boards-Commissions and apply today.

2nd Ave. Bridge construction: new single span bridge for 2021 LYONS – From January 11 to January 15 retaining wall work begins and sanitary sewer work continues. Excavation and grading for the trail under the bridge is anticipated.

From January 18 until early February, retain-

committed in office and we might not have even had a Donald Trump.

But of course, Trump is more of a symptom than the underlying disease. It’s the Republican party that’s been trying to subvert democracy in favor of minority rule at least since the Clinton Administration and an attempt to violently overthrow the government was only the logical next step.

Biden has been making the usual noises about reaching across the aisle to cooperate with the opposition and he’ll have a slight leg up with a one-vote majority in the Senate, but Republicans aren’t the least bit interested in cooperation. Biden had to have learned that when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years.

I used to think I understood how our government worked, but the last four years have made me suspect that was just idealistic propaganda perpetrated by my high school civics teacher. I also don’t know enough about constitutional law to even know what’s possible, but if an attempted coup doesn’t count as treason, I don’t know what does and if the people responsible don’t pay a price, they’ll just keep trying until they finally get it right. (Just picture a Republican president who thinks like Trump, but is smarter, cagier and more articulate.) Biden doesn’t even have the excuse of not wanting to tear the country apart because the country is already torn apart.

Anyone who had anything to do with the attack on the Capital should be prosecuted. And I don’t just mean the rioters who weren’t even smart enough to realize that selfies are also evidence, I mean the public officials who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States and then did the opposite.

John Gierach is an outdoor and fly fishing writer who writes books and columns for magazines including a regular column for Trout Magazine. His books include Trout Bum, Sex Death and Fly fishing, and Still Life with Brook Trout. He has won seven first place awards from the Colorado Press Association for his columns in the Redstone Review. His latest book, Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, was released last June and is available at book stores and fly fishing shops everywhere including South Creek Ltd. on Main Street in Lyons. ing wall work continues. 2nd Avenue and Park Street intersection roadway work begins.

Please stay out of the work zone, as it is an active construction area. 2nd Avenue and the trail underneath the bridge are closed. Expect elevated noise levels associated with demolition work. Work hours are from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. The contractor may work on Saturdays.

Utility relocation work continues along 2nd Avenue. Visit www.townoflyons.com/bridge for more information and weekly project updates.

PAGE 8

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

OPPORTUNITY Looking at the sights and hearing the sounds around me as we enter the new year

By Phil Aumiller Redstone Review LYONS – I know I don’t see everything.

Besides the obvious reasons – dust, darkness, glasses, my oblivious (or is it focused?) disposition – there’s the fact that some things are just hard to see.

I can hear a family of deer every morning by the creek. I know they can hear me as I split wood, but that doesn’t constitute a threat and they choose to keep grazing on the fallen leaves and the longer grass down there that the horses seem hesitant to eat.

They seem to welcome the shelter of the numerous willow trunks propped up in

awkward arches after their rotting bases finally failed in the snow and wind of the past couple of years.

The cottonwood near the house is still resisting its demise.

The roots that lifted the walkway, providing a den for a bull snake the length of my outstretched arms and directing runoff down the stairs into the laundry room, still send shoots through the fragmented asphalt driveway.

The rest of the tree has been reduced to wood chips in the peacock enclosure and fireplace-length logs that can never be split, their interlocking fibers determinedly hanging on to each other against the assault of my axe.

The cat who lives in the barn wasn’t placed there by us. He stays for the dry food we give him – and for the mice. Evidence of his first two years in the barn was circumstantial – feathers, a headless rabbit, a grey blur darting up the ladder to the loft.

For about a month last winter, one of his hind legs couldn’t hold any weight. For a few days we thought he might not make it, and still he never let us near him. This morning when I fed the horses, he rubbed up against my leg.

2021 LCF Advisory Board and staff member. Left to right, top to bottom: Jeanne Moore, Chair; Pam Freeman; Gail Frankfurt; Claudia Kean; Josie Wratten; Ravi Gandh; Kate Schnepel; Tanya Daty, Communications and Marketing Associate; Dr. David Mencin; Ella Levy. Marji Dainty is not pictured

Our perception of the fires started in our noses. Then it became a stinging pain in our watering eyes. The sunsets were orange. Then the daylight was orange and the ash fell like a light snow – a dark snow with visible fragments of pine needles scorched black. Plumes of grey smoke rose from the north and from the south, stretching east when they weren’t directed overhead. We saw flames from our property once, the evening after we packed our go-bags, practiced loading up the horses, established a plan for the birds (open their coops and let them go), and hauled the travel trailer a few miles east, staged for a hasty exit if needed. Thankfully it wasn’t needed.

For the first time in recent memory we are ending the year with more chickens than we started with. This happens when we forget to collect the eggs for a few days and the hens get broody. That instinct carries on after the hatch, as the babies stay under the wing of their mama at night and always within her sight during the day. Her fierce protection endures into maturity.

The kitchen has been my office since March. The living room has been Wendi’s

LCF looks forward with gratitude and hope

By Jeanne Moore Redstone Review LYONS – In this uncertain time of health and economic crisis and political strife, the Lyons Community Foundation wants you to know there is a small advisory board of caring and dedicated volunteers, and a staff member, who work hard to raise money to support diverse non-profit groups whose intent is to improve the quality of life and encourage positive change in the greater Lyons area. We do it because we care.

We care about the economic stability of our local restaurants, shops and art galleries, hair salons, auto repair shops, and health care services – as well as many others who make up our business community.

We care about our residents who need food and assistance in time of need.

We care about our musicians and artists and service workers whose ability to make a living has been greatly diminished during this pandemic.

We care about the groups who want to beautify our community, who choose to teach us about the pioneers who began and grew this town, and those who want to encourage us to use plants and methods to support our native ecology, and those who wish to enhance the education of our young people.

We care because we appreciate the essential services, the outstanding entertainment, and the community connection these people provide for us.

We care because these people are our neighbors and friends.

We are immensely grateful for the many generous residents who appreciate what we do and who helped us come very close to reaching our goal of $30,000 through their monthly and end-of-year giving. You are our angels, and we need all of you so that we can do our work of improving the quality of life, and encouraging positive change in the greater Lyons area. We approach this new year with hope that the health and economic crisis will end, and our community will connect in kindness, compassion and joy!

Happy new year to all.

Please meet our amazing 2021 advisory board and our staff member: Jeanne Moore Chair, Pam Freeman, Gail Frankfurt, Claudia Kean, Josie Wratten, Ravi Gandh, Kate Schnepel, Marji Dainty, Tanya Daty – Communications and Marketing Associate.

And introducing our two newest board members: Dr. David Mencin is the Director of Data Services at UNAVCO (www.unavco.org) and a Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder (https: // cires. colorado. edu). UNAVCO is a National Science Foundation funded university-governed non-profit that facilitates geoscience research and education using geodesy. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and discovered his interest in Geophysics and Geology early in life reading National Geographic magazines at his grandparents’ Continue LCF on Page 13

office since October. Dogs and cats, peacocks and donkey – all have participated in virtual meetings. The roof has been reinforced and re-covered, as have the outside walls. The inside still needs some work.

I wish I could see everything, because everything has something to teach: when to protect, when to trust, when to prepare, when to hold on, when to let go, when to create, always to be thankful.

Phil Aumiller lives with his wife Wendi and their animals just west of Lyons.

Lyons Library presents An Evening with Sarah Adleman LYONS – Join in an online conversation with awardwinning Colorado author, Sarah Adleman on January 14 at 7 p.m.

In her memoir, The Lampblack Blue of Memory: My Mother Echoes, Adleman, a 2020 finalist for the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, utilizes a unique mix of literary techniques to dig to the heart of tragedy and explore the concept of forgiveness.

Limited copies of the book are available now at the library. Call 303-823-5165 to place a hold on a copy.

Adleman was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bangladesh, studied yoga in India, and taught English in China. She earned her MFA from the University of Texas at El Paso and works as a Certified Yoga Therapist specializing in traumatic brain injury survivors. She lives in Denver with her husband, two-year old son, and their 13-year old dog.

Sarah Adleman’s work has been published or acknowledged

by Kindred Magazine, Terrene, Glimmer Train, and America Writers Review. The Lampblack Blue of Memory won a Nautilus Book Award in Lyric Prose / Hybrid Works, an IPPY Award in Essay, was a finalist for the NIEA in Death and Dying, and a winner for the Eric Hoffer/da Vinci Eye Award. Visit the library website at https: // lyons.colibraries. org / to register.

Trivia Night Fundraiser is back It’s Trivia Night with all the fun, but online this time. It will be Thursday, February 11 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Start now to round up your friends and stay tuned for details of how to register as a team. Those who don’t have a team are welcome and will be matched up. Teammates will get to privately discuss answers online then return to the whole group to share responses and hear the correct answers. Prizes of gift cards to local business will be awarded for winning teams. Suggested donation is $10/person. Donations will be made via PayPal and all proceeds will go to support library needs and services.

While we miss out on the in-person fun and socializing of playing trivia at Pizza Bar 66, this online version will make for an entertaining, maybe even educational, evening.

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

REDSTONE • REVIEW

PAGE 9

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT Our flag represents inclusion

By Sally King Redstone Review LYONS – I called a writer friend, Ann Ripley who is in her 90s, to speak with her about the current events in WashingKing ton D.C., knowing as I do how she holds and tracks the heartbeat of the nation. She was fired up and full of commentary. I call her my very own Betsy Ross. Later the same day a friend came by and she noticed how the painting I’d placed in the living room’s most prominent wall looks like a flag; a flower flag, she called it.

So, while I was thinking about flags, I googled our national flag, designed and

sewn by a woman artist of her day, Betsy Ross. And as I read on, I discovered that the Chinese folks who first saw the American flag in 1784 called our flag the flower flag.

They thought it was beautiful like a flower.

And speaking of flower flags we have a new one in our union.

The state of Mississippi said farewell to its imagery of the confederate stars and bars and now has a flag with a dark blue background with a white magnolia flower in its center, adding a diamond star at the top of the circle of stars to represent Native Americans.

Our flag has had 39 iterations, and with each more stars have been added. Our flag represents inclusion, referencing representation and consensus We have the word

Quietly optimistic at Planet Bluegrass

By Katherine Weadley Redstone Review LYONS – There are only sounds of silence from Planet Bluegrass this winter, but that doesn’t mean forever. While plans remain fluid, the Lyons-based concert venue and festival producer is germinating ideas. Craig Ferguson, co-owner of Planet Bluegrass and primary resident of the Planet Bluegrass Ranch, says that “all things are possible” at this point.

The worldwide pandemic first shuttered Planet Bluegrass’ Telluride Bluegrass Festival in mid-June, 2020, and then subsequently the two festivals held in Lyons which are RockyGrass (end of July) and the Folk Festival (held mid-August). All other Planet Bluegrass events have been cancelled as well including weddings and private parties, which Planet Bluegrass also offers on its property.

Staff has been furloughed and tickets refunded by Planet Bluegrass. Ferguson hopes for financial stimulus from the gov-

ernment. This may come from the Save our Stages act for live-music venues, cultural institutions and movie theaters that was approved by Congress. This act is supported by the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) which is a group of over 3,000 independent venues in 50 states and Washington D.C. that banded together to ask for assistance. The bill had bipartisan support and was included in the Heroes Act passed by the House on October 1, 2020.

A diverse group of artists, celebrities, and politicians sent a letter to Congress on June 18, 2020. Those signing the letter included Jerry Seinfeld, David Byrne, Norah Jones, Patty Griffin, Bob Weir, Jay Leno, and hundreds of others. The letter asserts that “ ...every dollar small venues generate in ticket sales results in $12 of economic activity. If these independent venues close forever, cities and towns across American will not only lose their cultural and entertainment hearts, but they will lose the engine that would otherwise be a drive or

Above:The American flag through the years, by Zimand. Far left: The new flag for the state of Mississippi. Center: Sally’s Flower Flag. united in the name of our country. We vote and have women artists like Betsy Ross.

Sally King is a local artist who has created whimsical bears and delightful wild flower economic renewal for all the businesses that surround them.” The full letter can be found on the NIVA website (nivassoc.org).

Ferguson said that Planet Bluegrass might start back up with socially distanced shows in April and finish with a series of weekday concerts in September with folks like Ani DiFranco, Sturgill Simpson, Gillian Welch and others. “We will not stand idly by and do nothing,” Ferguson asserted.

Although Ferguson said that Planet Bluegrass is financially “okay” he said they are prepared for a confusing and challenging year. “We just finished paying off the flood!” Ferguson said, about the sudden and devastating flood that destroyed and damaged lives, livelihoods, and property in Lyons and other communities in September of 2013. “Plenty of festivarians postponed their tickets to next year which gave us a chance to organize the financing.”

“The flood was pretty much just get the shovel out and work. With this, nothing can be done but wait and watch. The flood and the pandemic are two completely different disasters. I spent the beginning of each day trying to figure it out and the last half realizing the foolishness of the effort,”

Dechen Hawk adds musical cheer to mini-parade

By Cristina Trapani-Scott Redstone Review LYONS – December in Lyons typically kicks off with a parade of lights. Downtown streets are always lined with families enjoying the festivities and waiting for the Trapani-Scott appearance of Santa Claus. The Christmas parade in Lyons looked a little different this past December as COVID restrictions put a halt to large gatherings, but even COVID couldn’t keep Santa from safely making his rounds throughout town. Joining Santa and adding musical cheer to the event was indie soul musician and Lyons resident Dechen Hawk.

For Hawk, it was definitely a unique musical experience having his piano strapped into the bed of a moving truck while playing and singing in what was most assuredly a chilly winter night. “I was not really prepared for what it was going to be like to play music while moving. It was quite the experience to be strapped in the back of a truck with the lights and music.

“It was fun to see people come out and bring that cheer,” he said.

Hawk is no stranger to playing for Lyons locals to benefit the Lyons community. He has brought his musical talents to the stage joining Arthur Lee Land at the Lyons Emergency Assistance Fund (LEAF) benefit Rave to the Grave for the past two years. He also has played at the annual Christmas Eve gathering at the Wildflower Pavilion hosted by the Stone Cup owners Mindy and Sam Tallent.

“LEAF has helped support me in the past, so whatever I can do to be part of the community to offer my gifts and talents is what I am happy to do,” he said.

Hawk comes to Lyons by way of Boulder. He grew up in

Two new sculptures, a horse and a buffalo, by Platteville artist and welder Bill Foy are now on display at Western Stars Gallery. the Boulder area and studied music at Naropa University.

Once a regular at such Boulder hangouts as Penny Lane Café and the Laughing Goat, he has been creating and sharing his own music for years as well as lending his talents to other musical projects and events with various area musicians. It is through such projects that he connected with Land as well as fellow Lyons musician Brian McRae. Those connections led to him being recommended to the Town of Lyons for the 2020 Santa Mini-Parade.

Not only has Hawk performed locally, he has performed internationally, and he teaches and coaches songwriters and musician. Along with all that, he continues to write and record original music. He said his music is all about bringing people together. He recently released a single I Want You Around with proceeds from the download benefitting the NAACP. To learn more about Hawk and his music, visit his website at dechenhawk.com In other Lyons arts news, the Lyons Arts & Humanities

acrylic paintings to enhance the appearance of Lyons all over the town. She lives with her husband John King, a kinetic sculptor artist, near Lyons.

Craig Ferguson of Planet Bluegrass said Ferguson.

Personally, Ferguson said he’s been listening to old Steve Forbert music for some reason, “I’m not sure why,” he said. “Got onto it from Dan Rodriquez show, reminded I like that kind of music and then ... well, those were some good old days!”

“I’m getting more comfortable accepting the plain helplessness of it all, but, I also feel very optimistic for the future.”

Commission (LAHC) and the Town of Lyons have announced a call for artists for entries in the heARTS of LYONS – An Outdoor Art Collection All Over Town. The program seeks to add six new pieces to the current outdoor collection. The program offers artists a $750 honorarium for two-year placement in a high-traffic corridor to Rocky Mountain National Park. The window for submission is open now through February 22. 2021. Information for submissions can be found at the Town of Lyons website at https://www.townoflyons.com/668/heARTS-of-LYONS. While Lyons said farewell to Ursa Major, the big bear sculpture outside Western Stars Gallery, two new sculptures by Platteville artist and welder Bill Foy are now on display, a horse and a buffalo. The pieces are rustic assemblages of found antiquated utilitarian objects. They are for sale and a percentage of the proceeds will go to the Lyons Arts & Humanities Commission.

The Baby Bell fundraiser for the LAHC heARTS of LYONS project continues. Bells can be purchased at Western Stars Gallery. In addition, locks from the lock fundraiser are still available as is a small quilt donated by Tracey Barber of Lyons Quilting. One hundred percent of the funds from the sale of the quilt goes to LAHC. The LAHC also was gifted with a $50 donation from Holly Beck of HJB Designs for the lock fundraiser.

Former LAHC member Mystie Brackett currently has a pop-up show of artwork at the Lyons Regional Library.

She has been using her shut-in time to create colorful abstract acrylic paintings inspired by postcards she has been sending to her grandchildren. The paintings, which are for sale, are displayed in the front window of the library and can be viewed safely. For information on how to purchase a painting contact Brackett at mystiebe@gmail.com.

Cristina Trapani-Scott is a member of the Lyons Arts and Humanities Commission. She is a poet and writer who also dabbles in a little bit of oil painting.

PAGE 10

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

FORWARD There’s a $1,000,000 bounty on his head and he can’t go home

By Jan Wondra, Editor Ark Valley Voice. Published Dec. 22, 2020 Redstone Review DENVER – Dr. Eric Coomer talks about preparing for the 2020 Election in the shadow of COVID-19, and what it’s like to have a $1,000,000 bounty on his head.

In a year already filled with the ridiculous, the frightening, the unjust, Dr. Eric Coomer expected some controversy over the 2020 election. But what happened was far beyond what he could have imagined.

“I was just doing my job,” explained Coomer, who is the Vice President of Product Strategy for Dominion Voting Systems in Denver. “It’s been absolutely horrible ... it’s completely upended my entire life. My day-to-day life is nothing like it was and probably never will be again. These kinds of conspiracies – this will not die down. It’s out there. They have stated they never want me to have a day of peace.”

Dominion, the company for which Coomer works, is one of several voting system providers for states and local counties.

They expected the company would face some blowback given the tenor of the 2020 campaigns, he said, but nothing like the targeted attacks that he and Dominion employees have faced.

As has been reported earlier, a marketing campaign claiming election fraud began to swirl even before the November 3 election.

By midnight of election night, unfounded voting fraud claims were already being made by President Donald Trump.

Overnight, a wild array of claims about him and Dominion Voting Systems began to spread on social media (and on sites with names like Tiger Droppings, Godlike Productions, or Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children). Trump weighed in, as did his grown children and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, citing both Dominion and calling out Coomer for creating machines that they said were switching thousands of votes.

Alt-right fanatics supporting Trump quickly focused on voting system employees, put a $1,000,000 bounty on Coomer’s head, and say they began to turn up “proof” that there was a plot against Trump. Coomer published a guest editorial in the Denver Post not long after the election, refuting the baseless claims being made against him, Dominion Voting Systems and the election process.

Coomer spoke with Ark Valley Voice while in hiding. As the Christmas holiday approached, he couldn’t go home.

He first wanted to debunk the claims.

“The conspiratorial stuff just exploded ...

They are just making up stuff. It’s insane.

They say ‘a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on’.”

Later in the interview, Coomer reiterated that his Facebook account was dormant for about three and a half years, until the George Floyd murder. At that point he began posting here and there. He was not the author of the wild posts being circulated, and he doesn’t even have a Twitter handle.

Asked why he might have become a target, Coomer said that the biggest reason is that while there are other vendors in the marketplace “we are a key vendor in some of those key battleground states. Our machines are used in counties that represent 60 percent of registered voters in Michigan. We’re not as big in Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania we’re a smaller player. If you look at Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the (counties) they focused on for fraud aren’t even our customers. We don’t even serve Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) for instance. We do have a larger presence in Georgia and Arizona. That put us on the radar of these baseless claims.” “(These people) say they want the rest of my life to be miserable. And it has been.

It has totally upended what I can and can’t do. I’m very hesitant to go out in public.

One upside of pandemic is everybody wears a mask. But these people have put out my personal address, my personal phone number. They know what vehicle I drive.”

Coomer says he designed and built his house in the Central Colorado area because this is where he wanted to live, and the idea that he should fear for his life from Trump fanatics isn’t just concerning,

it feels like an alternate reality.

After the election, Coomer said he had to Colorado counties.

“I feel like I’m in bizarre-land – these leave his home. He stayed in Chicago where The Dominion systems, say Coomer, are people say some of the craziest things. he was working for two weeks after the elec- efficient, secure, and should there be a I’m expected to respond to that ... what tion. Once he returned to Colorado, he went question of voter intent, every single step I wrote (the Denver Post piece) will not to a secure location and has stayed there. of the vote process is logged and recorded, reach or change the minds of these craThat his own loyalty to democracy is and subject to Freedom of Information zies ... They just dismiss it out of hand. being questioned he says is even more in- Act (FOIA) requests. “The idea that this It’s not going to change could be used to bulk transfer their minds with regular votes is ludicrous,” said facts.”

Coomer. “The system works He wrote the piece, he as one ballot at a time, and says “because people who only a ballot that was identihave known him for years, fied as having something rebegan to call saying ‘what is lated to clarification of voter going on?’ I say – you should intent is touched. You can’t know me better than that. even touch any other ballot.”

But they see so much and at It’s his reputation, says some point they start to Coomer that may never rewonder if it’s true.” cover from the voter fraud Asked about the toll this is claims; every one of them taking on him, Coomer, having been disproved or pauses and there is a catch in thrown out of legal courts. his throat. “On the upside I On Friday, no less than Fox am single and I just have two Business News host Lou cats. My brother is nearby, Dobbs aired a segment refutbut with the pandemic we’ve ing the voter fraud claims. been socially distanced.”

“Honestly I am still adjustHe’s sick at heart over the ing, I don’t know and I won’t impact on his father, a West know for a while, what my life Point grad. “My father relooks like going forwards,” he ceived a harassing letter in says quietly. “At the same point the mail calling me a traitor, my name is toxic because of all telling him I’d be hung or these baseless allegations. I spend the rest of my life in don’t know how I recover that. prison. My father is a decoI had a pretty solid reputation rated Bronze and Silver star; in the industry ... I wasn’t at the a Vietnam veteran.” He forefront, but I would go to added that even his father’s Dr. Eric Coomer has been targeted by fanatic Trump supporters client’s conferences and had West Point alumni groups because he is Vice President of Product Strategy for Dominion Votthe support from both sides of were making statements ing Systems in Denver. Dominion manufactured the voting machines the political spectrum.” against him.

Asked if this hurts, Coomer used in many states for the 2020 election Watch the full interview in sighed. “Oh, it’s horrible. My the podcast: https://arkvalfirst response is to fight back. leyvoice.com/on-edge-theres-a-1000000- sulting to his reputation in the industry. But these are not people that you can bounty-on-his-head-and-he-cant-go-home “I’ve been in elections for 15 years. There change their minds. They are literally / (The Podcast interview of Dr. Eric is always someone out there [one or two], making up lies. I tell them it’s not true, but Coomer by AVV Managing Editor Jan usually on the losing side – that make al- they already know it because they made it Wondra is a copyrighted product of Ark legations that elections are rigged. I never up.”

Valley Voice.) expected for a sitting U.S. President to call Asked what this means to his career, The personal toll is something else. into question my loyalty to the country.”

Coomer says it’s most likely over and he “I’ve experienced everything from anxiety He added that if anything, he thought hasn’t decided what, if any, legal actions attacks to bouts of depression over the last (not speaking on behalf of the company he may take. six or seven weeks. I am seeing a crisis coun- for which he works but only as a Domin“Elections are very public things. I don’t selor provided by the company, but it’s hard, ion employee) that Trump’s followers know if I can ever do this job again. I’ve it’s difficult. It has impacted my ability to do would go after signature verification, not spent the last 15 years building up this camy job. I’m on leave from the company claim that the machines somehow had se- reer, and it’s not for the money. Elections which makes it even harder. I don’t even cret algorithms in them [they do not] that don’t have a lot of money; it’s county and have a work schedule to occupy my time.” would change specific votes. He adds he state budgets. We do everything we can “I’ve been trying to find activities. This never had broad discussions of risks of the with limited budgets. I don’t do this job morning I skied. Otherwise I’d sit and rumi- election with Dominion as a company. because of the money. I really believe it – nate on what has gone on. It’s damaging my “The irony is – one of my key roles has I believe in the democratic process.” mental health and having an effect on my been to champion transparency in the entire Asked what else Ark Valley Voice should physical health. It’s deep and long-lasting.” system,” he added, noting not just his prod- have asked him, Coomer grew thoughtful.

Coomer adds that this is on top of what uct development record, but the technolog- “I just wish more everyday people were the year has been like doing his job and ical mechanisms for third party verification more engaged in what is going on with this. traveling across the country as the pan- built into the voting process. He pointed out This is not just an attack on me. It really is demic has surged. “Election workers the risk-limiting audit designs for the voting probably the most severe attack on our throughout the country showed up in a systems were designed here in Colorado democracy and our democratic institutions. dangerous pandemic to ensure there were working directly with county clerks. Domin“We are not a democracy without trust free and fair elections. I put my health at ion Voting Systems are used in 62 of the 64 Continue Dominion on Page 11 risk, working in a major city [Chicago] experiencing a huge surge in cases, I was there to do my job ... not just me – all of us.”

Start The “There were people in the office I was Year Right… supporting that came down with COVID. I was very concerned ... we all took precautions, but you still run the risk.” The idea that after risking his health to do his Invest In job that he would somehow influence the Your outcome, he says is beyond insulting.

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JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

REDSTONE • REVIEW

PAGE 11

LOOK AHEAD Greenwood Wildlife Sanctuary looks back at a few of the animals treated over the past year

By Mysti Tatro Redstone Review LONGMONT – Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center treated thousands of animals in 2020. Take a look at a few photos of some of the most charismatic wild patients throughout the year, captured by Tatro volunteer photographer, Ken Forman.

Greenwood is the largest wildlife rehabilitation center on the Front Range, treating mammals, birds and waterfowl. Over 200 different species have come through our doors since we were founded in 1982.

Mysti Tatro is the Communications & Marketing Coordinator at Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

For information, call 303-823-8455 or www.greenwoodwildlife.org.

Left to right, top to bottom: This Red Fox was brought to Greenwood after being hit by a car. This photo was taken on July 12, 2020 just 10 days before the fox was released.

This Common Poorwill came to our center on May 1, 2020. Twenty-one days later, it was released back into its natural habitat, not too far from where it was found.

It took the public over a week to capture this Common Loon. It came to Greenwood November 14, 2020, after a wildlife photographer noticed the bird was wrapped in fishing line.

Six Redhead Duck orphans came to Greenwood after they were found wandering around a crematorium. Their mother did not return for them, so they were raised at Greenwood and released into the wild 45 days later.

This Canyon Wren was photographed on November 27, 2020. The bird was brought to Greenwood after experiencing a cat attack.

Two Yellow-bellied Marmot orphans came to Greenwood after they were found in an Arvada resident’s backyard on July 10, 2020. Their mother had not come back for them in several days. We raised them, then transferred them to a rehabilitator on the Western Slope for the winter before a spring release.

ALL PHOTOS BY KEN FORMAN

Dominion Continued from Page 10

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in our elections,” he added. “This is not me saying ‘trust me.’ It’s good; we built the systems to be audited. It’s trust but verify. We have always supported independent audits of not just the results, but all of our equipment. We submit these to independent test laboratories and to independent security researchers to evaluate. All of these baseless allegations are seriously eroding Americans’ public’s trust in elections. That’s the most dangerous thing ... even beyond the personal threats. While I do worry about my personal safety, I worry about our electoral process.”

A recent story, published in the Colorado Sun on December 22, 2020 by Jesse Paul, stated that, “Coomer filed a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, the president’s personal attorney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the conservative media outlet Newsmax, among others. The legal action alleges Coomer, who lives in Colorado and serves as Dominion’s director of product strategy and security, has been the target of a false conspiracy that has harmed his reputation and left him facing threats. The lawsuit also accuses the defendants of intentionally inflicting emotional distress against him and seeks unspecified damages and an order barring them from continuing to spread erroneous information.”

This story is from COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative where stories are shared by Colorado Press Association member news organizations from all over Colo. Jan Wondra is the Editor of Ark Valley Voice.

PAGE 12

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

WHAT’S COOKIN’ Roasted vegetables can make any dinner delectable

By Barbara Shark Redstone Review LYONS – During the holidays I cooked a lot, sometimes with my daughter and husband as assistants. We made smoked salmon for Christmas dinner and spent the afternoon of New Year’s Eve making Shark spinach pasta sheets and ricotta for a big pan of lasagna. Now it’s time for simpler meals.

After these months of staying at home where cooking has become an incessant daily pastime, I have moments of kitchen fatigue when no food or recipe appeals. Can’t we have scrambled eggs for dinner? Or a salad?

I remembered a favorite dish at Basta in Boulder – their roasted vegetable salad. I used that memory to make a warm salad with the veggies I had in the fridge – brussel sprouts left over from the holidays, butternut squash, golden beets, onions and a red pepper. Use whatever you have and like – a few small potatoes, shallots, another variety of squash, a head of fennel.

First preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Peel the squash and beets and cut into similar sizes,

tender and browned.

Squeeze half a lemon over all and serve warm or at room temperature. You might add some arugula to brighten the salad, but it is delicious as is. Serve with a piece of grilled fish or chicken or a fried egg.

Barbara Shark is an artist and author of How I Learned to Cook, an Artist's Life. She lives near Lyons, Colorado. For more recipes, read her blog at www.howilearnedtocookanartistslife.blog.

(about 1 1/2 -inch pieces). Slice the sprouts 1/4 inch thick. Cut the onion and pepper into chunks. Toss them all with a couple tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Spread out on a grill pan or a baking sheet with sides and roast for 20 minutes. Turn the veggies and add chunks of bread (large crouton size), that you have tossed with oil and minced garlic, to crisp up and provide another texture to the mix. Roast another 10 to 15 minutes until all are

Make sourdough pancakes using your excess wild-yeast starter

By Catherine Metzger Redstone Review SAN MIGUEL COUNTY – Many of us have learned to bake artisan sourdough bread during our days home during the pandemic. If you are like me, you are always looking for ways to use up your excess starter so that you won’t have to toss it out on the days when you are called to feed it and begin the fermentation process anew.

Sourdough pancakes are a beloved breakfast item in our home so the lifecycle of wild-yeast starter here is: feed the starter – watch it rise – make the pancakes – feed the starter – prepare the levain – mix and shape the bread – bake the bread – and then begin again.

SOURDOUGH STARTER IS SIMPLE TO MAKE

great loaf of artisan sourdough bread. But once you have sourdough bread making down, you’ll be hooked, as I am. If you are interested in learning to bake wild-yeast sourdough bread, I can recommend Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread for an easy-touse book filled with pictures and step-bystep directions.

And of course, you don’t need to bake bread but if you persist, you will have a nice starter on your counter with which to bake many delicious treats such as these FFA-tested sourdough pancakes.

Let’s begin by making the starter: my wild-yeast sourdough starter calls for 100 grams of flour, 100 grams of water and 100 grams of 50-50 whole wheat and white bread flour. I mix this in a quart-sized mason jar and leave it on my kitchen counter with a cloth over it so that it catches the wild yeast in the air. (There is more wild yeast wafting in the outside air in the spring and summer, but at my house, because we make bread regularly, it is in the kitchen air.)

Every few days this mixture rises to its peak and then falls again and needs feeding. To feed the starter, first remove about a cup of the starter before refreshing it. To refresh, mix into your starter half a cup of water and a cup of mixed whole wheat and white flour. What you have put aside shouldn’t go to waste. If you use it, you can make the most tender, fluffy, tangy pancakes with minimal effort with this quickto-prepare, easy-to-memorize recipe.

Sourdough Pancakes Makes 4 large pancakes; Serves 2; Preparation Time: 5 minutes; Cooking time 10 minutes

POUR USING A CUP MEASURE WITH A SPOUT

TEST FOR DONENESS BY LIGHTLY PRESSING

The wild-yeast sourdough process gives a little rhythm, pattern and deliciousness to our work-from-home lives. It seems difficult but really, if I can do it, so can you, but it takes some dedication and feel to get it right. It took me two years to make a

1 large egg, beaten 1 C sourdough starter (You can use “fed” starter for an even fluffier result) 1/2 t salt 1 T sugar 1/2 to 3/4 C milk or water or more to reach desired consistency 1/2 t baking soda 1/2 t oil or butter, to coat skillet • Preheat a skillet or griddle to medium heat.

• In a small bowl beat the eggs, sugar and sourdough starter. The starter will be kind of gloppy and unwilling to mix at this stage.

• Add dry ingredients and moisten with milk to desired consistency. Do not overmix.

• Just as you are ready to pour your pancakes onto your hot skillet, and no sooner, add the baking soda. Gently but thoroughly mix.

• Pour oil or butter onto hot skillet and wipe excess off with a paper towel. The skillet should glisten with oil but not be pooled with oil or butter.

• Using a cup measure with a spout, pour the pancakes onto the griddle. Let them cook on one side until you see bubbles

back to your touch, it is ready to come off the skillet.

• Serve with butter and maple syrup.

Cooking Tip: Use a very light coating of oil on your skillet. Any excess should be wiped off with a paper towel. Leave the paper towel nearby as you make your pancakes so you can recoat the skillet between pancakes if it looks dry.

The skillet will be ready for the pancake batter when cold water droplets don’t just sizzle in place but when the cold water droplets skitter across the pan.

ADD BLUEBERRIES IF YOU LIKE

that are pierced and beginning to dry, about two minutes, then turn. The pancakes should only be turned once to prevent toughness.

• Test for doneness by lightly pressing the center of the pancake; if it springs

Catherine Ripley Metzger has been cooking professionally and privately since 1979. She was a French cuisine journeyman at the celebrated Henri d’Afrique restaurant in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Today she is the proprietor of the food blog www.foodfortheages.com, and Facebook.com/Food for the Ages. Though she cooks every day in a tiny kitchen with a two-burner stove, her recipes are expansive and she dedicates her craft to living large by cooking well in tiny kitchens.

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

LCF Continued from Page 8 house. Mencin earned his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics and his Master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Missouri. He then conducted his Ph.D. studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. His doctoral studies utilized geodetic tools to understand plate tectonics, earthquakes and the Yellow-

REDSTONE • REVIEW

stone volcanic system.

Mencin’s current efforts are focused on earthquake and tsunami warning systems in the Western U.S. and the development and deployment of next generation strainmeters to study earthquake and volcanic processes around the globe. His work had taken him to over 60 countries, including the re-measurement of the height of Mt. Everest with the National Geographic and

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Boston Museum of Science as part of the Everest Millennium Expedition (1996,1998,1999), the identification of earthquake hazards in Colombia, the deployment and analysis of strainmeter results along North Anatolian Fault below the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul, and continued studies of the dynamics of the Yellowstone hydrothermal system (https://hdylake.org).

Mencin moved from Boulder to Lyons in 2005 and discovered paradise. There is no better town and community than Lyons, especially evident in how the community responded to the floods in 2013.

He is an avid soaring pilot, flight instructor, mountain biker and SCUBA diver.

He currently lives in Lyons, with his amazing wife Andrea Buus, two sons, two dogs and two goats.

The second new board member is Ella Levy. Levy has been a Boulder Country resident for nearly 20 years, and is a native of Texas. She recently moved to Lyons at the beginning of 2020 in search of a tightknit community, access to the outdoors and music. A month-long, leadership Outward Bound mountaineering course

PAGE 13 originally brought her to Colorado. Being outside daily and connected to nature is core to her value set, and she shares in this love with her husband. Though she specializes now as a sales professional in the start-up technology sector, she equally is interested in serving her community and is a former non-profit fundraising professional. She supervised a $2 million grant program which supported engineering projects in developing countries globally and served as development manager and grants writer for a local, contemporary art museum. Levy is also a working artist, focusing on painting, photography and multimedia methods. She excitedly looks forward to effecting change within Lyons, and garnering support for the many vibrant non-profits that we are lucky to have in our backyard.

We gratefully encourage your donations, and your interest in joining our board and group of volunteers. Please visit our website at lyonscf.org, or go to lyonscf.org/give Thank you.

Jeanne Moore is the chair of the Lyons Community Foundation.

Old Man Winter Rally offers a unique and safe event format for IRL Cycling and Running adventure

By Josh Kravetz Redstone Review LYONS – The event industry has been one of the hardest hit during the COVID pandemic with most events either being cancelled or produced virtually. Adventure Fit, a Boulder-based event marketing and production company, saw many of its events cancelled in 2020, yet was determined to get creative in 2021.

The Old Man Winter Rally is a very popular winter cycling and running event, known for its unique mixed terrain courses and huge after party. This will be the seventh year for the event, which is hosted in Lyons. The 2021 version of the event will be a bit different than in past years, but still allow for a fun event experience. The courses will be open from Saturday February 6 to Sunday February 14, allowing for the number of riders and runners to be dispersed. When participants register, they choose a day and start time on one of the weekend day. They can rally their pod or family to ride/run with them as long as the groups are fewer than 10. This number could rise as COVID restrictions lessen. There will be other participants on the course; however registration spots are limited to keep the number of participants dispersed.

There will be fully stocked aid stations, offering single serving packages of bars, cookies, drinks, gels, and more. Water can be refilled using a custom-designed foot pedal for water coolers. Participants’ performance will be tracked using the Ride with GPS app, which will offer turn-byturn navigation and display results on a live leader board. Times will be tracked throughout the nine-day period and participants can run or ride the courses multiple times. Only the registrants’ best times will show on the online leader board. Participants who are concerned about contact

with others can ride or run during weekdays on empty courses; however only weekend days will offer aid stations.

Old Man Winter Rally will offer a huge $10,000 prize purse for top finishers including almost $5,000 in cash for the top five men and women on the 100 km. bike course.

On weekends, there will be foam snowflakes scattered throughout the course. If a participant finds one, it can be redeemed for one of 100 prizes from Specialized, Rapha, OtterBox, and other event sponsors. Leading up to event week, Adventure Fit offers a series of free “Adventure Training Rides and Runs.” These are socially distanced checkpoint training events that bring together the running and cycling community in a variety of Front Range cities.

The Old Man Winter Rally attracts

Olympians and other world-class professional athletes. However it was created to be a fun winter adventure for all abilities.

Riders can choose from the 50 km. or 100 km. course, while a 10 km. course is offered for runners. There is also a Run/Bike combo, which offers prizes for the fastest times on the 10 km. run and 50 km. bike courses. Registration is currently open at http://www.OldManWinterRally.com and spots are expected to fill up.

Josh Kravetz is the president of Adventure Fit, a Boulder outdoor events planning company.

PAGE 14

REDSTONE • REVIEW

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

RECOVERY A Promised Land – Barack Obama’s reflections on his presidency

By Andi Pearson Redstone Review DENVER – When Barack Obama was the 44th President of the United States, he kept a daily journal. After his Pearson eight years leading the U.S., he wrote what is billed as the first volume of his presidential memoirs. A Promised Land tells this story.

“I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidency,” he says in the preface. “I hoped to give an honest rendering of my time in office.” And Obama continues to introduce his process to the writing of this 700-page account of his time in the highest office in the land.

Along the way, the reader learns that “I’m a slow walker – a Hawaiian walker” as Michelle likes to say. But the political path seems to have been a fast one – still, the Obama family might have felt some surprise.

“What are all the people doing in the park (in Illinois in 2006)?” Malia asked “They’re here to see Daddy,” Michelle said.

“Why?” Did he know he would one day be the president? “I’ve never been a big believer in destiny ... I suspect that God’s plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations.” Maybe the forces for change were out there during a 2006 visit to Greenwood, SC, when Edith Childs’ chant, “Fired up. Ready to go!” was first heard and began to work its way into the campaign, energizing crowds at every stop.

Barack Obama was nominated by the Democratic party as its presidential candidate in Denver in 2008. Advisers were put in place, polls taken and the political advertisements began. During the campaign, Obama’s beloved grandmother, Toot, passed away in Hawaii. “She was one of those quiet heroes that we have all across American,” he said of her, “... just trying to do the right thing.” And the campaigning took its toll on Michelle and Malia and Sasha as well and all of this goes

A Promised Land is the first volume ofBarak Obama’s presidential memoirs. through Barack’s mind as election night rolls around.

After the election, the work of governing began in earnest. Obama was facing repair of the economic fabric of the country where thousands had lost their homes due to mortgage schemes by large banks and financial institutions. He surrounded himself with what he believed to be the best advisers and they hunkered down.

The Obamas moved into the White House residence and Marian Robinson, Michelle’s mother, went with them.

“What a gift my mother-in-law was. For us, she became a living, breathing reminder of who we were and where we came from, a keeper of values... ” Family was the centerpiece and the president was grateful.

“To their credit, members of the press would place Malia and Sasha off-limits for the duration of my presidency, an act of basic decency that I deeply appreciated.”

Putting America back on the right economic track wasn’t easy and the Economic Recovery Act passed with zero Republican

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votes. “It was the opening salvo in a battle plan that McConnell, Boehner, Cantor ... would deploy with impressive discipline ... a refusal to work with ... members of my administration, regardless of the circumstances ... or the consequences for the country.”

JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, Bank of America, AIG – all the players in the subprime mortgage securities were in the spotlight. And in June 2009 a package for reform included “... a proposal to increase the percentage of capital that all financial institutions… were required to hold.” And just a short while later, the Consumer Product Safety Commission came into being to “shield consumers from shoddy or dangerous consumer goods.” Progress wasn’t smooth or easy but it was being made.

The Deepwater spill, al-Qaeda, Guantanamo – they all happened during the Obama years. Yet, family time remained a top priority and away from the prying eyes of the media, the four found time to get away and “... with each day of extra sleep, laughter, and uninterrupted time with those I loved, I could feel my energy returning, my confidence restored.”

Saving the economy from likely depression, stabilizing the global financial system, putting guardrails on Wall Street, connecting rural schools to the Internet, reforming student loans – the list of accomplishments goes on. And yet toward the end of the Obama years, “I found myself imaging what America might look like if we could rally the country so that our government brought the same level of expertise and determination to educating our children or housing the homeless as it had to getting bin Laden; if we could apply the same persistence and resources to reducing poverty or curbing greenhouse gases or making sure every family had access to decent day care.”

A Promised Land is thoughtful yet questioning, a deep personal and professional look at what this POTUS thinks and does and how he feels about it, all written in a very human voice and one that acknowledges that family is the basis for meeting challenges and successes in the highest office in the land.

Resolutions

Continued from Page 3

elderly,” and I want to live to be 100, so I’d like to use the process to do that.

“Of course,” you’ll say, “that’s beyond your control.” Yes, disaster and disease, despite modern medicine’s advancements, would seem beyond my process, which may be some kind of superconscious control. However, just possibly, we all may have more conscious input into the whole thing not too long from now.

Consider the “nematode Caenorhabditis elegans,” a marvelous little worm that lives only two to three weeks, and which scientists love because the worms share genes and metabolic pathways used by humans.

With such a short lifespan, anything we do with them brings quick results. With ageing, working with humans takes an enormously long time to show effects.

Well, in working with the little creatures over time, scientists found two things: first, “altering the insulin signaling pathway in worms yields a 100 percent increase in their lifespan; second, changes in the so-called TOR pathway, or target of rapamycin, result in a 30 percent increase,” according to an article by Carly Cassella on sciencealert.com.

Now a new study, available on cell.com in pdf, shows that scientists at MDI Biological Laboratory in Maine have genetically altered both pathways so as to cause a result four or five times greater than the sum of their separate effects. That’s right.

Five times the lifespan from a little genetic tweaking. I want it.

I won’t make getting it a resolution, but I will sign up for the human clinical trials right now. Are they ready yet? What’s taking so long? Oh, well.

Prepare my artificial body, and let the process begin.

Richard A. Joyce died in February 2020.

He was a retired professor in the mass communications department at Colorado State University-Pueblo. He was an award-winning journalist who served as managing editor, and subsequently editor and general manager of the Cañon City Daily Record from 1988 to 1994.

The opinions he expressed in this column are strictly his own, and do not represent in any way the views of anyone else at the Redstone Review. He donated his body to science.

JANUARY 20 / FEBRUARY 17, 2021

REDSTONE • REVIEW

PAGE 15

With family missing in Ethiopia’s civil war, Denver woman says her ‘mind is the hardest place to be’

By Susan Greene, Colorado News Collaborative Redstone Review DENVER – Millete Birhanemaskel, a refugee, long-time Denver resident and businesswoman, grappled with 2020 as many others have: She tried to protect her family, her employees, her tenants from COVID’s reach. She worried about the presidential election. And she managed to keep her coffee shop, the Whittier Cafe, from going under.

She knew already what it was to be separated from the people you love whether that separation comes by virus or by war. And she knew, too, what it was to live with uncertainty and powerlessness because each is a refugee's emotional wallpaper.

But the anxieties of 2020 for her became magnitudes greater on November 3. On that day, as Americans and much of the world awaited election results, civil war flared again in her family’s home country of Ethiopia and her grandmother and two aunts went missing in the shelling.

In the days since, the isolation that has marked this year for so many has taken on a new meaning for her: much of her family is still unreachable and her grief is invisible to most Americans who know nothing of Ethiopia and the trauma of its wars.

“I swear to God I know I look like that crazy woman who is screaming about this terrible dream and everybody’s like ‘What is wrong with her?’ I feel like I’m in a psych ward yelling, but nobody can hear me.”

Birhanemaskel’s head is 8,000 miles away at the refugee camp in Sudan where she was born after her parents fled bombing of their native Tigray in northern Ethiopia under a military dictatorship.

Her immediate family moved to Colorado in 1982, when she was an infant, but her grandmother and extended family have been living back in Tigray since the dictator was toppled in the early 1990s. That is, until last month when a feud between Ethiopia’s federal government and local Tigrayan leaders prompted Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to bomb the region again, inciting a civil war that has killed civilians and forced more than 50,000 Tigrayans to flee.

Since the disappearance of her grandmother and two aunts, Birhanemaskel, 39, has been calling the cell phones she bought them, which go straight to busy signals without even ringing. She has been checking her Twitter feed every few minutes.

She keeps seeing posts that refugees have little food or water as they walk west toward refugee camps in Sudan, some reportedly collapsing, even dying of exhaustion along the way. She keeps hearing that Ethiopian soldiers are raping Tigrayan women and shooting or beheading Tigrayan men, leaving their bodies in the road for fellow refugees to step over. She keeps imagining she is walking

how irritated she is by the post-U.S.-election chatter on the talk radio her husband listens to every morning, how short-tempered she has become with their two youngest kids, ages 4 and 3, whose care her mother helps with.

“Thank God for that because I can’t be present with them and just forget about it, so I just sit in my car and scroll in their shoes.

“As long as they’re missing, I can’t sleep, can’t focus, my phone for news about Ethiopia. This has consumed my can’t enjoy anything because I keep having the most awful entire life. Every minute. And I don’t know how to stop that.” thoughts about what’s happening to them,” she said.

Birhanemaskel, who gave up her Ethiopian passport to She is experiencing what clinicians call “vicarious trauma.” become a U.S. citizen, would not be allowed into the counBut vicarious does not express how close it hits home, this civil war in a country where she has never officially try at this point. So she applied weeks ago for an emergency lived, yet has defined so much of her life. It is the place, visa to tour the refugee camps in Sudan, partly so she can she says, that makes her “most full.” And yet the trauma help tell Tigrayans’ stories on social media, but mainly to her relatives are now enduring is a trauma they and her search for her grandma and aunties, or at least find out if parents lived through four decades ago – and the third they’re still alive. She will fly east when her visa arrives, siege on the Tigrayan people in her grandmother’s life- which could be any day now, and daydreams about spotting time. That story explains why her grandma, whose home them immediately in the camp where she was born.

Her mother – who lived in that camp for several years and knows what she’s heading into – has begged her to stay here with her kids.

Birhanemaskel knows she is risking COVID exposure and a lack of medical care in Sudan, and a long quarantine when she returns. She also knows that posting refugees’ stories could put her at risk of getting blacklisted by Ahmed’s government and forbidden from seeing her family if the civil war ends and if they survive and if they return, once again, to Tigray.

Those possibilities, however unbearable, seem preferable to further neither-here-northereness. From the comfort of her home in Denver, she says, she cannot pretend she isn’t caught in this war “When I weigh just sitting here against what if that happens or what if I get COVID, it doesn’t even compare. I just can’t stay here doing nothing much more.”

Her decision to make the trip became easWithout knowing the whereabouts and conditions of two of her aunts ier last week when, after hundreds of atin Ethiopia, Millete Birhanemaskel says her “mind is the hardest tempts, her grandmother finally answered place to be.”

PHOTO BY MARC PISCOTTY her cell phone.

“We talked for only a minute. She was terwas bombed in the 1970s, hates loud noises. It explains rified. The only thing she would say is, ‘I’m in hiding, why her parents met in a refugee camp and emigrated to we’re rationing water, and where’s my daughter, you’ve the U.S. with a promise to themselves and their kids: got to find my daughter.’ Who could say no?” Birhanemaskel says. “I have to try because my mind is the hardest “Never again.”

“This is literally my own story, the story of why I’m here. place to be.”

It’s just horrific how history repeats itself, how it comes This story is part of a statewide reporting project from the full circle, how my people are continuing to be devasColorado News Collaborative called On Edge. This project is tated,” she said.

Vicarious does not describe the experience of having to supported in part by the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Menstop thinking of herself as an Ethiopian American, but tal Health Reporting and a grant honoring the memory of the rather as a Tigrayan American virtually overnight Nov. 3. late Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal. Our intent is to fos“There’s no way that my country could bomb my family ter conversation about mental health in a state where stigma runs high. If you’re struggling, help is available on Colorado’s like this,” she says.

Vicarious does not account for how on-edge she feels, crisis hotline. Call 1-844-493-TALK (8255).

Jonelle Tucker 303-902-6250 jtucker@realtor.com www.tuckergroupinc.com

On behalf of the Tucker Real Estate Group, I wish you health, joy, and prosperity in the new year!

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