OPPORTUNITY

By Peter Butler Redstone Review

LYONS – Arriving in a new country is super exciting at first and then a little bewildering. In our first few weeks here we would go grocery shopping and be confused by strange labels and new ways of describing things.

Corn flour was corn starch; rocket was arugula, pastry was crust – it was endless. Somehow we didn’t starve to death. When we made it to the West another unexpected disruption was that all our previous knowledge of wildflowers, trees, birds and butterflies was gone too.

Initially we were only supposed to be here for two years but when I discovered Home Depot at the end of my first week, I knew I could never go back. The old experience of a small expensive selection guarded by surly staff was replaced by a mountain of cheap alternatives. Later my reasons for wanting to stay became the lovely people we met, but after a year or two the biggest magnet was the space.

When you have lived somewhere expansive all your life I expect it’s easy to take space for granted. But when you come from somewhere where space is tight, it makes a lasting impression. The small town where I lived my teens and 20s was tight; small houses with nonexistent yards on narrow streets. You might have a home on a street with no spaces between the houses and no garage.

Say you wanted to improve your kitchen. First you would beg the local council for the opportunity to pay them the equivalent of $250 a week to park a skip (that would be a dumpster) on the narrow sidewalk in front of your house. You would dump all the tear-down waste in the skip and get it hauled away before any of the new materials arrived, and those materials would then be threaded through narrow alleys to reach their destination.

Here you can spread out and leave stuff lying around until you need it. Maybe that’s untidy and a bit lazy but it doesn’t incur the real financial burdens that apply in tight places. You might find a cheap window at a recycle place and keep it somewhere for years until you use it. Try that in England and you’ll be accused

of starting an encampment. Tight countries actually pay a premium of real expenses and extra time consumed working round these space constrictions that spacious places like the U.S. don’t suffer. I think there must be a safety advantage here as well. In the English countryside, the lanes are narrow and winding and frequently have high hedgerows so it is impossible to see who is approaching. If you Butler are walking, or riding a bike or a horse on such a lane it can be scary hearing the sound of an approaching vehicle. Here the wide roads and long clear sight lines make for fewer surprises. I suppose it is the difference of one or two thousand years. When European towns and villages were laid out the roads were gauged to the axle width of a horse cart, whereas when U.S. cities were planned they could see the benefit of leaving more room. Last week I was driving along a quiet residential street in Longmont that had parked cars on each side and yet the drivable road width was still wider than many roads in England.

The land area of Colorado is 7 percent bigger than the land area of the U.K. but the population of Colorado is less than a tenth of the U.K. population. That means there are more than 11 times more people in U.K. than in Colorado. I hesitate to say “at the moment.” Please may it always stay that way. If you do the numbers, it shows that each person in Colorado has almost 13 times as much space as a British person. No wonder it is such a great place to be. And we haven’t even factored in the glorious mountains, forests and grasslands that are so soothing to the soul.

If you live in any of the wondrous cities in Europe, let’s mention Paris, Florence, Vienna or Copenhagen, but there are plenty more, you have walking distance access to the greatest art, architecture and cultural experiences, as well as incredible food, but I still wouldn’t swap them for the experience of hanging out our laundry on the washing line, surrounded by three different mountains and being tweeted at by a yellowbreasted chat. Surely we live in the best place in the world? Sssh, don’t tell anyone. Peter Butler was born in India and lived in a house facing a giant kapok tree. Growing up in England there were trees but never quite enough. After qualifying as biochemist there and a gradual evolution into being a graphic designer, he and his wife Deirdre moved to the U.S. in 1997 and to Lyons in 2000. Finally there are enough trees.

By Greg Lowell Redstone Review

LYONS – Many residents are curious about what actions are being taken to help restore the North St. Vrain River after the disastrous 2020 gasoline tanker spill. The area downstream from the arched bridge was devastated with a massive fish kill and also the loss of aquatic bugs that the trout feed on. The partial good news is that this month Colorado Parks and Wildlife will be stocking approximately 28,000 rainbow trout fingerlings from the Button Rock Preserve downstream to the Apple Valley Road arched bridge.

According to Ben Swigle, CPW fisheries biologist, the young trout will not be stocked throughout Apple Valley as the macroinvertebrate study is not complete and the area has very little public access (a prerequisite for state-funded fish stocking). The young trout will, however, disperse downstream over the ensuing years. While it will be some time before these fish are catchable size, this is nonetheless good news for the fisheries recovery in that area.

Beavers on the rebound locally

I’ve seen evidence of beaver activity along the St. Vrain River for the past three years, but had not seen one until this spring. Lately, I’ve seen a beaver in the Supply Ditch Canal just down from the Black Bear Hole. Three nights in a row, he has been sitting bankside in the canal, stripping bark off young willows.

You can see evidence of his presence by the bare sticks and the castor oil mounds he leaves along the shoreline. The beaver constructs these piles of mud and scents them with oil from his castor gland as his territorial marker, community bulletin board, and matchmaker site all in one spot. My suspicion is that our local beavers are young-of-theyear animals that have been kicked out of the den by their parents in preparation for the next set of young ones and are wandering downstream in search of their own home. Look, don’t catch

I know it’s tempting for anglers to see big fish and to try to catch them, but those impressive fish you’re seeing in the McConnell Ponds (a.k.a., Lyons River Park) are off limits. The two ponds do not allow fishing while the ponds’ ecology is being established. Those large fish are sterile grass carp – notoriously hard to catch as they are plant eaters – that were stocked in the ponds by the town to help cut back on excess aquatic vegetation.

Grass carp can live to be 20 years old and it’s not uncommon for them to exceed three feet in length. At some point the ponds may be stocked with warm water

game fish, like bass and bluegills, and be open for fishing but according to Lyons Parks Director Dave Cosgrove that determination will be made once an assessment of the ponds is done to ensure that the ponds can support them. So, be patient (like all good anglers) and look, but don’t fish in the ponds. Sometimes we need to be reminded The current debate over the renewal of Cemex’s mining permit in Dowe Flats should be a reminder to all of us how our current lifestyle impacts the environment. Yes, the plant is one of the largest Lowell emitters of greenhouse gas in Boulder County and, yes, the plant itself is considered an eyesore by some. But it’s hypocritical of those who wish to deny the plant its quarry renewal or insist it be shut down while not considering the millions of cubic feet of concrete (made with the cement Cemex produces) used annually in our profligate growth here on the Front Range. The explosion of growth in towns like Longmont or the complete transformation of 30th Street in Boulder are examples of how cement is used. Every once in a while, we need to be reminded by the presence of industries like Cemex of the environmental cost of our lifestyle. It’s good that we see “how the sausage is made” in order to dedicate ourselves to a more eco-friendly, less growth-intensive way of life.

Rainbow trout fingerlings will be stocked this month in the North St. Vrain River. The fingerlings lose their dark spots as they get older and their rainbow colors come in on their bellies. Lyons’ resident Greg Lowell, is a former Lyons Town Board Trustee and serves as a member of the Ecology Advisory Board.

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