AGRICULTURE & ENVIRONMENT

Cows, Coal and Peaches

My summer in Paonia, Colorado

[This is the first of a few recollections from the summer. There’s too much for one essay.]

Shadow, the farm cat, by some Mustard greens I was growing out for seed

Farm or travel? That’s been the choice I’ve made every summer for the last decade or so. The two options are basically mutually exclusive, or as I’ve often said: “Farming is the opposite of traveling.” This year I picked the first one, and I spent the agricultural season in Paonia, a small town on Colorado’s Western Slope.

The Western Slope takes up a third of Colorado’s area, but contains only 10% of its human population, though also 70% of its water [citation]. All of the region is within the greater Colorado River Basin, and so is part of that system’s ongoing water crisis (more on that later). Paonia is located in the valley of the North Fork of the Gunnison River, which flows into the Gunnison, is joined by the Uncompahgre in the town of Delta, and then merges with the Colorado River in the city of Grand Junction. The Gunnison also carves out the spectacular Black Canyon, which you can visit in the National Park of the same name.

Nikki Hill at Black Canyon