Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Time for a TurnaroundWell, my friends, things are finally looking up, and good timing, too, since I’m sure you’re all sick of me bitching. Recent bike build, including wheels… fun! In what feels like a fairly short time, I’ve come from sitting around … Continue reading → […]
- This Raised My PulseHey, baby… wanna ride? I may be injured, but I’m not dead yet. I can still have racy thoughts. Here’s more info. In other news, UBI was an awesome success! I had a blast. I highly recommend it. Overhaul day…. … Continue reading → […]
- Time for a Turnaround
- Edgy Veggie
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Move trees in order to build whatever? Tough sell.
Boulder isn’t the only city that gets complaints and controversy when trees are in the way of city projects — at the moment, Longmont is going through some of that as they look at a plan to reduce Lefthand Creek’s flood risks:
Residents of the Southmoor Park neighborhood gathered Thursday night at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church to question the necessity of removing 169 trees around the creek in order to expand the channel and reduce the risk of area flooding, according to the city.
The approximately $5 million project, funded by the 2007 Storm Drainage Bond approved by Longmont voters, is intended to reduce destruction in the event of a 100-year flood, according to city officials.
Eagle Crest Elementary students G.R.O.W. their own gardens
Eagle Crest Elementary student rope off their square foot gardens | Kira Horvath
On Earth day, students at Eagle Crest Elementary geared up for the final stages of their year-long G.R.O.W. project. For the project, which stands for Gardens Renew Our World, students were each able to create their own 1 square foot garden with plants like lettuce, cabbage, radishes, spinach and marigolds.
They started in October with “Leave No Child Inside” day by holding a garden groundbreaking where students cleared a 20-by-20 foot area to get ready for the gardens. Then parents and students got together in December to build 20 planters for the project. Read more
List of things that strike Priuses from above in Boulder
The Internet was made for lists, so here’s one.
KNOWN THINGS THAT STRIKE PRIUSES/PRII FROM ABOVE IN BOULDER
1. Trees.
2. Airplanes.
Amazingly, there are zero injuries related to those stories.
If you know of other things that hit Priuses from above without injuring the cars’ owners, please submit them to me by email at dave at big green boulder. If you know of things that hit Priuses and do injure the cars’ owners, I may have to start a sub-list.
Bears are back in Boulder
A pair of bears hang out in a tree Wednesday morning in Boulder.
It’s spring in Boulder. The tulips are blooming on Pearl Street Mall. The grass is finally greening up. And the bears are back in people’s backyards. A momma bear and its cub were found in a tree this morning in Boulder’s Palo Park neighborhood.
Composting workshop this Saturday
Looking to start composting? Get a bin and a workshop for $50 to kick it off this year — clear your Saturday schedule and roll up your sleeves. Read more
Colorado square-foot gardener answers beginner’s questions
A great post for veggie garden daydreamers over at Jacqueline’s Journey. Go check it out and find at least one nugget of information that’ll make your local veggie garden better this year!
7. What are good crops to grow for Colorado’s climate? Colorado has cool, wet springs and hot, dry summers which is pretty annoying to the vegetable gardener. Cool weather crops like lettuce and radish will do great if you get them going early enough but by the time late June’s heat and lack of humidity come along they will require intensive watering and may even stop producing edible leaves. I found that Collards and Kale are cool weather crops that also do very well during the summer months. Other excellent crops are raspberries, onions, garlic, chives, shallots, tomatoes, tomatillos, potatoes, and squash.
8.What was the most difficult thing for you to grow? I have had particular problems growing peppers, eggplant, and okra. These plants require steady warm temperatures or they will drop their flowers and/or fruit or not grow. Depending on your Colorado micro-climate these plants may work great for you or may never get enough heat to be productive.
Found via Tall Tara!
Green Drinks Boulder at Outlook Hotel
Boulder’s first zero-waste hotel-slash-blues venue hosted April’s Green Drinks Boulder event, and it turned out to be a great spot for hanging out with enviro-folks.
Boulder Outlook Hotel and Suites has that distinct swimming-pool smell when you first enter, but two things help you get past that: one, the pool is heated by the sun, which is awesome, and two, you’re headed into the Blues and Greens bar anyway, where the smell won’t follow you. Instead, you can grab an Avery IPA and some conversation, which is precisely what I did.
John, left, and Rick.
Happily, I quickly met up with a familiar face in Rick, who wasted no time in introducing me to John DeFilippi, owner of ecoLogical Lawn Care. We chatted about the recent dandelion protests. John says that there’s no quick solution to dandelions, rather that it takes time to build up a good, thick grass — unless you want to go the chemical route.
As for Rick, we discovered we’re neighbors. Maybe he’ll check out my new neighborhood blog. (Wow. I must be breaking nerd records here, somewhere.)
Soon it was time for our fearless leaders to pick winners for fine prizes, like $50 to Organic Dish, which is another reason you ought to come hang out (as if you needed more than the chance of meeting swell people, as I did this month, and at Green Drinks Boulder’s January and February meet-ups). Read more
Bill McKibben surprises Valmont coal plant protesters (and people are arrested, too)
Diana Best chants "renewable now" with about a dozen others protesters at the Valmont coal plant in Boulder on Tuesday. (Mark Leffingwell)
A small group of protesters gathered at the Valmont power plant east of Boulder on Tuesday to protest the burning of coal for electricity.
The group was surprised when eco-hero Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org and an award-winning environmental journalist) dropped by. Later the police dropped by, too, which shouldn’t have come as a suprise.
In all, five people were arrested for second-degree trespassing. Those were the folks who actually climbed over Xcel’s fence (it’s rimmed with barbed wire) and unfurled a banner on the side of a coal pile that was waiting to be incenerated. The sign read “Renewables Now” and was accompanied by a pair of fake wind turbines.
Xcel didn’t find this all that amusing. In fact, spokesman Mark Stutz called the move stupid. Read more about the protest and watch a video at DailyCamera.com.
‘Furry Vengeance’ this week: developer vs. the wild
What? What is this? I haven’t seen a single ad for this — not that I’m complaining.
Plot Summary: “Furry Vengeance” is a live action family comedy in which an ambitious young real estate developer, Dan Sanders, faces off with a band of angry animals when his new housing subdivision pushes too far into a pristine part of the wilderness. Led by an incredibly clever raccoon, the animals stymie the development and teach our hero about the environmental consequences of man’s encroachment on nature.
The movie opens this week.
Here’s what I would have written for the logline: Read more
What’s in your windpower? Xcel Windsource is more than just wind.
Xcel Energy's Ponnequin Wind Farm
Are you powered with 100 percent wind? (Are you sure?)
If you get your wind power through Xcel Energy in Colorado by subscribing to the company’s popular Windsource program, you’re getting mostly wind, but you’re also getting some of your electricity from hydroelectric (about 7 percent), solar (about 2 percent) and biomass (about 1 percent).
This, of course, doesn’t bother many renewable energy supporters, but it does beg the question: should Xcel change that program’s name? Tireless Xcel watchdog Leslie Glustrom thinks they should — not just because the program is more than wind, but also because the program’s past missteps may have tarnished the brand. (Glustrom has filed a request with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission asking that the name be reconsidered.) Read more
