Postcards From Palisade – Postcards From Palisade

E31: Growing Grand Valley Wine with Richard McDonald of Grand Valley Enology, Colorado Vintners, and Cliff Dweller Wine

Today I’m joined by Richard McDonald. Richard and his wife, Aly McDonald, own Colorado Vintners and Cliff Dweller Wine, where they make a couple of my favorite wines in the valley. Their newest venture, Grand Valley Enology, is an on-site wine lab that provides juice and wine chemistry analysis to grape growers and winemakers in the Grand Valley. Richard’s goal is to provide lab services for everyone, from commercial wineries to home winemakers, to improve the overall quality of wine coming out of the Grand Valley and to save everyone some money along the way.

Richard has had an expansive career in the wine industry, working all over the world in some of the top wineries and vineyards. We chat about his experiences working in Australia, Napa, New Zealand, Europe, and back again, why he and Aly decided to open a winery and lab in Palisade after all that, and the best things about owning a winery in a relatively young wine region. Richard also expands on why he wanted to start a wine lab, why it’s important to have a local lab resource, and what he and Aly are getting into next.

More about Richard and Aly’s projects at coloradovintners.com
Email them at lab@vincollect.com

Theme Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

All that and more, on today’s Postcard from Palisade.

RM: My name’s Richard McDonald. We had a great idea at the end of 2019 to start our own winery in Palisade in 2020. And we moved here the 1st of March, and then we all know how that kind of went down. but it gave us a lot of opportunity to kind of think, about what we wanted to do. So prior to harvest 2022, we started where we are right now, which is, Grand Valley Enology. So we’re a. We are what, I like to call crush pad to finished wine focused, wine analysis. So we kind of focus more on the winery side of once you press your grapes to tank, we can do juice analysis, we do juice panels.

I moved to Colorado and started working with Bookcliff in 2018, and I was just like, how do you do? You know, we did very basic, just wet chemistry, ph, sulfur, and that was about it. And I was like, hey, how can we do checking, you know, potassium levels and tartaric and malic and, you know, everybody. And even still right now, a, lot of people send to ETS labs, which is like, kind of a gold standard lab in California, and you have to pay the overnight shipping charges plus the sample, you know, you’re looking at almost $200 a sample. It’s, like, quite, quite expensive. along with it gets lost in the mail. So you pay for overnight, and it takes three or four days. And by that time, your juice is fermenting, like today is 100 degrees. So if your samples are warm and then they sit in the mail truck and. Yes, and it’s hot in California as well. It goes across Nevada desert. Yeah. So it’s not. Not ideal, you know, especially when you spend big money and you don’t get the accuracy that you want.

my background, you know, I mean, this year is, like 20, 22 years in wine. So I started, my first harvest was in 2003, just like straight out of high school. Just worked in a cellar, just got a job. I’m from Australia, obviously, and, the area I grew up in, Griffith, that’s got. There’s a big winery there. Yellowtail is kind of like a really big international claim to fame, but there’s a lot of other wineries, big scale wineries there

LM: I’ve had some of that in my day.

RM: Yeah. So it’s, you know, it’s just well known. That’s everywhere. literally everywhere. so it’s a big ag area. in general, it’s very similar to Palisade in that it’s irrigated desert. So we have a large, river that runs close by, and then it’s irrigated ag land. so there’s some big wineries there. Yeah. The winery I worked in was considered smaller. And, you know, we did 25,000 tons, like seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And then I kind of enjoyed it. And then that was also met. There’s a lot of international people, French and German guys working in the cellar. And they were, at that time, they were like, oh, yeah, you know, we travel, we do this Australia back to Germany or back to the northern hemisphere, and you can do this, what they call the endless harvest.

And, I had a good friend from high school, and her brother was actually the winemaker at that. Ah, he’s like, oh, yeah, you should, like, you know, you could go to. There’s a college 2 hours away, Charles Sturt university. They got a great program. And he’s like, yeah, it’s a great job. And I was like, okay, cool. And I applied. I took a gap year in that year. Just worked a lot of that. Worked that for six months. And then odd jobs out of season. And, yeah, planned for University, got in, and then kind of the rest is, you know, history, so to speak. Did a lot of Australia, and then I did the endless harvest for about six years. So between Australia, New Zealand, yeah, to Europe, back to Australia, the US, back to Australia. And then, met my wife, Aly. And we were both, just working in wineries in Napa, California. it was before smartphones, so, yeah, we just met at a bar the old way.

LM: the old fashioned way.

RM: Yeah and we got married in Australia. So I was working there again, back in my hometown. But then the opportunity came back up to come back to Napa. And, so we lived in Napa for six years, where I was very lucky enough to work in some very higher end. Kind of is probably a good way to describe it, where, you know, quality was the number one priority at all times. which is the basis that Grand Valley Enology is focused on. Because once, you know, you start a wine brand and anyone can start a winery, and then. But once you start going out into retail or restaurants, you, know, it’s perfect timing, but it’s like that’s the Olympics every day, like, you come up against the best wines in the world every single day, once you step outside of your tasting room. And the best wineries in the world are, doing this sort of stuff, like all the time, checking their lots, checking their wine. you know, that’s kind of the goal here, too, is, we have our, winery cliffdweller wine company and our tasting room, Colorado vintners. And it’s just building the brand of Colorado wine, improving consistency, improving quality, because also in the general market, Colorado wine is a little bit on the expensive side. Just when you talk about a lot of wine, consumers are very kind of conscious. They want good value and they want really good quality. That’s what we’re here for, to help build that quality that consistency. And I’m a big believer in all ships rise with the tide. you know, whoever it is makes a great wine, gets good write up, helps everybody out.

LM: Yeah, that was one of the questions I had, which was, you also kind of represented the same, attitude through vintners. You know, when you were starting up, you’re bringing in other wines from around the grand valley and around the, around Colorado, from west elks, and kind of pouring them side by side with your wines. So I can see this being really tied into that same concept where you’re not just kind of focusing on, like, this is all we do. It’s only us. It’s more about the community and the wine community in general.

RM: Yeah. And, you know, it’s a pretty exciting time right now in Colorado wine. you know, I have, some vendor friends that come out, you know, selling barrels and whatnot. and it’s always, it’s pretty funny. They’re like, man, I feel old out here because there’s a lot of, you know, you want to say young blood, but there’s a kind of, a little bit of a younger vibe. There’s definitely, you know, a lot of the founders are still around when. And it’s crazy to hear where. You know, it was only 20 years ago and there’s only six wineries in Colorado, and now it’s close to 200. but they’re great resource. They’ve seen it from a tiny thing all the way up to what it is now. but it is, you know, there’s lots of youth and enthusiasm there, I think is probably a good way to put it.

Well, I just grew up and that’s how I shop, too. You know, I want good quality stuff. And I do like to support local and the Colorado vintners idea for our tasting room. when I first started with bookcliff, so that’s. The winery is based out of the front range near Boulder. And so I was living on the front range and we’d come out. They own vineyards out here. They farm 50 acres out here. so we’d come out quite regularly to vineyards. get caught up doing vineyard work all day. And then you finish about 4:30, 5. And you’re like okay, I’ll try to do some tasting rooms. And everything was already closed. And there was a few less back then, too. But it’s very spread out, too, you know, where if you try to catch some places, you know, kind of ten, five to ten minutes away from everybody. and then Aly has an extensive background in restaurants. At the time, there wasn’t really a Colorado wine bar. there was the cafe. They had a whole bunch of Colorado wines, but it was a little, you know, they would kind of had weird hours.

LM: It was more food focused, too.

RM: And it was a cafe.

LM: Yeah.

RM: And so that was the original concept behind Colorado Vintners is. Anybody that came to visit Palisade, Grand Valley, we just wanted a spot where you could taste four or five or a handful of wines and be like, dang, man, Colorado wine is awesome. You know, just blow people away. because that is kind of a small problem in Colorado wine. you know, you can have two, three great wines and there’s kind of not a great wine and then just that consistency factor. And so, you know, you always remember the bad stuff and then you forget the good stuff.

and then it was also, you know, we were right in Covid probably in 2020, and it was kind of just helping to promote a few, like, we’re very lucky. We’re in a great location, kind of right on highway six here. And there’s a lot of great wineries, but it’s a drive, you know, so Mesa park is a good, you know, it’s not around anymore, but it’s 20 minutes drive from Palisade out to there. and then we had, chill switch and cedar edge is roughly an hour away. And a lot of people never heard of it. They didn’t even know that exists over there. So it’s, you know, you can take kind of that back, way back to Denver and go through Cedaredge, then go through Hotchkiss Paonia. Yeah. And then, So we, you know, we have always kind of have some storm cellar around, really great friends with Steve and Jamie. They’re doing an amazing job out there. I don’t know how they do it. And crazy. And then, yeah, along with Alfred Eames and, Qutori, when they have stock available. So. Yeah. And it’s just focusing on a little bit of, hey, you know, it’s just along that same theme of, hey, you know, it’s worth exploring. you know, everyone kind of knows the big wineries right off the highway. But there’s a lot of other cool stuff going on too.

LM: Yeah, absolutely. Well, so coming back to Grand Valley Enology, this is, like you said, this is really unique. So.

RM: Yes.

LM: there isn’t necessarily anything like what you’re doing here. Right. for any of the wineries around town who want to do this sort of testing on their samples, they’d either have to invest in all this equipment themselves, or they’d have to ship things to California, which you already kind of talked about the pitfalls of that.

RM: Yeah. So that’s exactly nothing like this really exists. for the winery side. that’s true. You know, it gets expensive very quickly. You can do some very basic stuff, very cost effective, but then once you get outside of the basic stuff, it gets expensive very quickly.

LM: So what sort of, services do you offer? Here, like, what kind of testing do you do and how often do people, like, how often would winemakers need to do these things?

RM: Yeah, so we, you know, it started out with, basic, just juice analysis. So, you know, for your juice panel, you want to check like the gluc fruc, which is glucose, fructose, two main sugars in grape juice, along with like your malic acid, tartaric acid, potassium, and your yam, like your yeast assimilable nitrogen. So that’s kind of the nitrogen available for your yeast fermentation. So that’s where you do, supplement to have a healthy ferment because you can’t otherwise the yeast don’t get happy. And then there’s a lot of off aromas or you’ll get stuck ferment. And that can lead to. Once you have anything with sugar in it, everything else likes to grow in it too, you know. So the yeast are quite great at kind of out competing all that stuff. But then once they’re not happy, everything else kind of moves in. It’s like guerrilla warfare going on in your ferment. And it’s a fine balance. you know, eliminating those problems early on is 95% of the way there to making a great wine. Like, you just, you have, you have a great ferment, you make a great wine. and then it all comes down to not ruining it later on. Yes. Yeah.

LM: Yeah And you need to know what you have to work with to know what you need to do. Right.

RM: Yeah. So, like, yeah. And that’s, that’s how it started out. I just asked around a lot of the wineries here. What are you currently doing? hey, if we were to invest to get this going, would you support it? Like supporting local and. Yeah. Very lucky that a lot of people jumped on right away, like, yes, because that’s, we work around the. We try to have people drop samples off in the morning. We try to same day turnaround, if not turnarounds done by noon. And just with my experience in the winery, it’s like, okay, I press the tank, I get my juice, get my samples in analysis, and then I can rack the tank that evening, get the yeast in, get my additions in, and then like, in the same day. So it’s like trying to help. Yeah. Otherwise you would ship it out and waiting three, four days, and then by that point you’re like, okay, I’ll just shoot from the hip and do a couple things.

LM: It might have changed along the way. So. Yeah, that’s. Wow. Yeah, that’s a huge benefit to the community.

RM: Yes. And then it’s also, we try to do it as cost effective as possible. Cause we’re a small business. A lot of everyone here is a very small business. So, You know, this is a very crucial step, I believe. So if we try to make it as cost effective. so the savings alone, You know, if you’re sending 10, 15 samples out, you know, hopefully we can almost save you like a couple thousand dollars there. that hopefully you are able to reinvest into, you know, maybe a new barrel or a cellar some help, you know, because everybody’s like, labor is very lean, you know, and it’s the hours are long, and then sometimes you’re like, oh, well, I’ve already worked 15 hours. I’ll wait till tomorrow. And then tomorrow can be too late. So it’s hopefully everybody’s able to reinvest in the quality, you know, so very quality driven.

LM: Yeah. Yeah. So you do the testing on the front end. And then you were mentioning you also had some equipment now to kind of do the final analysis to determine the alcohol content.

RM: Yeah.

LM: At the finished product end.

RM: Yeah. So yeah, we can You know, we’re very lucky. We were awarded a grant for the farm to market. So we were able to invest in a couple of new pieces of equipment now. So we can now do the majority of your wine analysis. here in house. We can do all of the juice plus then monthly, monitoring. So you know, your monthly. If you have a barrel program, like, like your monthly cos sulfur, monitoring, along with va. So you can kind of find problems very early. It’s probably the one big difference. Like I worked at, you know, working in Napa, we had 90 different lots of Cabernet sauvignon. Right. So if you had one or two that went great. It’s okay. We still got a whole bunch more to like make a great blend where here you may have one lot and it’s in two barrels, so you can’t really afford anything to go wrong. Or it’s like one lot in one tank. And this is all I got. So it’s a little bit more important to. And it’s. It’s also much harder. It’s smaller lots because smaller lots go bad quicker. So we can do all your monthly monitoring for sulfur and va. And then also like post ferment in red wines if you’re doing secondary malolactic fermentation. We can monitor your malic so you know, when it’s finished. so you can get your sulfur in preservative or you can, you know, there’s a lot of bio controls now so you know where you’re at. And, and then we can do your pre bottling analysis which is kind of your sulfur and any kind of chemistry you’re looking to touch up at the end. and then we can also do alcohol now. So. Which is for your labels. Yeah, it kind of gets important with your labels. Labels and federal regulations and stuff. So we can, we can now run alcohol analysis.

LM: So it’s a full life cycle of anything that you would need to do during winemaking process you all can do.

RM: Yeah. And then you know, we’re also here like if, if you are, we have a couple clients where, you know, we can kind of see their analysis and we do a little like some very basic tracking for you where if we see the results and we can kind of say, hey look, I’m not sure if this is the same lot, but you had one with the same name and we could say, hey look, you know, this is your va’s creeping or something’s going on.

LM: Yeah, very cool. And so you do all the same things, I’m sure, with your wines too. So it’s just a nice benefit.

RM: Yes. Yeah. And that’s, that’s comes out of just working. just where we went, where I worked in Napa, it was like every month we would do this. And it’s, you know, because obviously you’re dealing with a lot more, you know, great expenses. You know, it’s much bigger, kind of operation. We can’t afford to have anything go wrong. So it’s like your monthly checking and. Yeah, no, so it’s a big, it’s a small investment in your product, but then it does make a better product at the end. And then there’s consumers like yourself and everyone coming in every day and they appreciate, I believe, you know, they can really tell when people are caring about the product.

LM: I’m sure you can’t talk about who uses the lab, right?

RM: no, we can’t. But you know, it’s a large majority now, like probably more than half the wineries in this area now.

LM: wow

RM: So we’re like. And we’re gaining a couple more. I got a couple of new ones, just in the last few months doing like some pre bottling stuff. And then. And Yeah, so it’s slowly growing. and then we are Just because we’re just being really light staffed is a good way to put it. We do a lot of stuff here. So we’re now slowly opening up to potentially where front range people could ship it and ship samples in. Because that’s one beauty in Colorado is like, you just have to do ground freight overnight. Like from, especially from Denver to Palisade, it’s overnight just paying the, you know, $12 ground shipping.

LM: Yeah. And you’re just crossing the Rockies, so it’s not like you’re going across the Nevada desert. Or anything like that.

RM: Yeah. Hopefully not too hot. Yeah. You just need like an ice pack in there. You know, the ice packs wear out, after, like two days in the desert. Yeah.

LM: Yeah. Well, that’s so cool. So, I mean, that’s a lot to keep up with because you. It’s probably the busy times are also when you are busy with vintners and cliff dweller.

RM: Yes. Yeah. So that’s, You know, I’ve been very lucky. you know, Hillary Eales with Mafia princess. she’s kind of been here from the day one. And she really helped us get off the ground because they were like really small. She had some extra time. And, then, now it’s getting to the point where I’m able to, collaborate with the CMU tech and Ryan. And, about to a hire an intern from their program, there. And it’s, it’s also because, you know, I did enology at university and you learned like, all these manual ways to do stuff. And I can say I’ve never done half of that stuff ever. You know, you do the test and that’s the last time I touched any of that equipment. But this equipment that we have here now is you could, gain experience here and you could go to pretty much any winery, any wine lab almost in the world. And it’s very similar. Yeah.

LM: That’s so cool. That’s such an exciting thing to have here. And it just, it’s awesome to hear that. It’s been really well received and people are

RM: yeah And we do, you know, if there’s any new wineries out there, and if you’re currently sending your stuff out or if you’re doing it in house, we do offer, you know, we’ll do one or two samples for you, like where you do it your way, we run it here. you know, we just ask to share the results so we can double check. And, you know, we want everyone to be happy with the results. So that’s the worst thing is like you pay money for results and then you’re like, man, I don’t even know if I can trust this stuff. Yeah. So, you know, and I get that too. You know, I have vendors and you’re like, okay, well I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing this the same way for five years. Why would I change? And it’s like, okay, so you know, and that’s hopefully the benefits of being able to drop stuff off and you know, do your vineyard sampling. You know, I did some grapes this morning and you know, vineyard sampling in the morning. get the results back today and they’ll pick tomorrow maybe, or they updated their irrigation for tomorrow, they want to pick next week. Or just that benefits of being in, in the area.

LM: Yeah, absolutely.

RM: It’s like you can drop it off and then you know, go to the brewery or Fidel’s or whatever for a beer or something and then we’ll have the results back to you and then you can go back to work in the evening and yeah, do your racking and get your stuff done. Yeah. Kind of how it works in harvest time.

LM: It works, yeah. Have a little date night, go out for dinner and then go home and keep working. I love it.

RM: Yeah.

LM: so you mentioned that when you, where you grew up and where you first started working in a winery is a similar climate to here. And then you’ve definitely got a similar situation where it’s a desert, irrigated type situation.

RM: Yes, yeah yeah.

LM: so does it feel familiar at all to you now working here, working in New Mexico, to where you first started off or are there big differences?

RM: It’s a little different, yes. My immediate family, my cousins and uncle, you know, they own vineyards still. it’s kind of good to talk to them because I’m like, oh yeah, you know, look, I’m pruning this little one acre lot, you know, for free grapes. Like I do a little work and they’re like, man, you know, cause it’s obviously at one point they had, you know, little over a thousand acres they were farming themselves. And it’s very mechanized though. So, you know, big tractors, everything’s mechanized machine picking, that kind of thing. So it’s very different and it’s great to chat with them about that. here. Yeah, I love the climate here because it, you know, I love snowboarding and it’s great because we do get a winter time here and it’s. But actually the winter time here is like quite mild, like living in the front range. And you get that two, three weeks where it’s single digits. It’s or the snow will hang around for a few weeks. Yeah. Here it’s great. Like, you get the snow. Okay, back to sun. And that’s kind of weird because then you just go 20 minutes up to powderhorn and it’s like blizzarding. Yeah.

LM: Yeah it’s great, I love it.

RM: So here, obviously, the one main difference is the elevation. where I grew up is only, was 250 meters. So it’s like 1200ft above sea level, like, much. So we don’t get the, the extremes. definitely late spring frost is a. But, you know, it doesn’t get. We don’t get the extreme cold die back. They can grow any kind of grape variety. Where here. There’s some grape varieties. Don’t work great because come January, if we get single digits, they don’t. They don’t like it.

LM: Right, right.

RM: You get the winter. Kill. Yeah. But, Palisade itself reminds me of where I grew up. Where I grew up is a little bigger. It’s like 20,000. But the community here in Palisade is awesome. you know, now we’re part of the business community, just along with all the other. The old part of the community, if you want to call it that. I think that’s the. It’s a crazy thing in Palisade. there’s just a great community vibe going on here, which I think it’s crazy. someone else explained it and then I was like, oh, yeah, it’s like very relatable in, you know, my in laws come visit sister in law, brother in law. And it’s like, all right, let’s go to the farmers market. And as anybody probably knows, you only get about like 50ft into the farmers market and you’re like, oh, hey, hey, hey. You know, like chit chatting and it’s like an hour’s already gone and you haven’t gotten anywhere. And they’re always like, man, like, do you know this whole town? And it’s like, well it’s a small town and it’s like. But it’s just that community, you know, they come from a community where they probably. They don’t really know their neighbors. Yeah. So that’s. That’s like a really cool thing here in Palisade. I love living here in Palisade. our kids go to school in Palisade, three blocks away. It’s great. Yeah.

LM: So just in terms of Winemaking though, was there anything about this area anything about this area that surprised you that you didn’t know coming into it or grape growing or winemaking that was different than anywhere else that you’ve worked? Because you worked basically everywhere.

RM: Yeah. So what’s really unique here is you know, we have a very unique climate here. It is kind of on the verge of like Palisade is very unique in. It’s on the edge for grape growing. And you know we have a very unique microclimate here in the Grand valley. Obviously guys in West Elks at 6000ft and you know, down south in Cortez at high elevation are much more on the edge than we are. They’re a little closer to the edge. We’re kind of behind the safety rail a little bit here. And it’s also really great in I don’t know how to put it but you know, like a lot of more established regions have. And it always comes up sort of here and there. But you know like Napa has Napa cab, right? So it’s like kind of like. That’s the thing. Right?

LM: a defining thing.

RM: And then like Willamette has pinot. So it’s like very defining where here much broader scope on varieties that can grow. It also has sort of a much shorter history. So a large part of people here are still like trying to figure it out. You know, like what does grow really well here? Because it’s like, okay, is Cab Franc great? And Cab Franc is great. But then you have a. We had a. You know, the winner kill year in 2020 and those didn’t survive too well. And so a few other things came up. You know, there’s teroldego goes makes a great one. Chenin Blanc is like really great. So it’s like there’s just like this opportunity here to make great wines with a number of different varieties, that are kind of all in the mix and they’re all great. And without being like, hey, I’m just here for the big. The big guy, if that makes sense.

LM: Yeah. So there’s no. It’s like there’s nothing that There’s no kind of legacy that you’re forced to follow. I guess you can be a lot more creative and try to do things and still learn.

RM: Yeah, exactly. You can be creative and I And it’s also. Ah, people. There’s you know, Colorado has like a bit of a stigma with the natives if you want to call that like it’s, you know, people tried it 20 years ago and you know, admittedly it wasn’t great. I know the first time I came to Colorado, man, it was like twelve years ago and there was a Colorado wine tasting on the front range in a liquor store. And look, it wasn’t great, you know, and there was a couple great ones, but it was like very hit and miss. And you know, we do some markets on the front range and everyone kind of thinks that all Colorado wine is like, all they do is like sweet wine or just this one style of wine or it’s fruit wine or you know, the mindset is there and so, but there’s kind of a lot of younger people, if you want to put it that way, or new people to the state a little more, adventurous, you know. And we’re able to do that here and it’s, you know, there’s, and that’s also cool, like if you, from a wine agritourism point of view because, it’s not like you can go to five different, five wineries here and it’s like, like here’s the same wines. You know, you go around and it’s like different at every place. you know, sparkling wines gaining traction here and there’s some people making some awesome sparkling wine and so, you know, even that’s unique as far as like if you came out for a weekend and traveling around.

LM: Yeah, no, I totally get your point though. It’s like, so I grew up near the finger Lakes region in New York.

RM: Oh yeah.

LM: I worked there for a season. I think I worked in the wineries and it’s like, you know, Riesling. Riesling is the girl there. But there’s tons of other great wines. But you would go, you could spend a whole day just drinking Riesling and comparing Rieslings. Yeah, I mean you can’t or wouldn’t want to do that same kind of idea here. You won’t want to just go taste a rose everywhere, right?

RM: Yes.

LM: Everywhere has a full portfolio of wines that they can make.

RM: Yeah. And that’s you know, and then it kind of helps a little bit too, because it’s like, hey, go here. They make like a great, you know, this variety and then this place makes this really great and it, you know, and yeah, so it’s, I say it’s great for the consumer along with like, hey, you can go rafting in the morning and then wine tasting afternoon.

LM: Right.

RM: mountain bike for a day and then wine taste the next day while you’re recovering and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Then this is like a super unique little, wine area that, you know, that’s very different. And, you know, there’s obviously a lot of outside aspects, kind of, you know, you’re asking on this uniqueness here, and it’s, you know, I love the outdoors. I don’t get a lot of opportunity to go to the outdoors, but it’s all like, right here on outdoor step, you know, with summit county is only 2 hours away, or if you want to head further south, like Durango or Moab’s only 2 hours away. you know, so much. It’s very unique out here, and I do feel it was very, like, almost unknown. And that is amazing. You know, I do work in our tasting room. People like, man, I drive past here, here for, like, 15 years and didn’t even know this whole thing was here. I didn’t even know this was happening here. You know, they’d heard of palsy peaches, right? Obviously. But they’re like, man, you guys have got breweries here and a distillery and wine, and, you know, no one. You know, man, we gotta stop over now. So there’s, like, a lot of people. It’s. It’s getting words getting out.

LM: Is there anything I missed that I just didn’t know to ask about?

RM: I think probably one big thing is, like, don’t be scared. Like, come in, get in touch with myself. or, yeah, like, through email or my cell, send me a text. also, if you do buy your own equipment, come and chat to us and, you know, we’ll help you. if you want to run a sample, we run a sample, we’ll help you do a couple of those things, get it dialed in. You know, I just want, ultimately, everyone to be making great wine. So, you know, I get it. Maybe you can’t do everything through us and you want to do some stuff in house, but we’ll help you make sure that what you’re doing is correct, you know, and if you have questions, you know, we’re here, too, for questions. Wine making questions. and that’s all from basic stuff all the way up to, like. Yeah, if you want to, you know, we could do some consulting as well. So it’s. We offer the full gamut. Yeah.

LM: Do you have a website or anything like that? I can put the link in there.

RM: right now it’s just through our website. Colorado vintners. no, that’s, like, the next step. We need to get our website up. right now. It’s like, just local. Yeah.

LM: So just word of mouth right now.

RM: Email is probably the best way. I just have a really bad habit with texts. you know, my phone will read them to me while I’m driving, but then I forget about it because then there’s like ten other texts and then you get buried in the texts inbox and I forget about it. But if email is like, great, because I, have my email set up to give me reminders on anybody I haven’t replied to. So I get that, like two days later. Yeah.

or just stop by the tasting room too. So come in. We’re open a little bit later in that, whole concept. And that’s, because, there’s a lot of people coming into the area and they don’t get here till 06:00 in the evening. And so we’re open a little bit later. We’re up until about 08:00 or, you know, sometimes nine on the weekend if there’s a lot of people having a good time. so just stop by the tasting room and, our tasting room ladies in there more than happy to help you and get you in contact with us here. That’s if we’re not here in the lab. So it’s. Yeah, we’re not always, you know, we have a lot of other stuff. We’re not always just sitting around in here.

LM: You don’t just live here.

RM: Yeah. Although it’s great on a day like today is like air conditioning and stuff. because we have a couple, you know, obviously we have, our other, like, Cliff dweller wine company. And that’s like, a bigger project. We’re almost, it’s kind of two years in the making there where, like, we. We just expanded our production. that was supposed to be ready before harvest last year, and it wasn’t ready till November, like, right after harvest, which is always fun. and then we are also moving into custom crush there. So we. Some grant money for production capacity there. And then it’s kind of building a small, little ecosystem here where it’s like, you can custom crush and then the lab analysis and the tasting room. Yeah. And it’s like, kind of to help, if you want to start your own winery, it gets very expensive very quickly. Yeah, there’s a lot of toys. So we can, help with some custom crush in that project to help save you startup costs. You can get going well, before you go, or, you know, before you invest in building your own place, or you may just get a couple years in and you’re like, man, I don’t do this anymore. That’s the worst thing is, like, then. Then you just have to liquidate. And, you know, that’s the. Because stuff is expensive, and especially if you’re leasing space, and then you have nowhere to store it, it gets. Yeah. So.

LM: Right. So you can help out. I mean, you’re here to support people who just want to give it a try and, like, see, hey, is wine making for me. I have this idea. I want to try it out. I have these grapes and.

RM: yeah a little bit yeah

LM: That’s really cool.

RM: Yeah. So, you know, like a, really good example of that. is like, say you have an Airbnb or a B and B, like a bed and bed and breakfast. And then you have a small little half acre vineyard. And. And, you can come to us and we can actually make the wine for you. that’s, commercially viable and all that sort of stuff. We can do all the compliance and it’s legit, that you can then with the right permitting. Obviously, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, but you have the right, you know, it’s all legal, above board. you know, you can then sell it to your guests, and it’s like, hey, it comes from the vineyard right here. Or you can pour it in the. In your dining room and whatnot. Yeah.

LM: Very cool. That’s another really cool angle that, wow, I didn’t know that y’all were doing all of this stuff.

RM: it’s getting there. Getting there. We’re trying. Yeah, there’s a lot going on right now. Yeah. So it’s like kind of a whole another story, basically. Another podcast of what’s. Yeah, yeah, we can. Once, once we get that dialed in, we’ll be able to go over all that.

LM: Cool. That’s exciting.

RM: no, yeah, it’s just, get in touch with us, like, we’re here. everything’s like, confidential as well. So I, Actually, I deal with a handful of, home winemakers, too. So, you know, even if you’re in much smaller yet, like, you’re still in the, in your garage and you just have some problems, you know, you can come in and we’ll chat to you and help you out a little bit. Yeah. So it’s. Yeah, we. We’re here for kind of everything wine related.

LM: Awesome.

RM: And, yeah, we’re usually around and, yeah, you can feel free to bring beer by if you want. That’s always good. Yeah. So it’s, But, you know, it takes a lot of good beer to make good wine, so it’s. Yeah.

LM: Any particular type of beer?

RM: Yeah, I prefer like, like a lager or pilsner, that kind of stuff. More refreshing. Yeah.

LM: Okay. Don’t want anybody showing up, with a double ipa or anything like that.

RM: Yeah. so, you know, that’s why we were super lucky. We got Palisade brewing here. They make great beer, so we’re very lucky here. It’s like a little local ecosystem.

LM: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me.

RM: Thanks for reaching out. And, yeah, I know it’s taking a little while to kind of get together, but it’s been great. And I enjoy this part. I listen to this podcast a lot, so I like hearing, you know, and it’s, just hearing on. All the unique things going on.

LM: Thanks so much. I’m glad we could add your story, too, the list of unique things going on.

RM: You’re welcome. Yeah. Thanks for coming by.

LM: Even if you can’t make use of the wine lab’s services, I think you’ll still appreciate what Grand Valley Enology will bring to the Grand Valley wine scene. It’s exciting to see the valley’s wine industry grow with those who are part of it and I’m looking forward to seeing what Richard and Aly do next! They’re just not allowed to ever stop making Ghostdance and Escalante, OK?

The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E30: Palisade Stories with JoAnn Rasmussen of the Palisade Historical Society

Join JoAnn Rasmussen, Chair of the Palisade Historical Society, and me on a fun journey through Palisade’s past, present, and future and catch her contagious love of history in general and Palisade history in particular.

We chat about the Palisade Historical Society’s project to digitize the entire archive of the Palisade Tribune and what you can learn from old newspapers, the historic houses of Palisade, and what the town of Palisade did before it had an ambulance.

Hear all about who put the flagpole on the cliffs above Palisade and who changes the flag now, the first pickleball court in Mesa County, the best obituary in the Palisade Tribune, whether we believe in ghosts, and what people are going to be talking about in Palisade 100 years from today.

More about the Palisade Historical Society: LINK
More about the historic issues of the Palisade Tribune: LINK
More about the Palisade History Museum: LINK

Theme Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Subscribe:

Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

Today I’m joined by JoAnn Rasmussen.

JoAnn Rasmussen: All right. I’m JoAnn Rasmussen. I’m chair of the Palisade Historical Society.

LM: And.

JR: I never know how much of an introduction you want or how long this is going to be. So how much time do you have?

LM: There’s no time limit. I mean, it’s basically like, well, I like to keep it under an hour so that I don’t have to spend too much time editing things. But that’s really. That’s just a rough guideline.

JR: I mean, can we just start over, or do you want me to.

LM: No. Yeah. Well, sure.

JR: Okay. I’m JoAnn Rasmussen, chair of the Palisade Historical Society, and I’m one of the co-owners of the historic Crissey house, which is the only residence in Palisade on the National Register of Historic Places.

LM: Awesome. and.

JR: And I was recently appointed to TAB, which is the tourism advisory board here for the town of Palisade.

JoAnn shares her contagious love of history in general and Palisade history in particular as we dive into Palisade’s past, present, and future. Hear about the Palisade Historical Society’s project to digitize the entire archive of the Palisade Tribune, what you can learn from old newspapers, the historic houses of Palisade, what the town of Palisade did before it had an ambulance, who put the flagpole on the cliffs above Palisade and who changes the flag now, the first pickleball court in Mesa County, the best obituary in the Palisade Tribune, whether we believe in ghosts, and what people are going to be talking about in Palisade 100 years from today.

All that and more, on today’s Postcard from Palisade.

LM: so what made you interested in getting involved with a historical society?

JR: So, I’ve always been interested in history. In fact, when I graduated from high school, one of the gifts that my parents gave me was a lifetime membership to our little, tiny local historical society, which is really pretty cool. and I had volunteered, back in the late 19 hundreds doing some stuff for them.

LM: Oh it sounds really bad when you say it that way.

JR: Right. But it’s true. but honestly, it wasn’t even on our radar at all until this property popped up. And to give you a little bit of background on that, we were living in the Denver metro, and we’d been there for over 20 years in the particular house we were in. And we’d always done all of the remodeling work and all of that on our own house. And that was built in 1977, which we thought at the time was an older home.

LM: historic.

JR: An older home. Right. And the original plan was we were going to move somewhere slower paced when our daughter graduated from high school. And at that point, we had a few years before that was even going to happen. So in 2019, we came out to the western slope to check it out. Despite living in Colorado for almost 25 years, we’d never been on this side of the mountains, truly. And we fell in love with it. And we ended up doing a little day trip, a little jaunt on the way back through Palisade, and we absolutely loved it. And so one of the things that I do, one of my hobbies, if you will, is on zillow. I will put in little towns that, we love, and eventually, someday, maybe we could retire there or something like that. So I put this into Zillow. I put Palisade into zillow, never thinking about it again, really. And fast forward, the pandemic happens. We are 100% remote in our. In our daily lives. Our daughter is 100% remote for the last half of her 8th grade year, her entire freshman year was also 100% remote. And that. Let’s see, late spring, early summer of 21, zillow alerts me.

LM: It was like, hey, JoAnn.

JR: Hey. By the way, there’s a house that doesn’t meet your criteria at all, because it’s not a single level ranch that doesn’t need any work. It is a two story historic property. But it’s in Palisade. And you liked Palisade. And so I open it up and I look at it, and my husband sees the carriage house, the picture of the carriage house in the back, and he was like, oh, maybe. Maybe we should look at that. And I’m like, what? Why? Really? Because we’ve been jokingly telling everyone that we’re going to be moving for the last 20 years, and we just. We never have. That’s not even on our. That’s not even on our radar. What are you talking about?

But, along with the entire world, our priorities had shifted. And we sat down and were like, why were we waiting? What was the reason? And those reasons had changed. And so we thought, well, we’ll look at it. We can go and look at the house. We can’t get out there until the end of July. And at that point in real estate history, especially in the Denver metro, houses were flying off the shelf. They were going within 24 hours. Well over asking, it was just crazy. And so we could not get out until the end of July. And so we thought, well, if the house isn’t available, then it wasn’t supposed to be our house. But it doesn’t hurt to at least put in a little plan to. To go check it out.

So we did. And we were able, as luck would have it, we were able to hook up with a tour at the high school, local tour. The principal gave us a tour, fell in love with the high school, fell in love with the town. We rented a little Vrbo in town so we could actually say we’d stay, stayed overnight in Palisade for at least a couple days to see what it’s like. And we loved it. You can see the stars at night. You can see the Milky Way. You can walk around and not have to worry about the things that we had been worrying about in the Denver metro. It was just absolutely amazing. So we fell in love with this house, and we noticed that it had a sign in the window that said, number ten, Palisade historic walking tour. I’m like, oh, what’s that? Come to find out that we are on the walking tour and that Palisade has a historical society. And so that’s kind of how we got involved with that.

we knew it was on the national register. It was on the register of historic places, and we knew it needed some work, but we didn’t know quite how much work it needed, and we didn’t really know what that entailed, being on the register. And now I know. Now I know all of that, and we would do it again in a heartbeat, which means there probably is something wrong with us. But. So I met, Priscilla Walker. She is the founding chair of the Palisade Historical Society right after we moved in. And she was very. She was very engaging and very nice and also very careful not to push us into being involved right away because we were up to our eyeballs in contractors and projects and just trying to get moved in and trying to get everything, at least livable.

LM: livable right?

JR: well. And it was livable. It was livable. your standards are a little different, you know, with a sewer line that’s actively leaking. But it was livable. and about a year and a half, my main job. So around that time is when we met, Priscilla Walker, founding chair of the Palisade Historical Society. And we were in the midst of all of these other projects, just trying to get our head above water. like I said, we were up to our eyeballs in these projects. And as many metaphors as I can mix, I will.

so my job for the first year and a half was managing all of the contractors at the house. So when we did all of the work on our previous house in Arvada, we did all the work. I can count on half of one hand the number of contractors that we hired out. that was 20 years ago. We’re different people now. And now we’ve decided to stimulate the local economy by hiring experts to do these things. Plus, we had things that were just above our ability and things we didn’t want to do but needed to be done.

And so after about a year and a half, Priscilla and I were talking and she mentioned that there was an opening on their board, their board of directors. And I have a lot of board experience, executive board experience. I was on a school board, on the front range for six years. I’ve been on various boards of differing organizations. Casual and not so casual. And so I said, sure, I’d love to. And so I came on the board as vice chair. And Priscilla and I make a great team, if I can say that myself. We do. We make a great team. She is a fantastic, phenomenal person. And she’s been doing so much herself with help of a team. And she’s humble and she will say that it’s not her and that it’s the team, but it really is her. And she does have help. But she had been taking on so much, and so I was able to take some things off of her plate. And then after doing that for a year, they elected me as chair. So we swapped roles. She jokes that she’s been demoted, which is not true. And I joke that my salary has doubled, which is actually true. Zero times zero is still zero. and it has been so much fun. And the thing, I think the original question was, how did I get involved with the history of this or the historical society?

LM: Or yeah, why were you interested in getting involved?

JR: Right. History, to me, is so incredibly important. If we can’t understand where we came from, we don’t understand at all where we’re going to be. And the thing about history is people think that it is static or it’s a stationary thing, and that’s true. But our understanding of it can grow and change over time,

LM: absolutely.

JR: especially with, the historical society has been, digitizing the Palisade Tribunes. So the Palisade Tribune was our newspaper of record from 1903 until they closed in March of 2014. And the Palisade historical society was able to negotiate with the attorneys, the preservation of those papers. So we have those papers, and then we’ve been working with the Colorado historic newspaper collection to get those digitized. And it’s a free database. you can log in, you can search for all kinds of things. And because we have access to all of that now, I think we have them up to, like, 1978, I think, is how far we are. Now. We have another batch that we just sent over.

And donations to the Palisade Historical society help us fund that because we’re a 501c3. All of our staff at the museum, we’re all volunteer. We all volunteer our time. So donations is really how we exist and how we can do this. But because we have access to that now, we can verify some of those things from the past that either, yes, they really did happen on that day. Now, there’s mistakes. There’s always mistakes. I mean, if you read the paper today, there’s probably a mistake here or there. but what it helps you do is it helps you pinpoint a specific moment in time when something like that happened. Like, if they’re reporting on November 15, 1915, that this building burned down, then you know that it burned down at that time, that type of thing.

LM: Sure. Yeah. And the cool thing about it, too, that the database of the newspapers is it’s searchable. it’s not just digitized, like, as an image, but the text is searchable, which is really cool. So if you want to know about a specific event or property or anything like that, you can search the database. So I’ll put a link to that in the, episode notes. But it’s a really cool thing. And just to think that, I mean, your goal is to get all the episodes or all of the editions up until 2014 digitized. Right?

JR: Yes.

LM: So eventually it’ll all be out there.

JR: Eventually it will be. And it’s really neat. So they use, I think it’s called OCR, which is basically our robot overlords have gone in. So it looks at it, it scans it, and it puts in what it thinks, what it thinks they are. it’s tricky because things can be spelled wrong, and the font that they’ve used can be tricky to see for that scan, to actually put down the correct letters. And then also, when you’re working with newsprint, if you hold newsprint up to the light, you can see an image through from the other side. And so that can kind of mess with it. Mess with it, too. So one of the tips and tricks that we give people is to search for things that are misspelled. Search for things that, for example, Fruita. Sometimes the f would look like a p. So it’s going to be recorded as Pruita in that part.

LM: So think about how you can outsmart the machine. Basically.

JR: Outsmart the machine. There is. There is a way to go in and make edits to that. I think Priscilla does that quite a bit. I am afraid to start that because as soon as I do, hours will have gone by.

LM: Oh, yeah.

JR: Then I’m down another rabbit hole.

LM: Tell me about it. That’s like when I, before I got this job, I found this, transcription site through the Smithsonian where you can do volunteer transcription on, like, archives and old letters, like, correspondence between, gallery owners and artists. And, man, did I get. I had to, like, force myself to stop working on that. It was very fun.

JR: Right, right. I know. Just hours just vanished.

LM: Yeah. I’d be like, Paul, one more letter. One more letter, and then I’ll stop. And then I’d be like, two more. And, like, I’ll stop soon.

JR: Well, and that’s how it is when I’m researching these things. I’ll start researching one thing and then end up in a completely different place, but in such a magical moment. one of the things I was trying to do was figure out when our house was actually built. And you would think of all of the properties we would know because it’s on the national register. But, it was put on the register with kind of a nebulous time frame, like, they thought it was built between 1905 and 1907. And we knew the family moved in in 1909 because I found a Palisade tribune article from when they did. And in theory, that house could have been built in four years. That’s. That’s absolutely plausible. But I really wanted to know, like, I really, really wanted to know when was it built?

And when you contact Mesa county and look at all the Mesa county records, a lot of times it’ll say 1908, but that’s because that’s when it was put on the tax register. That’s not necessarily when it was built. as it turns out, it really was 1908, and I found that in the Palisade tribute. But in doing that, I found, information about another property in town that was absolutely fascinating. and especially maybe only because I’m part of the historical society and we do the walking tour brochures and talking about how history is what it is or was, but then how. How we understand it can change. We are constantly updating information in the historic walking tour brochures. if you want, I can go into. I can go into what I found about that house, the other house.

LM: sure!

JR: So, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the big yellow mansion at the end of Main street, right by highway six. So if you’re standing on Main street and you look all the way down, it’s right across from the T intersection.

LM: Is it the one that’s for sale right now?

JR: It is for sale right now.

LM: Oh, yeah.

JR: Zillow let me know that this one was for sale, too.

LM: Yes, I am familiar with it. It’s really not because I looked at all the pictures.

JR: It is. It is. So, originally, and a lot of times people in town will call that the old Whistler house or the old swisher house. And originally we thought, it was called the Whistler or Swisher House both. It was kind of interchangeable. And the rumor was that there had been a swimming pool that was built on that property. And with all the stories and research that I’ve done, everything is intertwined. So someone had said that there had been a swimming pool on the property and that they knew who the new owners were. And eventually we could connect and, you know, figure out this information for the historical society.

But when I was researching for when my house was built or the Crissey house was built, I discovered that they’re intertwined, and here’s why. So, in 1903, Charles Whistler made the river cliff bathhouse on that property. He created this river cliff bathhouse, and it was basically a community swimming pool that had different hours on various days for men or women to go you couldn’t go together. And swimsuits, were provided.

LM: ew!

JR: and I’m like, this is crazy. So that’s really interesting. And I found all of these ads for the river cliff bathhouse in the Palisade Tribune.

LM: Cool. Very cool.

JR: With little poems. And, I mean, it was, it was amazing. Then he sold that land to, Mr. Crissey, which is how it popped up on my radar. And so in 1906, Mr. Crissey built the original house that was there. And we think he used the bathhouse as the basement, or it was closer to the river. But either way, the people who currently own it now never found any remnants of a swimming pool when they were remodeling. So Mr. Crissey is the one who built the house. Not swisher, not whistler.

LM: Okay.

JR: so we’re like, well, how did, how did swisher come into play? So, in 1908, a man by the name of Frank swisher came from Kansas and saw this peach ranch orchard. And side note, I think it’s so funny when people call them peach ranches, because I picture little peaches, like, with legs.

LM: with legs! Totally! That’s exactly what popped into my head.

JR: I’m from Iowa, where we have farms. I’m using air quotes right now, right? Not ranches. And so whenever anybody says peach ranch, I picture him, like, wrangling up little. Okay. Sorry.

LM: no, that’s exactly where my mind went. I was like a peach on legs, mooing.

JR: Exactly, they’re moving around, and they’re docile little critters. But anyway, funny side note, anyway, this man is interested in this land. And so Crissey’s like, sure, I’ll sell it to you for, $4,000 an acre, which at the time, in 1908, was a ridiculous amount of money. And he said, okay, here you go. So he sold his six acres of peaches and his house for $24,000. And this was an infamous land deal. It hit the Daily Sentinel paper, Palisade Tribune is covering this. And I can only imagine the conversation that Mr. Crissey, that Grant had with May when he went, you know, over supper that night of, oh, by the way, we need to pack again, because this beautiful house that I have built you is now someone else’s.

LM: But we’re rich, so.

JR: But we’re rich. And he was already rich. I mean, to be fair, he was already doing well because he was in irrigation and banking. And, later he became, part of the United Fruit Growers association. So he was, yeah, he was very, very prosperous. But what’s interesting about that is knowing that our house was started. They started building it in December of 1908. And then they moved in in May of 1909. It was basically six months.

LM: Wow. That’s fast for back in the day.

JR: to construct this house. In the meantime, I was able to connect with the current owner of the house, and she gave me a tour, and they did. They remodeled this house, and the craftsmanship is absolutely phenomenal.

LM: You’re talking the swisher house.

JR: The swisher house, yeah. So they, found contractors and woodworkers that could make everything look like it really was from 1908. And so when you’re in the house, you can’t really tell where the original house ends and the current house begins. But what was absolutely fascinating to me is when we got into. Because I came in the back, and, you know, we’re looking at all this beautiful, beautiful work, and then we go to the front room, and the columns in my house are the exact same as the ones in her house. The wood fretwork above the doorway is very, very similar to the. The fretwork we have. And you can tell that H. G. Crissey had a hand in this. And unless you’ve been in both houses, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t really find that connection. And we were able to verify that connection and discover it through the Palisade tribunes, which is really pretty cool.

LM: Very cool.

JR: I think.

LM: So, wait. Sorry. I don’t want to. I don’t want to stop. If you’re not done with that story yet.

JR: Oh, I could go on and on forever. I think we’ve come to a natural pause in my story.

LM: All right, well, one of the things I asked you to think about was what your favorite stories about Palisade are, and I know that is. That would definitely be one of them, right?

JR: Yes.

LM: The houses and the cool. The relationship with, like, we have these really awesome Historic houses that were preserved in great condition. And, But what are the other things that you think, like, as you started learning about the town and the history. Like, what are a couple other things that you just thought were like, wow, that’s really cool, or it’s so cool that happened here.

JR: one in particular is just. It’s comical to me. I mean, it could have. It could have ended in tragedy, and it didn’t, and then it just kind of takes a comical turn. so there’s a man that used to live in Palisade. He was well known here. his name was Jack Webb, and we have his oral history on the Palisade Historical Society’s website. So historicpalisade.org. We’ve been doing some revamping there. We, have, a whole page of the oral histories, and so you can go through and read the transcripts of those. And he has some items that are in the Palisade history museum.

And so to give you some background on him, in 1942, he wanted to enlist in the marines, but he was 16, and they said, well, we’re not taking 16 year olds this month, so I’ll just put down that you’re 17. So. So he enlisted in the marines, and he had a. He had a long, varied history of things, but he ended up being a coal miner. And Palisade, if you’re not familiar, had 14, or we had more than a dozen active coal mines in the book cliffs around us in the Palisades. That’s how Palisade gets its name, here north of town.

And in the early fifties or late forties, he was working in a mine, up at Cameo, and there was a cave in, and he was rescued because he happened to be near what’s called bug dust, which is when you’re drilling, it’s this fine powder that. That comes out of the hole, from my understanding, and creates this softer. This softer thing. So there was a cave in, and they were able to get to him, and he was alive. He was unconscious. They get him out of the mine, and they get him on a stretcher. He has to go down the railroad to town. They have to take him to St. Mary’s. And the only way to go to St. Mary’s they didn’t have an ambulance at the time. The only way to transport someone was in a hearse, because he’s on a stretcher, right?

LM: Right.

JR: So the only way to transport him is in a hearse. He wakes up on the way to the hospital in the hearse.

LM: Oh, my God.

JR: And thinks he’s died because he’s woken up in a hearse. And that’s really the only explanation. Right?

LM: Yeah.

JR: we have. So there was a piece of coal that he found in his pocket after that cave in that he then kept as his good luck charm. So we’ve got that at the museum. We’ve got his. His lunch pail and, other, other things from the mine. But to me that it’s just a funny story. I mean, it could. It was tragic. Cave ins are tragic. But to think that you’ve died because you woke up in the back of a hearse when the reality is Palisade didn’t have an ambulance at that time.

LM: Oh, that’s crazy. That’s cool though that you have the piece of coal. That’s very cool. I want to come check that out. I have to admit, I haven’t been to the historical society yet. Museum. The history museum.

JR: You should come. You should come. So it, Let’s see. We opened that. I say we. This happened before we got here. they opened in August of 2021.

LM: Okay.

JR: I think it was August of 2021. Priscilla will have my head if I’m not right. 2021 for sure. No, it was, it was. It was August of 2021. And, we’ve already had over 1700 visitors in almost three years that we’ve been open. it’s a lot bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside. It’s a little log cabin down at the corner of Elberta and the frontage road for highway six. And it was built in 1939. It was the Bunte. So the Buntes are the family that owned it. And it was kind of like a service station for, trucks and orchard trucks and that type of thing.

LM: interesting . And does it have a regular schedule of when it’s open?

JR: We do, yeah. So Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday from ten to two. And if those hours don’t work for you, then we, can do by appointment also. So the number to call to schedule that would be, 970-812-3064 and all of that information is also at historicpalisade.org and we would be happy to give a private tour if we’re available. or if you have family in town, and those hours don’t work for you. but it’s. It’s really pretty neat because it talks about the coal mining. It talks about how important irrigation is. It talks about peaches, of course, and everything that goes into that. and it is. It’s a lot bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside.

LM: Yeah. And you can get things like the historic walking tour brochures and things like that there. Right. Are there other places around town you can pick those up?

JR: So there’s a map on the back of food town, and we have a display there, too. So there’s free, brochures there. I think you can get them at the chamber. we have, various places around town you can get the free walking tour brochure.

LM: Yeah. So that’s a cool thing when people are like, I want to do something, and I’m tired of drinking wine, you know, it’s like, there are a lot of other things you can do. are there any other stories or things that you want to highlight that you feel like are really cool parts of our history?

JR: Oh, there’s so. I mean, there are so many. There are so many different things. One thing that people might not realize, and I think we’re gonna do a history talk on this, too, is the flag above Palisade. Did you know about the flag above.

LM: The one on Garfield or the one that’s on stagecoach?

JR: the one that’s on stagecoach. So it’s on Mount Lincoln. It’s, right there by Mount Lincoln, technically. So there is one on Mount Garfield, and most of the time, people think that’s the one that we’re referring to. But there is a flag directly above Palisade, up off of stagecoach trail. And, my husband and I were able to go up there. We’ve gone up there a couple times. There’s a gentleman here in town that changes the flag every few months. And, my husband and I tried to get to the flag on our own and ended up doing, what, 6.6 miles of the 5.2 miles hike.

LM: You went straight, you didn’t turn left? Right.

JR: Maybe we should have taken the left turn at Albuquerque and did not.

LM: No, the first time we went up there, we definitely walked about 6 miles and finally to figure out where it was.

JR: Yeah. So you have been up to the flag, too.

LM: Yeah, I really like that hike, because, well, we’re not gonna tell people where it is.

JR: No

LM: not many people know about it

JR: it’s a secret

LM: And, yeah, you’re kind of guaranteed to just have a peaceful hike other than the. You know, it’s treacherous and terrible

JR: right

LM: but other than that, it’s great.

JR: We had a fun. We had a fun adventure. So I was telling Priscilla that Kirk and I had made it. We made it. We made it to the flag. And I was telling her about our adventure, and she said, oh, well, I know the guy who changes the flag. Would you like me to connect him with, you know, connect you guys? I’m like, sure. That would be great. And so she did, and he emailed us and said, I’m gonna be going to meet at 5:30 in the morning, which is early. I’m not an early person. but we wanted to go, and we wanted to do this, and we wanted to have a guide, and so we did, and it was. It was absolutely fantastic. I, think I can mention their names here. Mike Kennedy is a local. He’s the one who changes the flag. And then Riley Parker, is also another notable guy here in Palisade. And he went with us, and he. He, I think he’s with the rotary, and they provide the flag to do this. So Kirk and I went with. With Mike and Riley, and we met at 5:30 in the morning. And we’re going up the trail, and as we’re going, Mike, is in front. I’m following him. Kirk and Riley are behind us, and all of a sudden, Kirk says, oh, my gosh, there’s a snake. And we’re like, where. And, we did not see. But there was. There was a rattlesnake.

LM: Oh, I’ve never seen one up there!

JR: Well, I hadn’t seen it either. And there he was.

LM: yeah, doesn’t mean anything!

JR: we had almost stepped on him, and it was too early for the snake to really be awake, thankfully. Anyway, we figured out how to get around it, and we ended up seeing the same snake on the way back down as well. but the guy leading said the same thing you did. I’ve never seen a snake up there. And he said it again. I’ve never seen a snake up there. Neither have I. And yet here it is.

LM: Now you have.

JR: So now we have.

LM: Okay. Good to know.

JR: but the connection. So when we were looking at the house. When we were looking at the house to see if we were going to start this adventure, I noticed the flag at the time. And so I did some research on it and come to find out it had been put up in 1915 by a man named John Reeder, and John Reeder was one of the first marshals in Mesa county. He has lots of ties to Palisade. And, he decided he wanted to fly old glory above Palisade. This is what he wanted to do. And so he put together this plan, and he and two other guys went up, and once they were up there, realized they needed more manpower and more help to actually get the pole erected, and so they came back down, and Mr. Crissey was one of the people that then went to help put this up there. So that’s really pretty cool.

https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/john-reeder-s-flagpole-still-has-flag-flying-above-Palisade/article_beaf4c6e-dc57-11ec-90d3-cb40e01f9742.html

LM: Do you know if a flag has flown up there continuously since?

JR: So. That’s a great question. And I, do know one of the other guys who changed the flag for 35 years, and he did that until the eighties. And then, there was some time where I don’t know if it. How, what good of condition the flag was in. I think there has been some form of flag up there ever since. And now here more recently and recent in history terms. I don’t know what that means. Sometimes when I’m talking to people and they’ll tell this story, the odds of it happening 50 years ago or 60 years ago or five years ago are all the same. I don’t know. And, we talked about before, when I got here, about how time is just nebulous and morphs together, especially this summer. It’s like, it just feels like things are happening so fast and yet. And yet they’re not. Like being here. Like, we feel like we’re locals, but we’ve not even been here three years yet.

LM: Yeah.

JR: And it simultaneously feels like it’s been forever. And it also feels like we just got here. You know, it’s, it’s really pretty cool.

LM: Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s like a little time warp.

JR: another fun story that I cannot necessarily corroborate, but I just learned, and selfishly, it has to do with our property. We have a pickleball court painted on our back driveway. And it really is a pickleball court painted on our back driveway. When we looked at the house, we thought, what is that? Are those parking spaces? Like there’s squares painted? And the real estate agents said, oh, no, this is a pickleball court. And they even had the nets. We still had the nets that we could, we could put up so fast forward. And I think it was in June. June or July. I was. We were part of the, parade of roses that they had through Palisade, where people could look at the antique and heirloom roses. And we have, I have 80 heirloom roses on the property and wonderful gardens that I’ve tried my hardest not to kill. And I’ve been doing a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Anyway,

LM: fantastic job.

JR: One of the. Oh, thank you. One of the couples, or, there were one of the groups that stopped by, said that they knew the previous owners of the house. And they come back and they’re going down the driveway and we’re looking at all the different roses, and they’re like, there’s the pickleball court. Did you know that this is the very first pickleball court ever in Mesa county? Now that sounds like a tall tale. right.

LM: That sounds plausible.

JR: However, however, the previous owners had a file of paperwork and things, and I’m sure the filing system made complete sense to them. And we haven’t figured it out yet, but we have all of this information. And sure enough, there is a whole file folder on pickleball courts. They wrote to the, the official pickleball association in 1996.

LM: Oh, hey. Yeah.

JR: And have the official, the official map of how to draw out the. Like this, the, standard size for the pickleball court and all of this stuff. And the reason they did this. So the man that owned our house prior to this, he was known for his racquetball skills. And then when he got older and something happened with his knees, he was tired of losing to his friends. And so he said, I’m gonna find a game that I can win that’s a lot like racquetball. And so he did some research and found pickleball. And they’re like, what are you talking about? This is what? And he’s like, no, look at this. And so he did, he wrote this organization, we have the, we have the canceled, like the posted stamp that says, ah, 1996 on it. And they did, they put an official pickleball court in the back.

LM: that’s so wild. So it’s almost 30 years old.

JR: Yeah. I mean, which is crazy in it.

LM: Right. It can be the first one in Colorado at that point.

JR: right.

LM: Interesting. Yeah. I always thought that was just a recent addition, seeing it.

JR: Right. Well, so we know that they poured that cement in 1987 because they wrote the little date in there. We do know that the property originally had cement sidewalks because, it talks about them in the Palisade Tribune from 1909 that, you know, it had cement sidewalks, so we know that. We know that that was possible. But, But, yeah, in 1996. Well, he got the information in 96. I don’t know exactly when, how fast he was at creating. Creating the pickleball court in the back.

LM: Sounds like he was highly motivated.

JR: Yes.

LM: To get something in place that he could win at.

JR: Uh huh, Yep. And we have since talked to a lot of people that have played pickleball back there. we play, but honestly, we don’t. And again, people will laugh at this. We don’t really know the rules, and we’ve never really. We just play for fun. And, some people have offered to teach us, and so eventually I will learn how to do it, and then it’ll get even more competitive. Yeah.

LM: that’s how Paul and I play tennis, so I just like to hit the ball back and forth. And then when we play a game, I get all angry.

JR: Right.

LM: So I don’t know. I’m gonna vote for keeping it fun.

JR: Right. let’s see. You asked about another story. One of the things. And a lot of this seems like it’s centered around the tribunes, but

LM: That’s sort of our archive, right?

JR: Yeah. I mean, it’s absolutely fascinating. And one of the things that is interesting to me and how I came upon this, again, is all intertwined with research that I’ve been doing. One, of the pioneers of Palisade, his name was Christopher Columbus Bower.

LM: No way.

JR: Yes, but he went by Colonel Bower.

LM: That’s awesome.

JR: And the reason he went by Colonel Bower is because he was born. He was born and raised in Kentucky, during the civil war. And his father was called by Abraham Lincoln to fight. And he took his son with him to the front lines, his eight year old son. And this was when everything was kind of wrapping up. But still.

LM: Yeah.

JR: This is just seems insane to me. And he became their mascot, and they nicknamed him Colonel. So he was a colonel in the civil war, but he was eight,

LM: a child

JR: so. But it stuck.

LM: wow

JR: And so Colonel Bower. He’s known as Colonel Bower. I was able to speak with his great great grandson, who is going through old photographs and that type of thing, and wanted to know if the historical society would want them.

LM:oh yeah

JR: Absolutely. We want these. And, his relatives owned one of the service shops or owned a blacksmith. It started out as a blacksmith. Like, it started out as a blacksmith shop. then it morphed into, you know, working with cars, and they have pictures that are absolutely fantastic, and they’re such good quality still. And sometimes, like with old photographs, you know, how they’re. It’s a reverse image. And so when we scan them and we reverse them, you can read the calendar says 1913. And, I mean, it’s just fascinating. Anyway, he mentioned that one of his relatives was, David Rusk. And he was, the cashier of the bank in Palisade. Now, cashier. So Mr. Crissey started out as a cashier for Palisades National bank. And cashier at that time meant CEO. Now it doesn’t. Now it means more like a teller. but, And not that there’s anything wrong with the teller. That’s fantastic. But a cashier at that time was a CEO.

So he mentioned that this relative of his, when he passed away, that the obituary was such that it was kind of astonishing to read. And on the front page of the Palisade Tribune, and let me see the date. Saturday, April 25, 1908, in huge letters Called by the Grim Reaper. And it talks about how David L. Rusk, cashier of the bank of Palisade, passes to the great beyond. A noble character and a man who was loved by all. And then the very first sentence of it, David L. Rusk is dead.

LM: Wow. That’s very dramatic

JR: I mean, they’re not. Yes. The word flew over the town and came as a shock to the entire community last Wednesday morning. And the expressions of sympathy for the bereaved ones were many, and from the heart. And it goes on to tell about how, Mr. Rusk was a man who always carried sunshine with him wherever he went. And to know him was to love him. he got pneumonia and died within a week.

LM: Wow.

JR: But this. It’s an interesting story to me, because if you read this, you can tell how much he meant to the community and how awesome to live a life that it can be. Book ended with an obituary like this. Like it to carry sunshine everywhere you go.

LM: Yeah.

JR: Right.

LM: Who doesn’t want that. I mean, that’s awesome.

JR: I thought that was pretty cool.

LM: so this is a side question, but do you believe in ghosts?

JR: Do I believe in ghosts? The real question, I think, Lisa, is do the ghosts believe in me?

LM: I think there’s a ghost in this office building. And I do. I see it sometimes. It’s definitely in my wiring. but no, seriously.

JR: Yeah well. No, seriously. So I don’t know if the ghosts believe in me. we had. So we call our ghost Fred. And when we first moved into the house, weird things would happen. And weird things happen when you’re in a house that’s 116 years old. That’s just, that’s just the way it is.

LM: yeah. Weird sounds.

JR: and I consider myself to be a relatively scientific person who, you know, I love evidence, and I love believing in things that can be proven, etc. Etc. But I also am not going to discount the fact that there could be things we just don’t understand yet. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. anyway, random things would happen, and we would jokingly refer to the guest or the ghost. Guest. We were a guest in the ghost’s home, we would jokingly refer to the ghost as May because May was the name of the woman that had lived in our house, the original woman that had lived in our house. And then upon further research, I realized that she didn’t die in the house. They lived in our house until 1935, and then they moved to California. And that’s, you know, that’s where they finished out. Finished out their life.

But there was a man, one of the previous owners named Fred Larimore. Doctor Fred Larimore did die in our house in 1965. And so we started calling the ghost Fred. And then things stopped happening. So did they stop happening because we were doing so many projects and fixing so many things and all of that? Or did he stop needing to get our attention because we referred to him as Fred and so

LM: he was seen.

JR: Right. Now, my daughter has seen, She has seen things that cannot be explained. We’ve had other people see things in our house that they believe 100% they are seeing. And I’m not going to to say they’re wrong. So I don’t know if the ghosts believe in us or not, but.

LM: I like that. I like that twist of the question, though. I like that angle. OK. More to come.

JR: Is this okay? Or am I like, going to far?

LM: this is wonderful. Oh, my gosh. No, this is wonderful. I think I’ll just ask you one more question, though, and then probably wrap it up, just because we’re getting to my hour edit limit.

JR: This is your fault. I’m blaming you. You know me. Have I ever stopped talking?

LM: But. Exactly. That’s why I want to talk to you. You have interesting stories. and I think that the last thing I would just be curious about, was just, you know what? From today, do you think people are going to be talking about in 100 years? Because, like, here we’re sitting on talking about these original houses and, you know, little cab ride in a hearse and stuff like that, but, like, what do you think from today is going to be people 100 years from now are going to care about in Palisade?

JR: Right. I think that’s a wonderful question, actually. and I think about that because I look backwards a lot. Like my research, I look backwards and I. And I even say that today is tomorrow’s history. So that’s why I’m okay with implementing some of the changes and updates and things that we’re doing to the website. I’m not trying to erase history. It’s incredibly important. But I think we can use current technology to enhance and preserve some of those things.

I would hope to have a really clever answer to what they would be talking about a hundred years from now. But I have a feeling, looking back a hundred years and seeing that it’s. It’s the same. They’re complaining and talking about real estate and weeds and water and roads and bikes even

LM: no!

JR: which is hilarious to me. In 1906, I kid you not, there is an article about bikes running on sidewalks, and this is unacceptable. And the town council ordered the attorney to make an ordinance fixing this. And I’m like, they were arguing about all of the same things.

LM: That’s kind of hilarious

JR: 114 years ago. Like, so I would hope. I would hope that looking 100 years from now, looking back, they could say they solved the water problem. They figured out how to utilize this precious resource in a way that isn’t wasteful, or they figured out how to bring the energy that is needed in order to do that in a way that doesn’t destroy things around it and in a way that is renewable, and they figured out how to do that, or they’ve all figured out how to get along and look at the wonderful progress that they’re making together, despite their basic belief systems, because we’re Americans and we all want the same thing. I would hope, looking back a hundred years, they would say that, but I have a feeling that it’ll be like, look, they’re arguing about weeds and roads and bikes and water. So

LM: I love it.

JR: I’m gonna be hopeful and say, yes, look at. Look at all the wonderful things that they. That they figured out. And now we have houses that are 216 years old in Palisade. We have 200 year old things that have been preserved and yet modernized in a way to make them safe. But, yeah, preserved. And we can communicate, that history. So that’s my hope.

LM: I love that. That’s such a great answer. And kind of a nice note to end on, too. It’s like, almost. It’s sort of reassuring and comforting. On one hand, to think about the fact that not much has changed in 100 years, but on the other, it’s also frustrating. So it’s like a good, It’s almost like an inspirational message to say, like, hey, we should do something good that people can talk about in 100 years, instead of just looking back and saying, oh, they are just complaining about drunk tourists on bike still. I like that. I think that’s a good kind of reality check, almost.

JR: Yeah.

LM: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, and I’m definitely not ruling out doing some more future stuff. So let’s think about. Let’s think about what we can do with specific history stories about Palisade at some point.

JR: Oh, yes, definitely. I would love to research that in all of my abundance of time. I love researching all of that, but thank you so much for having me.

LM: Sounds good. Thanks, Joanne.

LM: So what other pieces of Palisade history are you interested in learning more about? Tell me the next time you see me or email me at lisa(at)postcardsfrompalisade.com. And consider donating to the Palisade Historical Society if you are able, to help support their awesome work.

The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E29: Do Palisade Right with Hilary Lewkowitz of the Colorado Tourism Office

You may have seen the signs posted in your favorite businesses around town or come across the messages while scrolling through Instagram. The eye catching block lettered logo: Do Palisade Right, the kind of photos you might take when you’re out enjoying a fun day around town, and six tips with cheerful graphics.

But where did Do Palisade Right come from, and what’s it all about?

Hilary Lewkowitz, Director of Destination Development & Sustainability at the Colorado Tourism Office, joins me to talk about the Do Colorado Right campaign (a statewide campaign that Do Palisade Right is part of), how her team works with cities and towns to capture their unique voice, what campaigns like this are intended to do, how visitors can explore Colorado responsibly and respectfully, and how residents can do right by visitors.

More about the Colorado Tourism Office: LINK
More about Do Palisade Right: LINK

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Subscribe:

Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

The messaging sounds familiar, friendly:

Leave it Hanging: Let fruit be on the tree

Steer Clear of Private Property: Respect private gates and signs in fruit and wine country

Pedal Proper: Keep it upright and let the good times roll

Slow Down & Enjoy: Wave, it’s what we do here

Tame the Toast: Drink in all Palisade has to offer in a chill manner

Water Up!: It’s high and dry here, so stay hydrated

It sounds like a list of things you might tell your friends and family when they come visit…in addition to load up on sunscreen and bring lots of hats and layers, of course!

So where did Do Palisade Right come from and what does it mean?

Today Hilary Lewkowitz, Director of Destination Development & Sustainability at the Colorado Tourism Office, joins me via Zoom to talk about the Do Colorado Right campaign, a statewide campaign that Do Palisade Right is part of, how her team works with cities and towns to capture their unique voice, what campaigns like this are intended to do, how visitors can explore Colorado responsibly and respectfully, and how residents can do right by visitors.

Hear all about it on today’s Postcard from Palisade.

Hilary Lewkowitz: My name is Hilary Lewkowitz, and I’m the director of destination development and sustainability at the Colorado tourism office, which is a division of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. And we sit within the governor’s office at the state of Colorado.

LM: And where are you based?

HL: I am based in Ridgway, so not too far from Palisade. Yeah.

LM: I know that you’ve been involved in creating do fill in the blank town, right campaigns across the state of Colorado. So the Do Palisade Right is something that just recently, I think, was released. And so, just curious as, a, podcast that’s more aimed towards residents than visitors of Palisade. I’d love to understand a little bit more about it from that perspective and just, so what is the overall goal of campaigns like this?

HL: Yeah, and I’ll start, like, kind of go a little bit back in history to the statewide Do Colorado Right campaign, which was started during the pandemic. we have had a long time partnership with leave no trace. And through leave no trace, the care for Colorado, leave no trace principles were created, and obviously, those are more centered around outdoor recreation. And then the pandemic happened, and we realized that there needed to be some type of campaign that set visitor expectations and best practices that looked outside of just outdoor recreation and public lands.

And that’s when Do Colorado Right was born, and, really focused more on pandemic best practices and expectations for people visiting the state and traveling around the state. and then one other sort of challenge, that we’ve had around any of our statewide campaigns, and even the care for Colorado leave no trace principles is that every community is unique and has their own unique challenges, and interactions with visitors. And so, messaging that might be appropriate for Palisade, for example, wouldn’t be appropriate for a community like Leadville. So that’s where the sort of concept came to personalize the Do Colorado Right campaigns for communities that were interested in it is, you know, really understanding, you know, what those priority impacts are within the community. What are those pain points that could be potentially, mitigated through education and then creating campaign messaging based on that.

LM: And how do you find out, what are those key points? Because we have six key points for Palisade. And how do you get to that essence of what is really important to this community?

HL: Yeah, so, the city of Palisade, as well, as the city of Fruita, participated in two strategic planning programs through the destination development department here at the Colorado tourism office. They participated in the Restart Destinations program and the reimagine destinations program. those two programs, they were eleven month programs, that included a destination assessment, a full day workshop, and then 100 hours of consulting. That destination assessment included, a stakeholder survey and a resident sentiment survey to really understand what’s going on in the communities. And based on that, how can we help with strategic planning to make some changes, We typically, to develop these campaigns, Community, ah, has participated in one of these programs, our new program that’s based on the restart and reimagine programs is called Destination blueprint. it’s basically our newer iteration of the program. Those other two programs that Palisade participated in were through a federal Cares act grant, so that funding expired, and then we created this new program, and so a big component of it is really just that surveying piece.

And so understanding, from a resident perspective, what are those challenges with visitors, and also from a tourism stakeholder perspective. So our local businesses, our local organizations, our public land agency manager is making sure that they’ve filled out that survey, and we start to understand that baseline. We also create a core team, for the strategic planning process, which is usually around six to ten, tourism leaders in the community that also provide feedback. And then when we’re diving in deeper, especially when it comes to those pain points, we’ll do more in depth interviews with public land agency managers and other, stakeholders that do have that, sort of like, daily interface with visitors where they might be having impacts that they’re seeing. Based on that, we’ll then sort of look at that full list of priorities and see, you know, where. Where can this actually be influenced by education? because in some cases enforcement is more appropriate. And also, you know, what is that priority? We know that there’s maybe a longer list, but really, what’s those, like top five to seven messages, that we can share the visitors that will have a positive impact.

LM: Interesting. So there’s, it’s not something that’s kind of taken lightly or just, yeah, this sounds like a huge effort and a lot of time was put into distilling the messages.

HL: Yeah, I would say typically it’s a six to twelve month process. the goal is to net, you know, certainly things change over time. You know, obviously we’ve seen sort of the ebb and flow of visitation with the pandemic and so we’re seeing potentially less visitors and they might be doing different things because, during the pandemic we just had a lot more people who were like getting out for the first time. So we might see some lessening of those impacts from like new users. But the goal would be to not change it, to change the messaging and to have it be consistent over time. And so we wanted to make sure this was something that was, you know, had input from any stakeholder, and then also that if they’re giving input, they’d be more likely to adopt it. So if the Forest service is involved or, you know, bureau of Land Management or a local business, if they had input into the process, they would be more likely to then share that messaging.

LM: That makes sense. Yeah. So why are, why are campaigns like this important? Like what’s the, what’s the reason that we even do things like this?

HL: Yeah, so, there’s a really fine balance in tourism, between tourism marketing and tourism management. And really we obviously want to share the beautiful places that we live, but we also want to do it in a way that we have. Visitors have a low impact on our community, on our public lands, but a high economic impact. So how do we really, you know, if you’re not controlling that narrative and providing that education, then, you know, there’s potential for more negative impacts of tourism. So really our goal sort of like ladders up, to the mission and the vision of the CTO of really being able to provide a high quality experience for our visitors while enhancing local quality of life and protecting our environment.

LM: who is the target audience for this sort of campaign? Like who do you hope is going to be reached by it and pick up the message and say, oh, you’re right, I really should kind of slow down and wave to neighbors and who’s the person who’s going to actually take that input and use it?

HL: Yeah. So a part of the development of each of these customized Do Colorado Right campaigns, and we do have 18 total across the state right now. includes a, ah, marketing strategy. And, the strategy looks at all the different points in the visitor lifecycle, meaning there’s sort of that point where somebody’s researching the destination, but they haven’t committed yet. And then there’s the booking stage, and then they’ve arrived at the destination. And so there’s always different touch points in communication. so ideally it’d be anybody coming to the destination, they’re gonna be going to local restaurants, they’re gonna be driving on the roads, they’re going to be going out on trails.

And so I think it’s appropriate for anybody who is visiting a community to have, that exposure to that education. and one of the goals of the campaign would be that it’s not just the city of Palisade that’s sharing that messaging. It’s also local businesses and organizations and it’s at events. So they’re getting hit from multiple touch points. I also do think that, you know, in some cases, depending on the community, it’s also appropriate for residents as well. especially when you think about sort of our impacts on public lands. I think it’s good for any new user to understand what those expectations are.

LM: there’s always the people who feel like they don’t want people coming in and quote, unquote, spoiling their community, or they don’t want them to know about their things. I’m sure you deal with that kind of sentiment from residents of a town everywhere. so what do you say to kind of counter that, for people who are saying, you know, shh, don’t say anything about my town. I don’t want people to know about it. I don’t want it to be overrun.

HL: Yeah, I think I always tell folks that you want to control the narrative. You meaning the community wants to control the narrative. So, people are going to find out about whatever great place there is in Colorado. there is a lot of information out on the web, there’s a lot of information on social media. We are not the only ones. Our local destination marketing and management organizations, our local businesses are not the only ones talking about our communities. so people are going to find out, but if we can control the narrative, meaning when it is being marketed, that it’s done in a way that is respectful of the local community, that provides information that’s appropriate, and also provides that education component.

You’re more likely that when people show up, they are going to have that sort of high economic impact, low community and public land impact. And so that’s sort of the ideal scenario, but we’ve kind of pushed. There was sort of like a narrative within tourism for a while of, you know, like, let’s just not talk about the place, and therefore it doesn’t exist. But the reality is, is that information is already out there. And really, you know, when you search on Google, I would much rather see, you know, the visit Palisade website show up and the Do Palisade Right messaging show up, number one versus user generated content that’s going to say whatever it’s going to say that you don’t have any control over. So, that’s typically where we’re like, kind of pushing folks now.

LM: Yeah, yeah, I can hear that. So you’re saying, let’s thoughtfully explain what Palisade is to people. Let’s have that be their first interaction with, Palisade as an example for a destination versus, you know, Mrs. Smith’s blog about, say, going to 25 wineries in one day or something like that.

HL: Exactly. The other piece, I think is important, too, is that, you know, a lot of our communities, especially rural communities across Colorado, the, you know, we are reliant on the tourism economy to fuel our economy, and that trickles down across, you know, from somebody who’s a frontline worker to a guide service, to even, you know, like a landscape company. So we’re all kind of impacted by the tourism economy. And when you do pull those marketing dollars away, we’re starting to see tourism, visitation drop, and then you start to lose that positive economic impact. So it is still important to market. I think it’s marketing strategically, that’s really the key.

LM: Reading a little bit about your background. you’ve had an awesome career, doing really interesting things. And what I thought was interesting is your background in sustainable tourism management. can you talk a little bit more about what is sustainable tourism management and what drew you to that as a career?

HL: so originally I have my bachelor’s of science in environmental science, and I was in the fisheries biology and conservation field for a number of years and noticing that I was, like, collecting data on endangered species, but it wasn’t actually impacting a behavior change or a policy change. And so I shifted into outdoor education, and was traveling a lot and loved traveling, as most people do, but was also seeing that there was a lot of negative impacts that could potentially come with tourism. And so I got interested in this idea of, like, is there a thing called sustainable tourism? And so I literally did a Google search, and there was. There is a master’s, ah, degree program at the University of Utah around sustainable tourism management.

And so I applied, and I ended up, getting my master’s degree there. and, you know, sustainable tourism is. It’s a fairly broad, sort of concept that’s really evolved over the years, too, but sort of originally it was like, minimizing the negative impacts on tourism and maximizing the positive benefits on tourism. And I think that is still very true. And that’s across all the touch points of tourism, whether that’s environmental, socioeconomic, cultural, it’s all those different pieces that tourism touches in a community.

One of a more newer concept, is around regenerative tourism. And so how can tourism actually have a positive impact, not just minimizing, but really leaving a place better than they found it? so we’ve been doing a lot of work with different partners across the state about how can we create programs where visitors can actually volunteer their time or provide a financial donation to organizations that, are positively impacting a community. So it really is. I think tourism can be a force for good. I really do believe that, but that’s not coming without a lot of strategy and planning to make that happen. It doesn’t naturally occur.

LM: Yeah, sure. What would be a specific example of a destination with a program where someone could volunteer or, or give back to the community? If you can share anything yet.

HL: Yeah, I can. We have two, two areas that we’ve been working in for a number of years that participated in very similar programs as Palisade. One is Visit Leadville Twin Lakes. And we worked with them, to help develop, in partnership with the forest service, the, friends of Lake county. so it’s a friends of group, they have stewardship projects on public lands, from campground cleanups to trail maintenance. and it’s a way, you know, they do promote that through the Visit Leadville Twin Lakes website. And so a visitor could sign up for a half day, you know, stewardship project, and also meet community members and be up in the mountains. And they also created a Do Leadville Twin Lakes Right campaign. And so they’re growing that program to include a trailhead ambassador program around that campaign.

Another example is, the roaring Fork Valley. and, they’ve partnered, the five destination marketing and management organizations there, partnered with the roaring Fork outdoor volunteers organization. And so they have, I believe, five service projects across the roaring Fork Valley this summer, and they’re similar. They are promoting it across all of their websites for a way for visitors to get out in the mountains, volunteer, and give back to the community either like a half day or a full day. A lot of this is modeled off of, the Colorado 14ers initiative as well. They have had an incredibly successful, volunteer program every summer where people actually do travel from out of state to, to volunteer for a weekend. And that also gets them out in the mountains and meeting new people.

LM: Yeah. It’s such a unique way to experience a place, I’ve done something similar in grand staircase escalante national monument, where, we did, like, a full day graffiti cleanup in one of the slot canyons. And having been there multiple times before that and after that, visiting, that was just a really unique trip because it gave you a completely different perspective, and you really got to spend some time with the BLM people and people running organizations and locals. And it was such a cool, immersive experience. So it’s exciting to hear that other, organizations around Colorado are doing the same thing.

HL: Yeah. And there’s a new trend. I think Copenhagen’s, like, the first destination that’s doing it, where they have volunteer opportunities, and then if a visitor participates in a volunteer opportunity, they then receive discounts to go to an attraction, to a museum, for example. So they’re incentivizing, their trips, and I think we’ll probably start to see that trend around Colorado as well. It feels very similar to a few years back when we had the pledge, that came out, and a lot of destinations hopped on the pledge idea. and so I think it’ll be really cool to see how that gets integrated into, our communities across the state and if it’s successful.

LM: Yeah. Interesting. so we talked a lot about how can a visitor do right by a place? But on the other side of that, how can residents do right by visitors?

HL: You know, that’s something I think about a lot as a resident of a rural community. And one that is a pretty heavily trafficked, tourist destination is that, I think it’s a lot of patience, right? I think sometimes they drive a little bit slower, and that’s fine. We have to be patient about that. or maybe they take a wrong turn because they’re following their gps. and so I think just having that level of patience and remembering that we also like to travel. And gosh, it wouldn’t be just terrible if every time we traveled, people were rude to us. We went somewhere. Like, I’d like to think that, you know, like, putting myself in somebody’s shoes because I love traveling and knowing that I can show up somewhere and somebody’s going to be friendly and not just angry at me because I’m going a little bit slower, or I take a wrong turn. So I think that’s super important.

and also just realizing it’s a part of our economy, and I think one of the challenges with tourism is that it’s in our face, right? It’s not, like a manufacturing plant that’s shoved on the side of the industrial park in town. It’s all around us. And so it’s one that really, we have to be cognizant of the fact that in order to have this economy means that there’s going to be some more people in town during certain months, or a restaurant might be busy. and so just having that awareness of the fact that it is an economy that fortunately for it to run, we’re going to have some level of an impact.

But I think if we can all work together, and think more solutions oriented about how we can find the right balance, that’s the best way to move forward. And I seen, like, a lot of communities who have, ah, you know, tourism is a big part of their economy, but they refuse to put funding towards it or refuse to think strategically about it, and it just runs them over. and then I’ve seen others that, communities really come together, and I think Leadville is a fantastic example where, like, some amazing work’s been done and some really positive benefits are coming out. Staying solution oriented, staying positive, and providing constructive feedback when it’s appropriate.

LM: Yeah, that’s fair. so I’ll edit this out if the answer is no but have you been to Palisade? And what’s your favorite thing to do here?

HL: Yes, I have been to Palisade, and I wish I’ve spent more time there. but I think, you know, I like just strolling down the street, being by the river, the local trails. Like, it’s just such a, it’s such a beautiful spot with, like, uber convenience. Right? Like, it’s just, like, literally right off the 70. So I think having that real, true feeling of, like, Colorado, that’s, you know, so accessible, it’s just a really, really neat thing. And also, I think, like, you know, palisade is the first community to create a campaign that’s centered around agritourism, and wine tourism. And so it’s been just super interesting to see, like, just how unique the community is, compared to other places in Colorado. Like, you really are a special place and special community.

This type of work and making this campaign come alive, obviously, support from the Colorado tourism office and, both through the program. So capacity and expertise, and financial support. But these programs really, and campaigns don’t really take off without incredible leadership from the community. So, kudos to the Palisade tourism board for, you know, really just taking it and running with it. it’s just so important, and I think, a lot of times, just underappreciated what tourism leadership can do when they put their minds to it. So, well done by them.

LM: Yeah. Yeah. Good shout out. Definitely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you, being willing to talk and do this. I really appreciate your time.

HL: Yeah. Well, thanks for the opportunity, and thanks for thinking about this campaign. it’s really just great to see it come alive. And so, thanks.

LM: We’re at about the midpoint of the tourist season and it feels like it’s been hot for as long as I can remember. Which I love by the way. But I keep thinking about the idea of doing right by visitors. Many of us first saw Palisade as visitors and the friendly locals were probably one of the reasons that we wanted to be a part of this place. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I want to roll my eyes at some outlandish but perfectly safe tourist behavior. Who knows, that person might be my neighbor next year!

The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E28: The Riverfront Trail Runs Through It with Joel Sholtes

What did the Colorado riverfront used to look like in the Grand Valley? What are the One Riverfront Commission and the Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative why do they matter to Palisade residents? When will Palisade finally get that riverfront trail connection?

Joel Sholtes joins me to talk about all this and lots more fun river facts. Joel teaches civil engineering, specializing in water resources engineering, at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. Joel also serves on the One Riverfront Commission and the Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative. Join us and think cool river thoughts on this scorching summer day!

More about One Riverfront: LINK
More about Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative: LINK

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Photo courtesy of Joel Sholtes.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

So I’ve been a little sick! I’ve been waiting for my voice to clear up but now I’m wondering when it ever will?! Then I thought to myself, we all know Ira Glass hosted episodes of This American Life when he was sick as a dog, right? The show must go on. And I hate to keep this great episode from you much longer, so please excuse my nasally intro voice!

Today I am chatting with Joel Sholtes. Joel teaches civil engineering, specializing in water resources engineering, at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. Joel also serves on the One Riverfront Commission and the Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative.

If you haven’t already heard about these groups, One Riverfront is charged with planning, advocating, and implementing programs to redevelop and reclaim the riverfront within Mesa County. The Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative is focused on supporting and maintaining a healthy river corridor.

It’s safe to say that Joel spends a lot of time thinking about water and rivers. He also likes to cycle and he rides his bike over to Palisade every chance he gets. On a Friday afternoon, Joel biked over to chat with me about what the Colorado riverfront used to look like in the Grand Valley, what he’s working on and why it matters to Palisade and Grand Valley residents, when Palisade might finally get that riverfront trail connection, and why you should get involved with the things are important to you.

Hear all about it on today’s Postcard from Palisade.

LM: Good, you good?

JS: Yeah

LM: Well, if you’d like to start just by introducing yourself. Your name,.

JS: Sure. Okay. So my name is Joel Sholtes, and I teach civil engineering at Colorado Mesa University, and I also serve on a couple groups related to the rivers here in the grand valley. One of those is the riverfront commission, and the other is the Grand Valley river corridor initiative.

LM: How is the riverfront commission different from one riverfront? JS: Well, it’s actually the same. It’s mostly the same. Well, there’s been a kind of a long history, and honestly, it’s not that interesting, but it’s one of those administrative histories. The riverfront commission was established by all the municipalities that came on to say, hey, it started in Grand Junction with Watson Islands purchase of, gosh, it was a car dump. I think there were a lot of car dumps on the river, and there’s a real, whatever, locally famous picture of junkyard that you see when you come over the fifth street bridge from Orchard Mesa.

And so that was how a lot of people got to see grand junction for the first time when they came in. So a lot of local leaders, I think, with the Lions club, if I’ve got that right, decided that they wanted to do something about it and, raise some money and worked with the city, to buy that property and really kicked off, probably a decade plus, starting in the late eighties and nineties, restoration effort down on the riverfront. my wife grew up here in the eighties and nineties, and no one, when she was a kid, no one went down to the river. It just wasn’t a thing. Maybe you were a kayaker or a rafter, and you were kind of a little more intense, and you would do that, but the general public wasn’t seeking it out.

So these folks, these leaders, saw an opportunity here. And through that work, also helped establish the James M. Robb state parks, which was named after one of those first leaders that got things going. and the idea was to develop the string of pearls in the grand valley. So we had a lot of industrial uses and farms and, not a lot of development. And really they hoped that we could have these nice green and open spaces that people could connect to. And so that’s slowly been unfolding over the last 30 plus years. Yeah, I’ll stop there.

LM: Okay. Yeah, I’ve seen that picture that you talk about, and it is just amazing that back in the day, the riverfront was thought of as like a dumping ground for old cars. And then there was what, a uranium mine. So that whole effort had to be cleaned up. And when you look at what’s been done in just, you know, 30, 40 years, it’s kind of amazing.

JS: Yeah. And in that area, this is Las Colonias, where the uranium mill was. prior to that it was a beet sugar refinery. And you know, it just kind of shows the different things that we’ve done industrially along rivers. I worked as an environmental scientist on the Hudson river, back in the day and gosh, talk about environmental contamination from our industrial past. so, you know, a little bit of uranium tailings, not terrible. And fortunately it was an EPA, I believe it’s super fund site. I could be wrong on that. But it was in the EPA program and cleaned up and kind of capped and sealed. And now it’s Las Colonias.

LM: Yeah, that’s pretty amazing.

JS: Yeah.

LM: Yeah. So how did you get involved with one riverfront personally?

JS: Well, we moved here for my wife moving back about five and a half years ago. And I’m a river scientist by trade, a river engineer. And you know, I seek out these types of opportunities. So I was like, what’s going on with the river? And so found the website, showed up to a meeting and eventually interviewed to be on the commission. So I’ll just say that it’s a you know, it’s a public volunteer board, kind of like a planning commission or something like that. And we’re always looking for new recruits. So if anyone’s listening to this, look up one riverfront and drop us a line. but that was about, I think, four or five years ago. And have been serving on the commission. Like I said, it’s volunteer. We have representatives from all the municipalities participate, so the county and then the three municipalities. And really it’s a coordinating body. It’s what’s happening on the river, what projects are happening. they have funds through the foundation. So there’s a foundation wing that’s the one riverfront part. It’s a commission and a foundation. So we’re all kind of combined and really try to support efforts. So they will raise money and be kind of matching dollars on grants for extending the trail, writing letters of support for different things and just trying to be a clearinghouse for river and primarily the bike path. That’s our primary focus of projects.

LM: So the bike path, I know one of the things and one of the ways that I got introduced into this or started to learn about it more is, the river path.

JS: They call it the riverfront trail.

LM: Yeah. Like, I know there’s a correct word, the riverfront trail. And moving here. And of course, I love to bike. And, came from Fort Collins, where there’s a ton of incredible trails around town. And you can spend, you know, you can bike hundreds of miles on trails around Fort Collins. So. Got really spoiled by that.

JS: Yeah.

LM: Moved here, love everything else. Looking for some trails, like, well, great, there’s this trail, but it’s over there. And I don’t want to drive to a trail.

JS: It’s a little piecemeal. Yeah.

LM: yeah. So, I started researching a little bit, learning about what was happening already. And then you were leading that ride, the trail connector ride.

JS: about a year ago now.

LM: Yeah, about a year ago. So that’s kind of how I got introduced to the whole thing, that there was an effort that’s been ongoing for years to connect that trail into Palisade and even further up the river

JS: to Clifton and then eventually to las colonias downtown grand junctions.

LM: Right. But then the other way too. Right. Out east.

JS: All the way out. Oh, to east from here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s long, long term. But, there’s one other state park area, island acres, that we’d love to connect to and big, bigger vision. I mean, we’ve got just. You said you talked about hundreds of miles of trails and grand junction. I mean, we’ve got a lot of opportunities, not all them easy, especially, you know, potentially along canals where we have to have willing partners there. but we’ve got this canal that comes the, highline canal. It’s mostly federal project, but that could take you all the way out to Loma, right along the book cliffs. Yeah.

So I don’t know. You know, people talk big, big grandiose ideas, and the only way they happen is through, one little step at a time. And that’s what we’ve been doing with the riverfront trail. It connects out to Loma, where the Kokopelli bike trails are. it goes all the way through grand junction continuously. And then you’ve got that piecemeal stuff. So there’s a segment that, the city, the parks, state parks and, the county have been working on jointly that’s going to connect from Las Colonias to 29 road. so they’ve got all the agreements in place. And actually, it was today or yesterday that they finally signed the deal to purchase the last parcel.

LM: Oh, that’s awesome. I know. It was potentially going to happen. So it actually happened yesterday. That’s great.

JS: I mean, gosh, this is not like, you know, a person going up and putting an offer on a house. This is three governmental entities coming together and, you know, finally negotiating agreements. Really complex, and it’s exciting. So that’ll happen in 26. And then we’ve got this last segment, which comes out to you all here in Palisade. And right now, we’re in this planning project. So we got a, grant from the, local transportation authority, and it’s funding, essentially, an alternative analysis study. So there’s no slam dunk path between Clifton. It’s 33 and a half road to Palisade. It’s the river, which is like, 20 something private parcels. And maybe there’s one of those 20 that’s excited about the trail going through their land.

LM: I can see that, you know, you’re right on the river. like, you’re on the Colorado. How many people get to say that?

JS: Yeah.

LM: Right.

JS: And you have a bike trail going through.

LM: Yeah.

JS: So that’s. That’s probably not going to happen. But we’re looking at alternative routes, and maybe some of them are along the Grand Valley irrigation canal. They’ve got a lot of reasons for why that wouldn’t happen. And as a. As a recreational trail, you’re not going to force your way through.

LM: Right.

JS: You can do, you know, eminent domain if it’s like a sewer line, like Palisade’s doing. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that for Palisade. But anyway, the point is, we need willing partners, and, this planning project is evaluating all these different alternatives, scoring them based on rideability and feasibility, cost, and then coming up with kind of a recommended route out of that. So we’ll, have a public meeting in July, date to be determined, but kind of later in July that will present that and get kind of public input on these route alternatives.

LM: Awesome.

JS: Yeah.

LM: But do you think that will be held in Palisade or in junction?

JS: That’s a great idea. I think we’re shooting for the Clifton library. It’s a new spot. Yeah.

LM: Oh yeah, perfect. It’s a beautiful spot. Yeah.

JS: So that’ll be the focus for that.

LM: Okay, awesome. And that makes sense. It’s right at the end of the trail about thereabouts. Anyway, that’s a side note. that’s really exciting. So they’ve already completed a lot of the work, it sounds like, and are getting ready to present their recommendation. Is that, that’s the stage that it’s at.

JS: We’re getting there. we’ll have, essentially, here are the alternatives that filtered out, you know, based on all this, just what I say, research and investigation and scoring. get the public feedback, and then kind of take that back and come up with a final recommendation. So we’ll have that final recommendation. Then it’s like, okay, now we gotta, like, design and build it, and it probably will come in phases. Cause it’s a lot. but nevertheless, you know, like I said, one step at a time, and I’m hoping in three years we’ll start to have broken ground on at least one of those segments.

LM: Very exciting.

JS: Yeah.

LM: so how does funding for something like that work? Is it it’s probably from many different sources and?

JS: Yeah. I’m a little frustrated about the funding for trails situation because you think about funding for highways and cities, counties, the state, the federal government. There’s just, it’s baked in. Like, obviously we need roads, we need to repair the roads. I get it. but trails are important. Alternative transportation. They’re really important for the community from a. As you know, just adding value to the community, getting us healthy alternatives, just to get outside and do things and move. So right now, there’s not a lot of dedicated funding to trails. And Fort Collins, pretty sure, they do because they have a lot of trails, and I’m assuming they fund a lot of those internally with their property, sales tax base.

LM: Yeah, there’s a lot of it comes from the sales tax. (Link: https://ourcity.fcgov.com/sustainable-funding-2023)

JS: Yeah. And grand junction does put some of their increased sales tax to trails, but that’s the city. And so here we are. This is a county project. we got basically state money to do the planning project, and if we want to go build a trail, we’re probably going to have to go after some kind of a grant or a combination of grants, and that’s probably great outdoors Colorado or GoCO, they have funded a lot of the trail, and this was one of their initial, back in the nineties, big investments that allowed, us to buy a lot of the parcels where the trail goes through and then also build it. I think I just heard the number today. Someone’s, they’ve invested about 19 million over the last 30 years into the riverfront trail. So, you know, they would be a likely source. But we’re also considering other things like, safe routes to schools. And that’s, I think, a federal program or federal and or state. we’re interested in connecting with, bookcliff middle. Is that what it’s called? Or is it grand mesa?

LM: This, Garfield.

JS: No, Garfield middle. Yeah. and then the high school as well. Palisade high school. So we want to make sure that students can not be on highway six and still get to their schools.

LM: Yeah, that’s huge. that kind of. I was gonna say, why is the trail important? That totally. That answers it. I mean, it’s always hard for me when. When people say, like, why is this something you should be putting money into? Because it seems so obvious to me. It’s hard.

JS: Yeah, I mean, you’re a cyclist. You’re a user of that amenity. When I have heard some, I read it in the paper, too. People are like, why are we spending taxpayer money on, bike stuff? And, you know, bicyclists don’t pay taxes. It’s like, well, they probably have a car. Let’s, you know, just be clear about that. They probably pay gas taxes and other things. but. And then the other thing is. Oh, it’s just like these, whatever elitist cyclists that would use this. I biked out here from grand junction, and I passed teenaged girl on a scooter and then a, longboard, you know, coming out, I passed families, walking their kids in strollers. everyone uses the trail, and if it’s there and it’s easy to get to, you’re not going to be some intense cyclist just to use it. The bar for just getting on the trail and being near the river and getting from point a to point b could be a lot lower. A lot.

LM: Well, that’s exciting. So the process is, develop the plan, get the funding, build it. you think three years?

JS: I mean, that might be. That might be a little. Well, you know, at the end of the day, at the end of this year, we’ll have a plan. And I’m hoping, I try to get this in the scope of work with the consultant, a preliminary cost estimate and a conceptual design. So with that, you’re like, okay, here’s the ballpark of how much this could cost. A plan for implementing it. what do we do from there? Well, I’m hoping the county kind of keeps the ball rolling because they’re kind of tangentially involved. they don’t have a lot of resources, but by them kind of leading the charge with this planning project I’m hoping that that can kind of continue and they’ll continue to be a leader in implementation. Because we are a volunteer board, one riverfront, we all have day jobs and we need kind of, you know, the kind of county level staff to keep things moving for a big project like this. so three years, you know, next year we can start pursuing design and implementation funding. Usually it’s like, design it and that’s expensive. I think the city and the state parks are paying like $400,000 just to design the trail from Las colonias to 29 road. It’s about maybe 3 miles.

LM: And this is more like nine, I think. Eight nine something like that?

JS: Yeah. So the design cost could be really big. I don’t know why we’re paying engineers that much, but I get construction’s expensive, materials, but come on. so, you know, there’ll be like a year of design and then the thing that can be really challenging is just making sure if you have to get new easements through people’s property. And, you know, when we laid out the county, we didn’t plan for this. And so there’s a lot of narrow little roads and telephone poles right next to the road and people’s driveways and fences and vineyards. And you start to play that out over miles and it gets really complicated. So that process of just like getting everything lined up so that we can actually like build the trail. And we want a trail that’s wide, eight to 10ft wide, that’s not just a sharrow on the road. we want it there’s like different levels of ratings of like comfortability or whatever for biking. And we want it to be like that. You know, most comfortable, easiest use, less challenging and threatening, so that everyone feels comfortable using it. And that means like its own thing, its own separated bike path. that might not be possible everywhere, at least at first, but we’re hoping. that’s the standard we want to achieve.

LM: That’s awesome. So, how do you stay patient and persistent through a years long process like this?

JS: Yeah, I think it’s having a great team of people to work with and really good partners to kind of carry things on. Not everyone’s shouldering the burden at once. we do our part, the county’s doing their part, funding gets in the additional capacity to keep things going. So that’s one thing. And then the other is like, you know, I’ll probably be doing this for six years, two terms, and then I’m going to bow out and pass the baton. And as long as we’ve got kind of a robust framework and foundation for how we do things, then people can pick it up and keep it moving.

We had a quarterly meeting this morning with one riverfront where all of our partners and the public kind of got together. And, this gentleman, I believe his name is Brad Taylor, he is now on the foundation. He was a Colorado parks and wildlife, like, district ranger manager, and set the process up, for the last little connection in Grand Junction now, the 29 road connection, getting easements through properties and purchasing the property. CPW owns a lot of the land there. That was in the nineties, and he’s retired. And, that, that process that he set up back in the nineties is, like, finally panning out 30 years later. I don’t know what to say other than, you know, you just kind of keep. Keep picking away and you get new people coming in and. https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/scenic-trail-blazed-to-fruita/article_5d168829-ad2d-5536-b696-cad82b7333da.html

LM: Yeah, kind of think about it with a historical perspective. It’s like geological time.

JS: It feels like geological time. Like, he’s retired now and, you know, on the foundation and not in the day to day stuff, but, you hope that the things you do now ripple and keep propagating into the future.

LM: I love that. Yeah, that’s really cool. And I’m assuming you would be a user of the trail when it’s finally built.

JS: So when we met on the, the bike ride, it was on a lot of roads and we had to cross the highway, and it was lightning and raining.

LM: Yeah. that was the other part.

JS: Can’t do anything about the weather, but we can do stuff about road safety.

LM: That was exciting. You know, it was just. I mean, people still talk about that in our, you know, Monday night rides. It’s like, that was the most epic ride. With the lightning and the rain. Like, blinding rain.

JS: It did feel like a race against time.

LM: Very fun.

JS: You can see a wall of dark clouds chasing after us.

LM: Yeah. No, that was a cool thing to have set up, and I think it brought a ton of publicity to, what you’re doing, what you’re working on, and the need for the trail. So that was cool. What’s your favorite trail to bike? Like are you more of a road cyclist or a mountain biker?

JS: Gosh, I guess I’ll give you two. my favorite little road bike is outside of my house up Little park road. So if I want 40 minutes of just pumping really hard, I get to go up a little park road up to, you know, not quite bangs canyon, but just a little bit before that. So that’s fun. And then, yeah, I also live next to the lunch loops, so get out there. But I’d say my favorite is getting out to Kokopelli and just getting to see the river, from the bike trails out there near Loma.

LM: Yeah. That’s really special. so the other thing that you were talking about then, the river corridor initiative. I don’t know anything about that. So tell me more about that.

JS: Yeah, it’s a little newer, it’s a little more kind of behind the scenes, and it’s a group of, we’ll just say mostly nonprofits. So it’s rivers edge west, American rivers, myself, which I’ll just say Colorado Mesa University. And that’s our core team. And we got together in 2020 and just kind of said, we feel like there’s kind of a missing conversation in the grand valley related to how we manage the land and manage the river corridor. Rivers edge west is obviously, they started out of one riverfront to deal with all the invasive riparian species, tamarisk.

It used to be the Tamarisk coalition. and just managing that because it’s a mess and it’s unsightly and it’s just not good habitat. so they’re coming at it from, how do we manage the vegetation and riparian corridor perspective? You’ve got folks now that are doing, you know, are aware and worried about wildfires on the river. We’ve got these trees and underbrush and how are we managing that?

I’m coming at it from a river science and hazard standpoint. The river moves, it migrates, and it’s always done that. And then when we build roads and bike paths and, you know, there’s a little storage unit, you know, there’s a little storage unit, rental storage unit place that comes right down to the river. It’s like, what do we want? And all these things have been happening over the last several years, I think about what do we want the river to look like as we’re starting to reconnect with it and redevelop it in 20 to 30 years? Like, how can we have the river support all these values that we have?

Obviously, the water, that’s why the grand valley is here, and that’s why it’s thriving. the recreation, the developments, and, kind of economy that’s based around the river and then the environments and the floodplain hazards. I’m a flood hazard guy, so, very aware of that. And I want to make sure that we’re doing all this in a way and we’re coordinating, we, meaning all the local governments and the community, in a way that preserves and supports and enhances those values, because some of the things we might do for one value might conflict with another.

So this has been a conversation. It’s been kind of reaching out and getting stakeholder input about what are the priorities and concerns that we want to address. That was kind of our first couple years, had some workshops and meetings, and then we’ve gotten funding from the state to do these planning projects. So there’s been a, fluvial hazard mapping project. And so it’s kind of a it’s like the floodplain map, but a little bit different. It’s not a regulatory thing. It’s just where has the river been and where will it move, assuming that humans are kind of out of the way. So anything we do in that corridor might eventually get in conflict with the river. So it’s kind of like a heads up planning tool.

we’ve got the endangered fish recovery program, which puts a lot of resources into, supporting these endangered fish. The whole existence of this program, which is supported by the state and water users, it makes it a lot easier to just extract water from the river and put it to use for agriculture and municipal uses. If we didn’t have that program, basically every project would have to go through this really lengthy review process. It’d be really expensive and cumbersome. So it’s really facilitated just, we’ll just say people kind of using the river in that respect.

LM: Interesting. that’s interesting because it feels like from the other things that you’re talking about, there could be a conflict with agricultural uses. So it’s interesting to hear that that’s a big compliment almost.

JS: Yeah, I mean, you’ve got this kind of state law of, we can take water out of the river and put it to beneficial use through water rights. and then you’ve got the federal Endangered Species act, and they can be in kind of a conflict. And so this program, it’s been around for 30 something years, tries to bridge that gap. And, okay, the things that that program does, supports the endangered species act and gives them kind of clearance under that. And then as long as that program exists and it’s kind of meeting its metrics, then we can kind of continue using the water in the way that it’s been used, regulated and diverted. Yeah.

LM: I’m assuming the group of people who set that up was very forward thinking to just bridge the gap between two programs that don’t work well together.

JS: Right, exactly.

LM: That’s interesting.

JS: Yeah. And right now they’re coordinating among like, half a dozen reservoirs in the upper basin releases, because last year was a good year. So they have a little bit of extra to help bump the peak up a little bit. And have that you may have read that article, help the river move, mobilize and create that backwater habitat that supports the fish. so part of my interest as a river scientist is the fact that these fish, they don’t just need water, they need places to go or habitat. And that habitat’s created and maintained as the river migrates.

And so a dynamic river, ultimately supports native fish. And so if we don’t really think about that, and 30 years from now, we’ve riprapped the river from Palisade to Fruita, then we’ve got some problems, and it’s also very expensive. So the river corridor initiative is trying to bring all these groups and all these values together and kind of have some plans and have some big picture discussions about where we want to focus restoration and conservation, where do we want to focus development. And what does that development look like? so we can have a river corridor that’s a little more, ah, in harmony and harmonious across the whole valley, and then supports those values.

So the next, the kind of most imminent step that we’re working on is, getting all the local jurisdictions to sign off on a master plan. And that would be a process we do next year. We gotta get funding for it. But, it would be just bringing everyone to the table and be like, okay, what do we value about the river? What do we wanna do about, what are some guidelines and some recommendations that we all feel comfortable adopting? so that we can have a river that meets aesthetic values and open space values and, economic development values, that sort of thing. So that plan hopefully will happen next year, and that will kind of be like this template of like, what is the river going to look like as we develop it out?

LM: So you are obviously very passionate about this stuff.

JS: Yeah.

LM: And I mean, how do you make time for all of this? Just like, I know you have a day job. I think you have kids, right?

JS: Yeah.

LM: and two boards. And how do you make time for everything?

JS: Yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna lie, I definitely have gotten a little stretched over the past couple of years and maybe over involved and actually, stepped back in my teaching. So I’m doing 60% now in my teaching and service at the university. and filling that in with this kind of work. So it’s paying a little bit. You know, we’re getting a grant. I’m paying some of my time to be involved in this and, trying to make it sustainable in that way. Yeah. One riverfront’s volunteer. It’s a volunteer board, and I put in the time that I can with it.

LM: Sure. Yeah, no, it’s a lot, because I know, I mean. People have grand goals to get involved with a lot of things, but when you actually start getting involved, it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of time, and I think it’s. It needs people like you who can really commit to it.

JS: Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve gone through that journey getting involved, and, like, we need to do this and this and this and restructure, and. And then I’m like, okay, to actually do all this, it’s a lot. And so what. What is reasonable? And so I think with one riverfront, it was like, oh, gosh, there’s all these things that could be addressed. And then we found that, hey, we’ve got this huge gap in the trail, and right now there’s nothing happening with it. So that was the kind of, like, zooming into that. And thank God we’ve got a consultant doing the work. Right.

with river corridor initiative, it’s like, okay, two years of kind of volunteering and showing up and doing stuff. And then, hey, we’ve got this grant I’m going to build in some time for me to get paid to work and do this. With the river corridor initiative, like I said, we’ve been kind of working behind the scenes with local governments. We don’t have, like, community members involved, but I think as we grow and become a little more formalized, we’re starting to think more about community outreach and engagement.

And outreach is simply just like, hey, we’re doing stuff. Engagement, is like, what do you think? And what do you want to. I’m sure there’s. This is my, like, very loosey goosey definition here. do you want to participate and help with this? And, so. We’re going to be a little bit more public facing with the river corridor initiative, and, it takes. Takes a little work to do that, a little targeted, but that’s something we’re exploring. We’re producing a video that’s going to be kind of like, what is the river? And what is the river corridor initiative?

So that’s something that’s fun. and, I mean, gosh, if anyone’s got a little bit of extra time to go to a meeting once a month and do a little bit of volunteering, there’s so many opportunities out there with, the river. It’s the grand Valley Paddlers association. It’s group rides like you’re putting on. there’s a nascent, I think it’s called grand Valley cycling Alliance. I might be getting that wrong, but they’re. They’re gonna be out there soon. just advocating for this kind of stuff out there in the grand valley. And then there’s the urban trails commission with the city. So there’s just a bazillion opportunities. Obviously, it’s easy to get overextended, but find one and, you know, just show up and you’ll find your way. I’m just gonna put that out there to whomever might be listening to this.

LM: Yeah, call to action! Yeah, I know. I’m sure that the boards and the different organizations always just need people. They need help with people, you know, labor. They need hands. They need money.

JS: Yeah. And it’s so rewarding, because you get to engage with and interact with these people that, I’m friends with some of them, I’m not friends with all them, but I get to see them. And it’s like Jamie Porta, who ran for city council, and who’s just, like, an awesome person, and I get to be in meetings and just, like, catch up, and it’s just an example of a cool person that I wouldn’t normally be hanging out with, but then I get to interact with and engage with. So from just like, a pure social perspective, it’s been cool to, and, meet people like you. Right. So that’s what’s been cool about doing this kind of stuff.

LM: Cool. Yeah, absolutely.

JS: I think I’ve talked my. My head off at this point, so. Yeah

LM: Yeah, this was great, this is you know, really exciting things, and, I mean, I really appreciate the work that you and the whole organization are doing, too. It’s. It’s hard work, and it’s a lot of effort, and it takes time and patience that, you know, I’m glad that you and the team of people working on this has, because it’s a benefit to everybody, and we just get to sit back and enjoy it. So, yeah, just do something.

JS: Sorry, I was just leaning over for some reason and then decided to fall over.

LM: Yeah, this is just an ikea chair here.

JS: I think another thing to point out is, like, even if you’re not, like, involved on a board, it’s just like, you know, call up your city council member, especially the Mesa county folks, tell them, like, why. Why is this important to you? And, or email them. Like, they need to hear from the public, because they don’t necessarily know. They have their own priorities and values, and this is one of them. We’re just kind of one of the, efforts and initiatives out there that they may or may not know a lot about, and maybe not, maybe don’t understand why it might be important for the community.

LM: do you all have anything, like email templates or, you know, suggested scripts or anything like that?

JS: No, but we should

LM: just make it easier for the public.

JS: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. I like that.

LM: Yeah. All right, well, thank you so much for coming in.

JS: Yeah, thanks Lisa.

LM: and taking some time to talk to me

JS: Absolutely.

LM: I really appreciate it.

LM: There’s just something so compelling about Joel’s visual of our roles in life as members of a relay race. Big projects and efforts can feel so overwhelming. Reframing your thinking to carrying a specific task as a team member on the grand stage, doing the best you can, then passing the baton on to the next person. How simply beautiful is that? “people talk big grandiose ideas, but the only way they happen is one little step at a time”

The podcast’s theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E27: The Palisade Community Garden Takes Root with Lu Frederick

Lu Frederick is leading the charge to develop the Palisade Community Garden in downtown Palisade, along with Lehl Chase-Nason.

Lu joins me to talk about the history of the garden, what’s been built so far, what’s next, and how you can get involved.

Learn all about how a hard-working team of volunteers is transforming a piece of undevelopable land by the railroad tracks from a weedy gravel lot into a thriving place for community members to gather, learn, and of course, grow!

Follow the Palisade Community Garden on Facebook.

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

Today I am chatting with Lu Frederick, who along with Lehl Chase-Nason, is leading the charge to develop the Palisade Community Garden in downtown Palisade. Lu shares the history of the garden, what’s been built so far, what’s next, and how you can get involved. Hear all about how a hard-working team of volunteers is transforming a piece of undevelopable land by the railroad tracks from a weedy gravel lot into a thriving place for community members to gather, learn, and of course, grow.

Building something like this from scratch is a huge effort, especially in our high desert climate. Lu, Lehl, and all the other volunteers have a long-term vision for this plot of land that will be most successful with the support of the Palisade community.

Learn all about it on today’s Postcard from Palisade.

LF: I’m Lu Frederick. I’m one of the main representatives of the Palisade community garden here in Palisade at 470 west fourth Street.

LM: When and how did you get involved with the community garden?

LF: Well, last year, I It was my first time going ahead and living in this town, and I had traveled around in a camper for the last couple years, and every time I stopped here, it was just that full heart Palisade, community thing where your family and your community just kept growing. And I went from having three to five people to 20 people every time I came back, being like, oh, it’s so good to see you. So, naturally, when it came to, oh, where do I want to slow down and enjoy my stay and enjoy the seasons? Not just running through. Palisade was the first spot, and I worked at paddle board adventures company here in Palisade. And I started getting integrated more and more with people my own age and the community. And there was a couple people that had interest about creating a community garden in town. And so I started talking with Lehl, who is my other main partner with the community garden, and we are the main representatives, which were always looking for more people to participate. but we are the two that mainly are the backbone of everything. And so I spoke with her, and she was very into it and very motivated and a very intricate part to getting this going to where it is. so blessed for her. so we went ahead, and before we even present it to the town, we probed the community, answer, asking questions of what they would want, what was important to them. If they were going to have a community garden, why would they come to the community garden, what events, things like that. And that’s slowly the backbone of what started the community garden.

LM: people might not know this, but that’s actually town land, right?

LF: Yes it is. The Palisade town has gone ahead and donated to us. They also paid for the water rights. We are not an entity at all. We do not accept any money goods for the Palisade community garden, which they have helped make this be. But technically Lehl and I are the representatives who have signed on, to take responsibility for everything. but so we do not. We are not an entity. We’re not a donation or charity based, in the way of accepting money. We are donation based only. So the way the garden works, if you want to plot, which currently I think we’re at six or seven right now. And in the future we hope to grow those boxes for the community residential members. But if they want a plot and they don’t have land to grow vegetables on their residence here in Palisade, because some people have townhouses, they do a $25 donation, whether it’s a heavy duty hose or drip line accessory or something. And we sign the paperwork which just says about they have rights for the full year. They, no pesticides are allowed to be used. They’re not allowed to have shadows cast from from their box onto another box. And so like you have large hoop houses on your mini little plot.

LM: No sunflowers blocking all the other plots.

LF: Exactly. Also there is where if they do not go ahead and maintain the weeds in the property. Cause this is. We want it to look aesthetically pleasing to keep people interested and not look like a weed pit. So with that note, if we have a couple month period, ah, where we’ll give them notices and if they don’t take it over at that point, then they have vetoed the rights to have the plot. we also do have where a lot of businesses have been intricate and helpful for donating items in town. And we have a $200 donation item or items to go ahead and where we cross market them on social media as well for a whole year just to help the businesses. And I will say when we first stepped into this, we were, Lehl was very much. She’s like, I don’t want it to be a charity. I don’t want to go through that. And a lot of other community members didn’t like the idea of a charity either. So it was another thing to add fuel to that. And I thought it was going to hinder us with donations. Hasn’t. Our community is so supportive. The businesses have been amazing. Dan from the happy camper, I asked for just a simple metal shed from Lowe’s or something. And he was like, no, that’s not good enough. And he gave us an eight by ten fully constructed shed that was just dropped onto our plot. Donated also with Mor storage and sheds. They went ahead and helped him with that. And we’ve had so many other businesses donate items. like just recently it has I haven’t advertised it yet, but over at Palisade Brewing company, they went and, acquired us some hop plants so we can go ahead and start planning it for shade, because that is one of the big complaints about the garden, is we have no shade.

LM: No, that’s a full sun plot there.

LF: Yeah.

LM: So, okay, so that’s really interesting. So you and Lehl kind of put together a list of here are the things that we need, and then anything that’s going to be a $200 or above. That’s the kind of thing you would go to a business and say, hey, are you interested in providing anything of these things?

LF: We will even offer if they are only looking for a $100 or $50 donation we’ll work with them for the cross marketing for a shorter period of time. Our big thing is that we just want to try to get everything to make this garden happen. And, we’re just so happy that the, Palisade town went ahead and donated this last year to us. And thankfully, cross our fingers it’s going to keep going and it’s just steps in place. And I understand we got a lot. We get a lot of back heat, apparently, because the previous garden didn’t do well. So we are fighting a double edged sword there at times. But when you come out and you see the turnout for events and you also feel the vibe of the community that is helping out, they want this to happen.

LM: Right. And you are taking it in a different direction. I mean, you can really I think it’s important to be aware of the legacy you’re stepping into. But you’re also different people.

LF: We are.

LM: With a different plan and a different approach. so what kind of things are you still looking for from businesses?

LF: Okay, so right now, tomorrow we’re having at 08:00 a.m. to eleven, we’re having a fill our beds. So we’re starting to put soil into our beds. Then after that, oh, my little flyer I brought. I’ve been handing out the businesses because La Plaza, has been working with us, allowing us to use their printers here and there to start printing out things. Because besides that, we were just doing Facebook, which limits how many people that can see and know about our garden and the events. But so, on the 19th, at 09:00 a.m. from 09:00 a.m. to 10:30 at the garden, we’re going to have meeting of the minds drip talk, which is specifically a talk about all the way to set up our water for our garden. So that way, we don’t have to have someone outside on site every single day, doing every single thing. Now, weeding, that’s, once again, that’s a whole other thing. And we will schedule different things, but for the watering, that is something that it will be. Let them figure it out. The Palisade community garden is about the community. So we want the community to come together to put their input. I personally have very limited knowledge. Lehl has a little bit more understanding about the drip lines and stuff than I do. But there are so many people in this community, orchard members and everything, who understand all the irrigation of all different forms. Me, I’m like, if it’s underground, it’s irrigation, it’s above ground, it’s a drip line. The apparently they’re all irrigation. Oh, yeah. No, I don’t know the difference.

LM: So it’s a. Ah, I mean, the important thing is not knowing everything. It’s knowing who to ask. Right.

LF:, exactly. Resourcing.

LM: Yeah, exactly. This is what I tell myself all the time.

LF: My specific angle is mainly focused on the resourcing. And I do do a lot of the social media posts and setting up events, but once again, looking for other participants.

LM: Absolutely. Okay, so that makes sense for the businesses, but for individual plots. so basically the process is somebody expresses interest. You say, you’re in if you provide an item that’s 25 dollars value, then they get a plot, and they get it for a season basically?

LF: a full season. there is a, ah, because we’re currently in partially already into the season. Just to be fair to the people, I have offered them in full into the next year. And also, I feel like these people that are starting out with these donations, they’re so intricate. Their donations are most important right now to get us going. So offering them a little bit more, I feel it’s appropriate. And also after that, just on the donation base and next year is when we hopefully have everything we need for the garden to do the pay it forward and give back to the community thing, we will take a $25 donation with a purchase receipt of something. Just showing that you actually made the purchase to some other organization in town. Like one of the big ones I personally love to support is for the sculptures. I know Gary runs that one. And we’re trying to save a lot of the sculptures in town that have been real icons recently. And so something like that. That’s what we’re looking. So it. It’s, once again, not just about the garden, it’s about the community around.

LM: That’s cool. Very cool. So you would take that $25 and kind of pay it forward to another organization?

LF: Well, they would be paying it for it. They just be showing us proof of receipt and. Yes, 100%.

LM: Gotcha. Okay, so you’re established with items now. You’re like, your buy in is you donated to another organization.

LF: Yes, that’s right. We are not allowed to accept any money. And I think that is actually for a community organization. I think it’s a wonderful way to run it.

LM: That’s very cool. I love that idea because you definitely expand your reach then.

LF: Absolutely. And it also shows you that Lehl and I, we and any other participant, we have a couple other members that have really stepped forward. Joseph is one of them. He started and has started constructing hoop houses for teaching Kratky the Kratky method of soilless growing and. Yes, and there’s going to be seminars in the future. Free as well. Everything at the garden is free, except if there’s a food truck or something like that. But so we have other members stepping up, and I think it’s so important that no money, no scent gets put in our pockets. And we are truly about Palisade, and we want Palisade to have the best future possible.

LM: I love that idea. So, in addition to the individual plots, it sounds like there are other areas that you and Lehl and all the other key volunteers are going to maintain as well.

LF: Ah so, going on with the plots. I didn’t fully, describe this. So we have, we’re involving all three types of community plots. We are having community plots for the individuals to rent. We are having business plots for the businesses if they want to claim that have donated items to rent, or claim because they’ve donated the items, which only Pali Thai has because they were intricate at weeding last year. They were amazing. And if you watched any of the videos or seen the photos, just raise the roof.

LM: Looks like Mike and Pam made a lot

LF: Oh my gosh. They powerhoused it.

LM: Yeah. And then a lot of dump trips as well. Or composting trips.

LF: Yes, they filled it. Absolutely. They filled that trailer three different times. And then Mike brought in that tractor and cleared the by the railroad. So we wouldn’t have those weeds. So there was no issues with the idea of fires or anything. And just, you know, with the train going down there with the dead stuff, it really, the sparks that come off, it’s a little scary. So that just eases our mind with the kids so that we want to be involved in the garden in the future. But anyway, so also we have the community plots. So the community plots are actually for the community to pick from. So we will be, as community garden members or participants, going to go ahead and weed and set up a program to maintain those community areas for people to bring their grandkids or maybe the preschool, ah, organizations to bring the kids over so they can actually pick. We actually are, I just, set up yesterday. I’m so excited about this. We have a lady who is, also Sandy is her name She has agreed to help start going ahead and setting up a scavenger hunt for the kids that we hope to have ready by time school sets in for next year. And, she’s working with the new, senior community center that is set up in town. And, they are, going to have, some of the senior members paint rocks and things that are meant for the scavenger hunt. So I’m really excited about that. And it’s been very, hard, long road finding somebody who wanted to take that type of creative side, I guess, because that type of the brain that is a whole intricate member where you have to be good with words, you have to be good with poems, and you also have to be good with puzzles. And it takes a lot of time to set this. And so it was hard finding a member to go ahead and do that.

LM: Awesome. And that’s just another community connection on so many different levels. So very cool. how do you distinguish between the different areas at the garden?

LF: So because we still, until tomorrow, we don’t have soil into them. So I have not placed too much around hand, but I have been starting to print out, little information, pamphlets and laminate them. So they would be posted around the garden. So there will be actually little laminate areas that say, if you can, pick from this area and if you can’t, if it’s for residents or if it’s for community. And also going on with how great the town is, they’re looking to donate us a whole new community sign. And I’m crossing my fingers because I’m pushing for a proper community sign where you can have the plexiglass, where you slide it across, and community members can put their own things advertising what’s happening throughout town. But we will go ahead and also have information palettes on that community sign as well. Of what and how the garden is supposed to operate.

LM: Yeah, I mean, that makes it official. The sign is like, all right, this is the place. This is official.

LF: And a different note, we’re also working on bilingual translation because, once again, our community is not just English speaking. They are mostly Spanish as well. And if there’s anybody in the community that would like to, translate for us in a different language, I’m always welcome and open to hearing that and would love them to do it. So I just need to print out the document.

LM: Yes. I love it. I think you’ve also had so many really interesting, innovative events and ways that you’ve approached cleaning up the lot and then getting these beds planted and the different things that you’re doing on site there.

LF: We’re trying.

LM: I mean, the whole goat head contest was such a cool idea.

LF: Goat head stomp. Yes, that was, I have to say, Lehl and I, we definitely tag teamed that with that. And it was cute.

LM: It’s just such a creative idea to make it more interesting than just, like, let’s pick up this horrible, invasive, you know, thing. so where do you get those ideas? Or even, like, the thing you’re doing now with the hoop house or the different, when you’re bringing the food truck or, like, where do you get these ideas?

LF: Community. it’s all about just putting these things out there and leaving it open for the community to come back. the hoop house, specifically, Joseph came to me about that. He apparently had been part as a side member for the first garden. And he came to me and he was like, I just want to check to see how this garden is going, what your plans are. And when he confirmed that everything that we are looking to do with the garden to what he wanted, then he was like, this is what I would like to present to you. And our thing with him on the Kratky method with the hoop, hoopy houses hoop houses, is that he has built two for demonstration and seminars so the public and the community can see how it works. And he’s going to do seminars or, lessons and then and they’re completely free. everything at the garden, once again, free. And then we are to create two others for the community if they want to go ahead and have an area section in the hoop houses to go ahead and claim it as a plot per se, so they can do the same method themselves. And I’ll tell you, he showed me a lettuce that he spent 35 days and it was over a foot tall and 35 days a full head of lettuce. And we’re talking about the leafy lettuce, not the iceberg lettuce. And so it’s the healthier, it has more nutrition and it’s beautiful. He also gave me bok choy a little bit shorter than the last, but it was still about twelve inches. And so this method really does work and the way. From my understanding, I might have this off a little bit. So just leave it open for error. I’m not the teacher here, so.

LM: People will just have to come to the seminar.

LF: Yes.

LM: And fact check you.

LF: but so he, right? he says, I believe it’s he has bins that he fills with water and has the floating device with the seed and the plant on it. And the water gets switched out once every two weeks and compost heat gets added into it. And that’s all. No pipes, no, electric needed. You just need to check in and maintenance your plants here and there. And anything from, from the ground with all the weeding and all that is very lax compared to that. So, he offered that himself. And I feel ah, so blessed because also on, beautification, because appeal of course, is a big part of about a community garden. And he has been so helpful in ideas about how making it aesthetically gorgeous and attractive from the outside, but also practical. And he also recently accumulated us two water tanks that we’re going to start going ahead and use. That way, when the soil goes in, our irrigation, line or drip lines can go ahead and be coming from the tanks instead of having to have someone out there every day and lift the line. For the water.

LM: Makes sense. So you fill up the tank once and then that takes care of itself for a while.

LF: I think with the two tanks, what we’re planning, that hopefully we can go ahead and have it so once a week they get filled.

LM: Okay. That makes a lot of sense to figure out how to make it sustainable because everybody has, you know, multiple other jobs.

LF: Absolutely. Ah, Lehl and I are examples of that.

LM: Exactly, right? And if you want to do it well and make sure it is sustainable and it will keep going. Yeah, it’s great to think about those things and think about how is this going to be something you can keep up with and other people can keep up with?

LF: and we have a couple other people that have come in the community. What you said about food trucks. So, recently I also run the pali swap in town. I had the last pali swap before the fall, at the garden. And loaded lemonade pony lemonade. I always forget which word comes in front of the other, but they’re amazing and so wonderful. And they asked, ah, hey, could we go ahead and do a pop up there? And I was like, absolutely. Because as long as we don’t have alcohol at the garden and don’t have it past ten for noise ordinances and have less than 200 people, we are able to throw events pretty openly there. But once again, the town has okayed that. They have given, gone ahead and okayed a permit for that. That is something they are allowing us to do for the town because they want this for the community as well.

LM: how do the neighbors react? Like the surrounding nearby neighbors.

LF: so we have directly across the street, there’s, the blue house. The people are wonderful. they’ve done major improvements on the house. Beautiful. But they have, opened up, anytime we meet electric lines run, they told us, hey, this one will trip our breaker. This is where you use da da da. We have also directly across the street, Ariana, who works at La Plaza. Her and her husband Augusta and the kids come over and help all the time. She, by the way, I just love her. She’s love and light. If you haven’t met her, you need to. Well, I hope that you make it to one of the community garden events and meet her, because I think her personality, that you would really enjoy it. She just light. She also is a, she’s a young book author, she has already agreed, once we get set up to do book readings at the garden. there’s all these little tiny, intricate ways that we have asked and looked for the community and said, hey, is this something you’d be interested in? And so we have a lot of events that we’re planning for. It’s just getting the property ready for it, because the big thing is we can’t do kid events until the property is ready for kids. We’ve been doing some music events where people are bringing kids, but it’s more integrated right now to bring the adults because just picking up debris and there’s a lot of, We have pallets that are separated because the pallets, even though they look like they’re piling up, they’re. Even the small little pieces can be reused for something. And as soon as we get the soil in, hopefully we’ll be able to get a lot of that out there, because then we’ll know where we are and what resources we need at this point.

LM: Just knowing that you don’t, you don’t have well, tomorrow you’ll probably have a better idea.

LF: Yes. Tomorrow is a big day.

LM: After if tomorrow goes well. Tomorrow goes really well. Yes. How do you, or when do you think you’re like, is this a, one year, two year? Like, what’s your outlook for when you feel like things are gonna be up and running fully?

LF: Oh, Lisa, you know me already. I plan for, like, long term. It’s meant to be there for 20 years in the future. Now being practical, I think that currently, with our motivation that we have, it would probably be anywhere from 4 to 5 years. and that’s just seeing how we are in trickling through the community. That’s where we’re doing podcasts like this and other information things. And today was the first time that we started getting our flyers up woo. so having those type of things get out into the community is going to make it more longstanding. And when more participants that we get involved and more people that want to step up and take responsibility, the more longstanding it can be. I really want this to be something that’s around in 10, 20 years, and that’s just being practical, that everything comes to an end at some point in time. But we have here in town, our, high school. they’re creating internships for their high school students. And our. My intention is to have it so we have an internship with them also in the future. we. I think Crystal Green is her name. Very lovely lady. And she and I discussed where we could possibly have it. So there’s different science programs in the high school, and they have one program is that they have to create a whole, set, for summer or a whole growing plan for, I believe it’s one set of, sessions. So I guess summer session would make sense. So if we work with them, and they already have greenhouses, so we work with them to do our starter plants. And it would be a great cross promotion to keep this going long term. And cross promotion is how you keep everything going. Working with the businesses, working with the different organizations, the senior programs, the schools, the preschoolers, and also homeschoolers are a big, intricate part in our community here, which is another reason why I’m excited about that scavenger hunt for the kids, because the homeschoolers I spoke to, probably about seven different ones before Lehl and I got approval on this garden. And they were like, we need it. We need something to take our kids to. And if you give us something like this, we will be there. So that’s why it’s such a big thing for me to be like, we are getting there.

LM: Absolutely. So what is the, what’s the number one thing you need right now?

LF: So the 19th. Talking about so 19th. Like I said, our meeting of the minds drip talk from 09:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. is the big thing that will set about where our needs list are. I do have a, big thing about shade cloth is in important right now, but I feel assessing our needs after the 19th is the most important because figuring out if we need little drip line heads or more tubing, once again, this is not my area, so I’m not using their appropriate names. But like that, that is where I feel that the community, when we have this meeting, the community will go ahead and tell me what we need and I will resource it at that point. Besides that, shade, cloth is very, very important because we have the hoop houses and if we want to have some shade for people to go over the summer, also, we, have on our community boxes. Currently we have two we’re going to build more in the future. We have two community boxes for people to pick from. And there is where I have an old greenhouse layout. The frame is put on and I want to use it so we can work on our shade. how one side of your house seems to have like two to three hours just shade, and the other is six to nine. So using that information, I want to use as an educational tool of how to grow plants accordingly in our town here, depending on how your house is set up or your apartment. And we need shade cloth for that as well. So that is currently one of the most important things before our drip line talk. But I don’t want to say that is the important thing until after our drip line talk because I feel getting water run is good.

LM: that’s pretty important yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. so if people want to get involved and say they want to get involved to volunteer their time and efforts just in building the garden, or they want to volunteer and donate materials or, you know, get a plot, how do they, what’s the process like, how do people get in touch?

LF: Currently has been Facebook. and unfortunately, at this main point, until we get the better bulletin board at the community garden, Facebook is the best thing. And besides that, I will go ahead and put my number on the bulletin board at the garden and say, text or email this. but the Facebook, we have the palisade community garden page. And if you contact us through that, I am always on it at least multiple times a day, and someone sends me a message, I am instantly usually there within less than a 24 hour period. We are pretty openly accepting. But we do put some limitations on, like, we can’t have, compost bins that can’t be rotated. That was a recent find. We originally weren’t even thinking compost at all, but we did find out if it’s one of those rolling bins that can be allowed. And, one person is definitely donating. Another, said that they will donate, and it’s confirmation on that. But the biggest thing is, if you show up to our events, like talking with Lehl or I, we will go ahead and either open our arms right then or schedule a date to meet you guys and accept the goods at that certain point in time if it’s something that needs to go in the shed and be locked up.

LM: So, reaching out right now, Palisade Community Garden Facebook page, is the best way to get connected and stay, involved with everything that’s happening.

LF: if you’re just say if you’re bored for a weekend or you don’t have, like, maybe once a month, you like to contribute in some way. It doesn’t have to be every day, but, contact us. Maybe we can say, like, hey, like, we can go ahead and have you weed for an hour or turn on our garden. And those type of things are so helpful. What seems small is not small. It is huge in the long run. And all it takes is a little bit from every community member to make this community garden last.

LM: I love it. It’s just such a cool thing that you’re doing, and I’m really glad that you and Lehl are leading this, and it seems like you have all of the best groundwork in place to make it happen.

LF: Hoping, crossing fingers.

LM: Yeah. It’s a huge effort, and I’m really impressed with everything that you’re working on and, how much work it is and how you’re making time for it and making it happen.

LF: Yeah. I’ll tell you, it’s got so many ups and it’s got so many downs, and our motivation, our community and our heart is what keeps us going. I personally, living out east until last few years, as I mentioned, I tried this multiple times out east, and trying to get a good standing community is the hardest point. And the businesses, the people. Well, the people are the businesses. You know, they’re this heart in this town is the most amazing thing ever. Well, you know, you moved here, too.

LM: Yeah, exactly. I know. I felt it, too. I’m like this. It’s really special, so I feel like it. If it’s gonna succeed, you’re gonna make it happen.

LF: Crossing fingers. Raise the roof. Preach it.

LM: Exactly. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I really appreciate it.

LF: Thank you. I’m so glad that we can make this work.

LM: Me, too.

LM: If you’re interested in learning more about the Palisade Community Garden, located at 470 west fourth Street in Palisade, search for the Palisade Community Garden facebook page. There you’ll find information about upcoming events, volunteer work days, plot rentals, and more.

Our theme music is Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E26: Bringing Joy to Palisade with Kristen Seymour of Harlow and The Merc

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with one of my favorite people in Palisade and beyond, Kristen Seymour.

Kristen and I chat about how her two local businesses, Harlow and The Merc, tie into Palisade’s history, what she’d change if she could start over again, whether she was expecting to be honored with both business of the year and person of the year recognition by the Palisade Chamber of Commerce, and her goals and ambitions as a small business owner in Palisade.

Kristen shares the path that brought her to Palisade, how raising kids here is different from the other places her family has lived, what Palisade does right and what could use a little more work, and the awesome power of locals supporting local businesses in the off-season.

More about Harlow and The Merc.

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

Today I have the pleasure of speaking with one of my favorite people in Palisade and beyond, Kristen Seymour. Kristen and I try to keep it together while we talk about her two downtown business, Harlow and The Merc, what it was like to get the double recognition of business of the year and person of the year from the Palisade Chamber of Commerce, how raising kids in Palisade is different from the other places her family has lived, what Palisade does right and what could use a little more work, and the awesome power of locals supporting local businesses in the off-season. All while we try to keep our giggling to a somewhat acceptable level.

KS: I’m gonna be silly in the whole thing. I can’t be serious.

LM: Why not?

KS: Oh, you want me to be serious?

LM: I want you to be Kristen. On today’s Postcard from Palisade.

KS: So I’m Kristen Seymour and I own Harlow and the west slope mercantile, otherwise known as the Merc, here in downtown Palisade.

LM: And so your two stores, Harlow and the merc, they’re both, I mean, I would say they’re both anchors in the downtown Palisade business district. So tell me about the personalities of each store.

KS: Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you saying that. We’ve only been open two years at Harlow and coming up, a year on the merc. And I know Palisade has changed so much over the years, so it’s kind of. Kind of fun to be thought of as anchor, being essentially new kid on the block, but a lot of us are. Right.

LM: I’m like, I’m also the new kid on the block.

KS: Right, exactly. Yeah. There’s a lot of us doing good things here. so Harlow is, I guess, what I would consider, like, your typical but not typical gift shop as far as we have candles and jewelry and tea towels and it’s kind of girly and fun and it’s great for retail therapy for yourself or gifts. It’s just a great energy. and then the merc came to be because we had some t shirts at Harlow, baseball hats, some palisade things. And we were just running out of room on a regular basis, shifting things around, trying to make it work. And then the space came open on Main street and so we jumped at it to open up another store that kind of has a little bit more of an outdoorsy vibe. I just want to say a little more masculine, but that’s not the wording I want to use. It’s just more of a Colorado lifestyle vibe.

LM: Yeah, it’s, like, adventurous. Outdoorsy.

KS: Yeah, exactly. We were noticing at Harlow especially farmers markets or girls trips or couples trips, the men would come in and they would take a quick circle around Harlow and wait outside. And we’re like, no, no, no. But there’s some fun stuff over here. So now I just feel like we have a store where people can walk in. If they don’t consider themselves into a traditional gift store vibe, they can go in the merc and check it out. So it kind of hits both boxes. They have a different feel, for sure.

LM: Absolutely. You’re awesome.

KS: We’re trying to do this with a straight face. I love Lisa.

LM: I am not usually this giggly. I’m so giggly today. I think it’s because I’m trying to be serious and I have a really hard time. Okay.

KS: Yeah, no, we can’t. We don’t need to be serious.

LM: Okay.

KS: So I will say being serious, that’s one thing I always tell, like my employees, is this is not a stressful place. Never. No one’s lives are on the line. We’re not solving world problems. We’re bringing joy. So if we’re goofy in this podcast, it that makes me feel happy because we want to bring joy to people, make people laugh.

LM: I love it. Okay, good. Well, then I will stop feeling bad about being goofy.

KS: Yeah, exactly. More of it.

LM: So the names of both have meaning, right? They have historical meaning. They tie into the history of palisade. So can you explain, like, how they both tie into palisade’s history?

KS: Well, one does.

LM: Now, I will debate you on the other one.

KS: Oh, really? Okay. Oh, yeah, I think you’re right. so Harlow was. I was looking at the names of peach varietals and grapes and just trying to figure out something that would work. And, got some publications from the Palisade Historical Society. And John Petal Harlow came up as one of the first known people, in the area to grow peaches and to bring vegetation. And he was instrumental in the irrigation and he was into mining. his wife Kate had a restaurant in junction where they sold their apples and things. So I don’t know, the name Harlow just kind of, ah, stuck immediately. That was it. We landed right on it. And it’s so funny how many people come in and ask if we have anything that says Harlow because their new grandbaby is named Harlow or their daughter’s name Harlow. So the name is definitely gaining in popularity. So, I think that’s really fun.

LM: Or do they ask if your name is Harlow? Or, your daughter.

KS: All the time, my daughter, all the time. Are you Harlow? Yeah, totally.

LM: So I’m not gonna ask if you’re the merc.

KS: No. Are you the merc? Yes.

LM: But I think so how I would argue that has a historical connection is just if you look at the old issues of the newspaper, the old Palisade Tribune, all the ads are like the blah, blah Mercantile you know, or the so and so Mercantile.

KS: that’s true.

LM: So I think it has the old fashioned kind of vibe.

KS: Yeah, I would agree to that. I would say as a, person who got a degree in marketing and has owned businesses, if I can go back in time, I’d probably not name the store the Merc. I like the name the Merc, but like it’s west slope Mercantile and then we have signs calling the Merc. So like, who names their business two things? Like that is so confusing. Our website is westslopemercantile.com. Our sign on the window says the merc. I know this about myself. That was not the best decision I’ve ever made. But I absolutely love the name and it has stuck. And I hope people can figure out that we are one and the same. But I would probably do it a little differently. Everything was so rushed with getting the merc, getting the lease signed and renovating and opening that it was just, we need a name. Put it up there because we wanted to be open for the first farmers market last year. And so it was a time crunch, so decisions were made.

LM: I remember your final hour, like panic about the name and we were brainstorming, but it’s not like we came up with anything better.

KS: No, it’s a great name and hopefully people. It’s like a nickname.

LM: Yeah, it’s a nickname. A store nickname. It’s endearing. Did you have any sense that it was just thinking about the fact that Palisade has been around for 120 years? Yeah, Palisade has been around for 120 years. Make that a little smoother.

KS: Yeah.

LM: was it important to you to tie into the history and the fact that you’re one of many generations of business owners in Palisade?

KS: Yes, absolutely. We worked closely with Priscilla from the historic society again on, the name and she got us some amazing pictures of Kate Harlow and of John Petal’s gravesite up at Rapid Creek. so definitely wanted to pay homage to that. And also just in renovating the spaces, especially Harlow, we wanted to really highlight what the building already gave us. It was a lot of work. My husband did so much work and we didn’t want to take anything away from the building. Besides like a drop ceiling, you know, but, re exposing the brick wall, putting the new windows in. After realizing what the ceiling with the tin ceiling that was there, it was really important to just kind of bring it back to its glory. And in all the months and months of renovation. It’s corny, but I could feel the building breathe. Like, I could feel a big exhale when we were in there working. Like, this is going to be an amazing spot.

LM: So you both did the design and renovation of both spaces yourself and with Ed, your husband?

KS: Yes.

LM: What vision did you have for the space? Like, what inspired you?

KS: You know, the, Harlow, when we first looked at the space, was, can I just say, a hot mess. Like, there was a lot going on, and we had just moved here to Palisade. we weren’t even really settled yet, but I saw the potential of not only the building itself, but the location and the town for what I know I can do. And I don’t know, it was just this immediate, like, we have to make this space fit the town of Palisade and the agro tourism and the groups that are coming through, and they. I know they want to come and shop. I know they want to have a good time. So, it was just kind of a design idea of making it very open and fun. And once we realized the brick wall was there and Ed didn’t even want to tell me, he was back working in the back room at Harlow. And he got up on a ladder and looked above the drop ceiling and took a picture, and he said, I don’t even want to show you what the ceiling looks like. Cause he knew I’d be like, yes, it’s coming down. Let’s clean it up.

LM: and he didn’t want to do that work!

KS: At that point, he was like, we just got here. Do we have to? But he also loves old buildings and restoring things. We knew it was not even a question. We were just like, okay, we’re in. We’re doing it. so I think it was just like I said, the design was just opening, making it open and airy. And I love the string lights at night when you walk by, like, it just feels so fun to me. I love the storefronts on third. I love how everything’s a different color, so you can tell where Fidel’s is and where we are and the bakery is. We have such great neighbors.

LM: from my perspective, you make owning a gift shop look really easy. I think to a lot of people it’s probably this dream, like, oh, I’ll just buy a bunch of things and, you know, open a gift shop and it’ll be really easy. And I think it isn’t really. In reality, it’s actually really hard to find things that people are actually going to want to buy.

KS: Yeah.

LM: the right quantity, the right mix of things, the right price point. So without giving away any secrets or anything, I mean, how do you do it? Because you do it really well, but how do you make sure you have that mix of things that people that are going to intrigue people.

KS: Yeah. Thank you for that, seriously. I’ve been in the industry on and off for 20 years as a rep, on the other side, calling on stores, both, in person. And then I was a virtual sales rep for a while during covid and owned a store in Gunnison years and years ago. I’ve just kind of honed in on what the trends are. I try to stay up with industry magazines. and I just, honestly, I feel like I shop all the time. Like, literally, first thing I do in the morning is pull up my rep sites and see what’s new or maybe what they’re what, just what the trends are all around. so, yeah, I am. I consider myself a professional shopper. My mom and dad actually, joked with me. My dad said that I am, like, I got my ability to talk to anyone from him and kind of make jokes and make people comfortable, and my love of shopping for my mom. So I was like, the combination of the two just came together into this industry of, like, trying to make people happy and shopping.

LM: Born to do it.

KS: Yeah. Yeah.

LM: Has there been anything that you brought in that was popular that you were surprised at or, like, unpopular that you were surprised at.

KS: I think the scariest thing I brought in, I’ll be honest, was the button up shirts at the Merc that people absolutely love. I had to order them sight unseen. Hadn’t touched the fabric, didn’t even know if this was, like, a real company. And they’re based in Eagle county. They are very real. but it was like we were just getting open. Their minimums were high per custom shirt, and I had to just pull the trigger and order a bunch of things that could have been duds. Could have just showed up, like, terrible. And I don’t order terrible things. That’s one thing I’m very confident, is I order and try to find makers that are amazing. So. But having never seen these things, I was terrified of bringing in this huge order of shirts. And then, sure enough, we had a waiting list all summer. Last summer on the shirts. But we have six new patterns this year. Come on. By the Merc.

LM: I mean, I personally observed at the farmers market when you had the booth outside with the shirts, people getting very angry that you didn’t have the right sizes for them.

KS: It was terrible for us because we could have sold so many more. And then we placed another order, and by the time, because they are custom, by the time we got them, it was maybe the last week of the farmers market in October. So we still had the huge waiting list we were able to fulfill, but that was such a bummer in timing. So I think we learned our lesson this year, but we’re already stressed because these new shirts are going quick, and the reorders on them is. It’s too long. It’s like 100 days out. So that’s a hard planning thing.

LM: Yeah, that is. That’s really hard.

KS: Yeah.

LM: But the cool thing about that is that it is custom and local.

KS: Yeah.

LM: So how do you balance that?

KS: Right? Yeah. You just hope that people will still want them when they come in, and they’ve been great. Obviously, everything you buy is not gonna be a winner, but I feel like, for the most part, really, because I research so much the makers and the brands and the things that they stand behind that we also want to stand behind, so. I feel like, I know what I’m doing.

LM: Oh, good.

KS: That’s a good thing to say! After all these years, I’m confident that I’m doing what I meant to do and the place I meant to do it with the people I’m meant to do it with.

LM: that makes me very happy to hear. So what are the things that. Oh, yeah, you can take a break. And I tend to get into a little bit of a rapid fire question pattern.

KS: It’s fine. Go for it.

LM: I’ll take a water break. So you mention the things that you stand for that, you know, that are important for the vendors to stand for that you stand behind. So what kind of things do you mean?

KS: I love finding a brand like happy earth we carry at the merc. They’re a certified b corp. People over profits. fair living wages, fair working conditions. Super important to me. I don’t. One of my biggest lessons, and I want to share this on our Harlow Instagram post or Instagram Stories. At some point. When I go to market, which is like a big buying event, twice a year, they’re all over the country. But, typically I’ll go and you can meet with the reps and the vendors and see everything. And it’s really neat to meet the people who bring these things to market. but there’s a section called cash and carry at market, and a lot of people aren’t aware of this. And it is essentially, earrings are a dollar, necklaces are $2, and those are the busiest areas at market for a lot of customers. so people are essentially buying earrings for a dollar, going back to their boutiques and selling them for 30. And I will not. I have never. I won’t. It’s such an education piece. Like, I won’t buy inexpensive. Like, I don’t even know how it works. How do you bring an earring to market for a dollar that’s made overseas? So I think that’s one of the biggest lessons for me is I really want to know the maker. I want to know the story. I want to know how they got into it. Are they handmade? Are they on Amazon? Things like that. Like, it’s just so important to me because we can’t. I never want to compete with a Walmart or a temu or whatever it’s called, shein. I don’t want to compete. I want nothing to do with that lane. So they can have their lane, and I’m gonna carry things that people can feel proud of buying and wearing and gifting.

LM: I know tourist business is really important to you, as it is to everybody in Palisade. But how do you make sure that you also keep the locals engaged, because I know that was something when I talked with Jeff and Jody about at Fidel’s, they were like, you know, tourists are important. But then we have this other. You know, how many ever months of the year, when it’s like, we need to have locals come in if we’re gonna stay in business?

KS: Yeah, absolutely.

LM: So how do you balance those two?

KS: Absolutely. we. I think we’re really good at customer service. Like, I just believe in my team so much. and again, we have great products. So I think the combination. We’ve gotten a reputation of being the go to place in town. I know for me, if my daughter weren’t in school in Grand Junction, I wouldn’t go to junction that often. It’s close, but it feels far and it feels busy. Coming from someone who lived in New York City and all, it’s crazy that I’m now like, oh, no, I have to stay in Palisade. so I think we just really try to meet the locals where they’re at with what they need, all the price points. So you can come in and pick up a seven dollar gift or $150 leather bag. Like, we just want to make it where you’re welcome to come in at any time. We’ve got what you need.

LM: Well, I also appreciate, too, that you have a selection of kids stuff, so that, I think all my nieces and nephews get their gifts from Harlow or the Merc.

KS: Yes. Right? Yeah. No, we are huge for birthday party gifts locally. Like, I’m sure people go to parties and it’s all stuff from Harlow, but it’s nice. Moms, families are busy, everybody’s busy. If we can save you a trip to town, quote unquote, and, you can get everything you need here. That makes me so happy. What makes this so special that we’re doing this here in Palisade are the other business owners and the chamber. Like, it is an amazing group who just want the best for each other, work together. And that includes the wineries. I’ve never lived in an area, and I’ve lived in eight or nine states, of such community. I feel like we’re all in it together. We all want the best for each other. So the other businesses in town make what I do really fun.

LM: that actually transitions really well into my next question about you, which is you’ve lived all over the country. You lived in Texas and new Mexico. You’re from Michigan. so what brought you to Palisade? What brought you here? And what makes you feel like this is where you want to stay? Because I’m not letting you leave.

KS: We are not leaving. This is it. Lisa and I are together forever. I did a lot of moving before I met Ed. just on my own, just places here. And then. And then my brother was in Denver and asked me to come out, move out, hang out with them. And that’s when I met Ed. He was working in Leadville. I like to say we’re one of the only success stories that have come out of the silver dollar bar in Leadville. Because if you’ve been to the silver dollar, shout out, there’s probably not a lot of relationships coming out of that place.

LM: Only the strongest ones.

KS: Only the strongest. 19 years almost. so we met. I was living in Denver, he moved to Denver. It just wasn’t working job wise. So we moved to Gunnison so he could work with a friend of his, building houses. And so we lived in Gunnison for eight years. had essentially raised both kids there. Genevieve, Keegan was born in Denver, but, stayed in Gunnison for eight years. Ed went back to school during the housing crisis and that caused a whole turn of events in his career. And we got moved then to Cody, Wyoming, down to Houston. we spent the first year of covid in northern New Mexico, in a little ski town called Angelfire, outside of Taos. And I opened a store while we were there, which was crazy because we were not going to stay there. The plan was to go back to Houston. not that we wanted to, but that’s where work was for him. and I saw an opportunity in angelfire of there needs to be a gift store here. So I opened a gift store a few months after being there. And I actually still have it now. So that store is three years old. I have amazing employees down there. They are just the best. so, long story short, came time to move back to Houston. And we just realized it’s not the lifestyle we wanted anymore. Wanted more time with the kids, less stress. And so he was able to take a position out here in parachute. So we ended up here. Never thought we’d be on the western slope. When I lived in Denver, I was a rep, like I said, for the sales industry. And I would come out to junction or Palisade every eight weeks. For three years. And even when we lived in Gunnison, junction was not on the radar. We went to get out of the cold. We went to go to the movies. We went to fly out, maybe. and as soon as we landed here in Palisade, it was like, this is home. This is the community. It’s the place, with the people.

LM: It is the place with the people.

KS: It is.

LM: How long after you moved here did you open Harlow then?

KS: It was quick. We moved here in August, and then I feel like we signed the lease in October.

LM: So, Ed, again, you moved here. He was like, all right, our life is going to be easy and simple, and you’re like, we’re doing this.

KS: Guess what, honey? yeah. It was quick and the space needed so much work. We’ve always bought old homes and renovated them. So this is the first time the housing market here, there was hardly anything available. and we needed a house to get the kids registered for school. So we bought a house that was essentially new construction, newish. so we didn’t have a project, so I presented him with a project.

LM: I love it.

KS: and he might complain, but he loves it. He’s always been very supportive of the stores.

LM: So it’s not only me who thinks you’re amazing. This year you were recognized with a couple of really big awards by the Palisade Chamber of Commerce. So tell me about those. And were you expecting them?

KS: Oh, my gosh. That was insane. I literally, if I had been expecting them, I probably would have, like, dressed up. I mean, I was fine, but you know what I mean? Like, I was not expecting. So we’re going to the chamber banquet, and I just didn’t think anything. Like, I never saw on the website where you can nominate or vote for business of the year or anything. So going in, I had no idea, and no one ever had made any follow up calls to be like, hey, are you gonna be at the banquet? Are you, Ed, can you get Kristen to the banquet? So I’m like, yeah, let’s just go. We got nothing else going on. And, I mean, we really wanted to go, don’t get me wrong. But.

LM: But that’s funny that they didn’t.

KS: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Cause we could have easily. If you would have been, like, just come over to the brewery, I’d be like. Okay. We got to the banquet, at Ordinary fellow, which was a great event, a great space for it. And it was so fun to see everybody. It was well attended and sitting next to Carol from the chamber. And she’s a dear. I love her, and I have no idea. And she’s nervous because she’s got to go up and give some speeches. She’s like, they gave me ten slides. I’m like, you’re gonna be fine. Little did I know those slides were essentially about me. She didn’t tell me that. So, yeah, Harlow won business of the year. I was shocked and honored and just so impressed with, like I said, my team. It really comes down to my team. Like, they’re the face of Harlow. They’re out there doing the work. They just put up with my shenanigans. so, yeah, that was a surprise. And then sat back down, and they’re announcing they’re talking about citizen of the year. And I don’t even know what they’re saying.

LM: You’re, like, on that high?

KS: Yeah, totally on a high. The business of the year. It’s only been two years. This is amazing. And then Carol says, Kristen, you shouldn’t have sat back down. And it was like slow motion movie. Like, it’s not a Grammy or an Oscar. Or Emmy. But it felt. I’ve never been recognized for something like that. And having not even lived here three years, to be given that, like, it’s. It blows my mind. so completely shocked and just thankful and just full of gratitude for this town. And the thing is, the takeaway is I want to be better for this town. I want to do everything I do for this community. I haven’t lived around family, and I’ve been on my own forever. And so where we go, we want it to feel like a big connection. Like, we’re all in this together. People are looking out for each other, and we’ve definitely felt that in places we’ve lived, but never as much as here. so it was a huge honor. Like, I’m still speechless. It’s still crazy. I should have brought my awards and just put them right here.

LM: You should have brought them and plunked them down. Then we could take a picture with them, you have to take a selfie with them someday.

KS: Here’s your lead in.

LM: Yeah. Doing your job for you.

KS: Are you even a podcaster

LM: I mean, that’s why it’s bad about, like, if it’s, I mean, a friend or something.

KS: Yeah, just. Right, exactly.

LM: We talk about so many things, but, one of the things that I’ve told you this before that I admire the most about you and appreciate the most about you is the way that you build community. And I think that that citizen of the year award really, it reflected that or it was in recognition of that because you are so good at building community. You aren’t somebody who, like, makes friends and holds them. selfishly. You connect people. Exactly. You connect people. Like, I met you. I was like, oh, hey, aren’t you that person who owns, Aren’t you that person who owns Harlow? And you’re like, yeah, yeah, you should come to Palisade wine club. so you did the first time I met you, and, like, we went to one of the first Palisade wine clubs, and then we were in Palisade wine club. You’re like, oh, hey, I met this cool couple. You should meet them. And then we met Ben and Chloe, you know, who are great friends of ours now.

KS: Yes. Yes.

LM: And yours, too. It’s so, like, so many people are. I think it’s hard to have that generous kind of feeling where you want to just share. You want to share things with people, and you want to make. You want to build a community, you want to expand a community, you want to build other people’s communities. So I think that award was so much in recognition of that. And again, talk more about Palisade wine club, because that was a big part of that recognition, too, right? What you started with that.

KS: Yeah, it’s funny because it was such a. Palisade Wine club, its origin story cracks me up, because, literally, the thing we love about Palisade, especially in the off season, also during the year, but in the off season, is when you go to a winery and you run into people, you know, and it’s like, hey, I didn’t know you were going out tonight. This is great. We should meet up another time. But then you never get in touch, and you just, you know, randomly meet up again, and it’s so fun. So the thought was not only, I want to meet up with these people on a regular basis, I want it on the calendar, but also, I know what it’s like to have a business in the off season. In tourist towns, you struggle. You’re not sure what your hours should be, what your days should be. Some days, like, we open up and nobody comes in. You know, some days, I might have a $4 sale in January. So you just want to, like, realizing with these wineries, how can we support them? We all like going out. We haven’t stopped going out. So, anyways, it just becoming a. Became a very genuine. Let’s build a local happy hour club. Let’s reach out to the wineries. Pick a day during the week so they’re not super busy. If they were gonna have tourists in town or any events going on, let’s reach out ahead of time, let them know we’re coming. I always say, don’t give us a discount. Don’t, like, we want to support you. The goal is not for you to give us things. We just want to show up and be there for you guys. so it has been fantastic. This is our second season. I don’t know how many events a year. We’ve been doing, like, eight or ten. At least.

LM: At least ten, right?

KS: and it’s. We’ve had up to probably 80 people. and it’s always the people. I think the best thing is when Ed’s able to come. He travels for work here and there, so he tries to make as many as he can. But when he walks in one his biggest, biggest thing is always after the fact: I didn’t know who to go say hi to first.

LM: Oh, my gosh. It’s so hard.

KS: He’s like, it’s all the people I want to catch up with, and I don’t know where to start working the room or, you know, making, like, going to catch up. It is the coolest thing. Everybody is so excited. People bring snacks to share. I mean, I feel like we’ve connected so many friends through wine club of all ages. That’s what’s great too. Palisade Wine club is one of my favorite things in this town. It has bonded us. It helps us realize that supporting local year round is huge. some of the wineries have gone all the way and gotten food trucks, and even if they don’t, they’ve just really welcomed us with open arms. And it is, if anyone hasn’t joined, I think we’re up to 700 something members in that group. We probably should have had some questions, like, do you live in, in this area? Like, junction is fine.

LM: do you actually live here? Oh, yeah.

KS: But I think people see it on Facebook. We’re only on Facebook, we gotta get on Instagram and get the word out there, but I would say we have the same core group of 40 or 50 members that show up all the time, and it’s so fun. It’s my favorite thing.

LM: It’s definitely one of the things that cemented me here, because when we first moved here, we got right into the bike, the Monday night bike rides, and that was great. But then they stopped.

KS: Yeah.

LM: And then it was like, okay, well, now what are we gonna do? And then I met you, and you’re like, come to this wine club. And then that started right up in November. Like, this. This is great. I very, very appreciate that.

KS: I feel like there’s wineries we still need to get to. We really want to share the love with anybody. So if anybody listening wants to host us, we try to do off seasons, but I honestly think during the week, even sort of in season, we could still make it work. So if we haven’t reached out to you to host, I apologize. Please reach out to us, and we’d love to come and support you.

LM: I am curious about what you think is something that Palisade does really well, and then something like, as a town, and then something that you think that it can improve on.

KS: I absolutely love the events and the farmer’s market and the work that goes into those. I think people don’t realize or want to step back and zoom, out and see that there’s real people trying to make these events happen. They might not please everybody. I know it’s a lot when we get traffic in town for these events and people on bikes that people aren’t used to. I don’t know. I just feel like the town for what we are and continue to be growing into this agritourism destination. I think I just want grace from people that the town and the chamber and CAVE are doing the best they can. It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of moving parts. I, for one, as a business owner and as a resident of Palisade, I like the events. I like the energy it brings. I feel so fortunate when people come in and say, oh, do you live here? Like, what’s it like? It’s as amazing as you think it is from the three days you’re here, it is as amazing. So I just hope we can all continue to support the organizations that do so much for the town. Things that could change in Palisade. I don’t know if I. I don’t know. Do you have an answer? I mean, not that I want to say. I wish we could figure out. And I know there’s plans in place to make it a more bike friendly town.

LM: Yeah. You know, that would be my answer.

KS: Yeah, they’re working on it. We’re gonna have designated bike areas, but that is something I wish we could really do more about.

LM: so. All right, so my last official question is, what’s your favorite Favorite thing about Palisade.

KS: My favorite thing about Palisade would be all of the events, from the big ones, from Winefest, from the farmers market, down to history night, history talks, down to trivia. excited to try the brunch at Sauvage that they’ll be starting this year. The yoga at wineries. Like, anything that anyone’s doing, everyone’s so creative and just wants to bring people in in a different, different way. And I love that about this town. I love. There’s always something to do. I love that you can ski and hike in a day. I love you can make it to Utah or Denver in no time. This is like magic. I love this place. And I love Lisa.

LM: It’s the best. Oh, you’re the best.

KS: I think one thing for me personally that I really want to improve on in my time in Palisade, which I’m not leaving. It’s home. I’m not going anywhere. I want to get more involved in going to the meetings and attending the ones on Zoom, the tab meetings. I think the tab meetings have been so informative when I’m able to zoom in on those. So I just. Everybody, what’s impressive about this town and this specifically my community that I found here, outside of the general community, which I love, but, like, my people that are here, is we’re all essentially newish to the Palisade area, for the most part, and extremely involved. And I think that’s the way you keep your community, tight knit, informed, and you just look out for each other. But I encourage anybody in town to just get involved and meet the people and go to the meetings and know what’s going on. Facebook, as we know, is, like, screaming into the void sometimes on things. And I don’t think a lot of changes can be made. And if you have a question for a business owner or a trustee or something, I think conversations. I think everyone in this town that I’ve met is willing to have a conversation. so I want to personally get more involved in a lot of the meetings and just. Just kind of know what’s going on.

I’ll say to the, raising my kids. My kids are 14 and 18. we’ve been here almost three years. They’ve had a lot of places they’ve lived, a lot of communities, a lot of friendships. And I am so glad that we ended up here. They’re thriving. They’ve made the best of friends. Their teachers are amazing. Our son’s going off to college in the fall. Our daughter’s starting Palisade high school. And it’s just been so nice to see their growth. So if you see them at the store working, because, you know, free labor. Hashtag free labor. Not really. yeah, just have a conversation with my kids. They’re great people, and they want to know more about this community, and they feel like they’re a part of it, too. So stop in if you see Keegan or Genevieve working. Say hi. Have a talk with them.

LM: Well, and Keegan has been really involved in the school newspaper.

KS: Yeah.

LM: Which is really cool.

KS: Editor of the Paw Post. yeah. He’s very interested in community and politics, and it’s been fun to see things through his eyes, moving to all these cities and us ending up in a place where he wants to come over and chat with our friends about local issues and things. He absolutely loves it. And Genevieve could. I could skip town tomorrow, and she can run the stores for me. She is so good at it and has such an eye for things. So I feel like we’re doing a good job, Ed and I. I feel like, with the help of the places we’ve lived that have shaped them, life, is good.

LM: That’s a really good note to end on, actually. That’s super good.

KS: Good.

LM: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me and for being an amazing person and for being one of the people who really helped me feel like Palisade was home. So I really appreciate that. I always will.

KS: Yay. I’m sorry it took me so long to sit down with you. I sit down with you three times a week.

LM: We’ve been talking about doing this for, since I first met you. Yeah, you were like, I’m not ready. I’m not ready.

KS: Yeah. That was not you at all. You’re so talented. I just didn’t know I had things to say.

LM: Oh, my God. You have so many things to say. Yeah. You’re going to keep saying them, and I can’t wait to see what you do next.

KS: Thank you.

LM: Thank you very much.

KS: Cheers.

LM: Cheers.

Thanks to Geoff Roper for the music.

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E25: Something Fishy is Happening in Palisade!

On today’s Postcard from Palisade, we learn all about Palisade High School’s unique fish hatchery program, the fish they raise, and how they are released from the hatchery team. It’s a fishy good time!

For more about the hatchery, check out their website.

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado – and beyond. I’m Lisa McNamara.

Nestled behind Palisade High School, there are a couple small, nondescript buildings perched on the bluff above the Colorado River. As you approach the old concrete block astronomy shed, you start to hear the sound of humming pumps and filters and smell the fresh aroma of live fish. But you’d still never guess that behind the door of the modest shed lies an efficient hatchery that is capable of raising 250 endangered razorback suckerfishes each year, carefully tended by a few dedicated student hatchery technicians.

This small operation is measurably impacting the Colorado River by releasing these 250 fish into the river each spring during a release day event that celebrates the hard work of these students, their long-term impact on the Colorado River ecosystem, and the fish themselves.

A local community favorite event, this year’s release will take place on Friday, May 3rd at 1:30pm at the boat launch at Riverbend Park.

On today’s Postcard from Palisade, we learn all about Palisade High School’s unique fish hatchery program, the fish they raise, and the release day from the key members of the fish hatchery team:

Kiera: hi, I’m Kiera. I am a hatchery technician. I’m a senior at Palisade.

Kale: I’m Kale. And I’m a hatchery technician, too. And I’m also a senior.

PS: I’m, Patrick Steele. I’m a science teacher at Palisade and run our hatchery program.

MG: And I am Mike Gross. I work for U.S. fish and wildlife service out of the Ouray national fish hatchery here in Grand Junction.

Join us to hear about the important fishy work happening in our community.

Let’s start at the beginning – how did PHS get a fish hatchery, anyway?

PS: the idea started where it was presented, to me, about ten years ago now, maybe eleven years ago, we took, my class to, the Ouray national fish hatchery, grand Valley unit in grand junction. And we did a tour there, and we’d been doing some tours there for a few years. and Mike, was always our tour guide. And, he just mentioned one of his goals was to get a fish hatchery at a high school at some point. and that’s when I said, well, Palisade high school is the perfect place for it. and so, basically from that moment on, we started talking about it and planning, and, after about five years of that, ah, planning and fundraising and all those things, we finally were able to make it happen.

LM: Why was this a goal for you personally?

MG: Way back in college, Lisa One of the cool classes I had in fish class, we got to tour a lot of the real small aquaculture operations in northern California. And one of the things that came up was a middle school that was raising endangered coho salmon. And that always just kind of stuck in my brain as, wow, what an incredible thing for a school to have as a utility for science. and yeah, so it’s always stuck in my brain. And again, I end up working with a lot of teachers here in the grand valley. And Mr. Steele’s class, every tour that would come into the fish hatchery for Mr. Steele’s classes just their questions were so on point, and his enthusiasm was so on point that it just seemed like kind of a no-brainer partnership if we could make it happen.

LM: So, Kiera and Kale, how did you get involved with this as students or what made you interested?

Kale: my mom works here at the school and she told me that there was a fish hatchery started up that was gonna be started up. The year that I came in was gonna be the year that they actually got fish and it was gonna be endangered fish with partnership, with the US fish and wildlife. I’m like, oh, that sounds fun. I love fishing. I love the outdoors. That’s something that I want to be a part of. So, when I first came to Palisade my freshman year, I had an environmental science class with Mr. Steele and I asked him about it. He’s like, you want to join? Fill out this little Google form. So I filled it out and then he was like, okay, you’re in. You can start going down doing some stuff. And we kept going down there with my class too, and did a bunch of stuff down there and it just really stuck with me.

Kiera: I knew about it my freshman year. like, I had a few friends who, you know, were closer to it than I. Than I was. I mean, I’d never had a class with Mr. Steele. but then my sophomore year, I developed an interest in doing marine biology as a potential career path. And I was like, how am I going to get any experience with this if I live, you know, in a landlocked state? And so I reached out to Mr. Steele and, it was like in the middle of the year, so I was able to take part in some of the end of the year activities, like pit tagging, and the release day. And then come my junior year, I started to get really involved. And that’s when I started going down every morning, and doing like the daily, hatchery activities and maintenance and stuff.

LM: So being a hatchery technician is. It’s different than just being in one of your classes, right? There’s more responsibilities involved with it?

PS: Absolutely. our technicians basically run the hatchery. every morning I, come in and, write them a little to do list of things that we need to get done that morning and that day. and they come in and bust that to do list out, you know. and then, my classes will come down and, we kind, of do more of the monitoring of water chemistry. You know, we’ll come down once a week or every other week and really hash out like the deep, the fine details of the water chemistry. and then also they’re involved. My class are also involved with kind of our days where we have to, weigh all the fish and do a feed to weight, ratio calculations and things like that. and so, they’re involved with that. These guys come down and help out and teach how to do all those things to my students. So they’re very well versed in all of those, techniques as well. So, when I say that our technicians are students, trying to make this a student run, kind of operation, it absolutely is. And they could run it themselves, any day. So it’s pretty awesome.

LM: That’s an awesome experience. And just, it’s so much more hands on. Like, personally, I think I learn so much more when I’m actually doing something than just, you know, hearing about it or reading about it. so you mentioned you were inspired, Mike, by a, hatchery in a middle school. How many, like, how many schools around the country have hatcheries? How common is this?

MG: very few around the country. Probably less than twelve. All said and done. And what is extra unique about this fish hatchery at Palisade High School is with them growing endangered razorback sucker. Every other student operated fish hatchery in the country pretty much raises salmon. and for the most part, in pretty, I don’t want to say wealthy parts of the country, but pretty wealthy parts of the country where this is a different operation is that these students and faculty are concentrating on kind of underappreciated endangered species and, making, making a big difference. There’s a long term vision of this with community involvement, raising these endangered species. That is somewhat of a game changer, it seems.

LM: Can you talk a little bit more about the endangered fish and why are they important? Like, why should people care about, the fact that we need to put endangered fish back in the river?

MG: So, so razorback suckers they’re really unique animals, and, yeah, a lot of really unique things about them. They’re the largest sucker fish in North America. So, so these animals, they get three, maybe even a little bigger than 3ft long. So they’re not like a little suckerfish in your aquarium. They’re like small puppy dog size. But more than that, being the largest suckerfish in North America, lots of other unique things and very important aspects of them. They play a very important part maintaining the health of the river out there. They’re like little vacuums out there, constantly cleaning. if there’s dead fish, they’ll suck on the dead fish, they’ll slurp up the slime. They’re opportunistic little cleaners out there. And so they play a very important part in maintaining the health of the river. Another very important thing about this species is they play a very important part in the food chain. What do impressive birds like to eat? Like bald eagles, they eat native fish, and bears eat native fish. And all of these animals depend on these native fish. And when these populations diminish and maybe even disappear, all of those animals are consequently affected as well. Another notable thing about them, they’re the only species in the genus Xyrauchen, which gets a little sciency. But for a science fish geek like myself, it’s a cool, notable aspect of these fish. Very unique animals.

LM: So if the palisade fish hatchery wasn’t growing, in addition to fish Hatchery you work at, if they weren’t growing and releasing them, would there be any in the river?

MG: There’s a lot of research going on, monitoring populations of these fish, trying to figure out a lot of these aspects. yeah, what’s going on with the populations? And that is kind of all to be determined.

LM: yeah it’s speculation.

PS: Hard to say. But I think, like, even when this whole, you know, you know, endangered fish Hatchery program started back in the nineties, in the mid nineties to late nineties, you know, when biologists were coming through this area trying to see if this was, you know, something that we need to, investigate a little bit more, you know, they found, I think, 13 razorback suckers in I don’t know how long, how many river miles, but across the entire valley, even into Utah. And I mean, that’s concerning, you know, that’s pretty concerning and that’s a lot of river miles, with a native fish, we’re very limited native fish population, knowing their importance in the ecosystem. And so, I think regardless, you know, our hatchery is a small operation, but, you know, every, healthy fish that we’re able to put back into the river and help to grow that population, is pretty important. And the awesome part of it is our students, you know, had a hand in that and they know, that they’re contributing to that.

Kale: And I can say like, I’ve helped out quite a bit and like going out on the river surveying fish and stuff and I’ve noticed like a big difference in like two years of doing stuff like that, that there’s been a little bit more because we caught, over 20 razorback suckers in 3 miles rather than 13 in 100.

PS: Yeah.

LM: that’s really cool. That’s so cool to be able to see that impact that you’re having.

MG: and there is speculation that razorbacks will hopefully be down-listed from endangered to threatened in the very near future. And if that does happen, that will be a pretty giant conservation win for fishes of the upper Colorado river.

LM: So the fish that are next door in the hatchery are now about how big? Maybe six inches big?

Kale: Probably four inches to ten inches.

LM: Okay, four to ten. So when you get them, at ah, the start of the year, how big are they?

Kale: About a half inch, I’d say maybe an inch. Maybe an inch.

LM: just little minnows. And then you raise them throughout the entire school year. And then what happens in May?

Kiera: in May we load them up into a trailer and we bring them to Riverbend park, where we release them. But during the release, it’s really special because we release each fish individually and it’s a huge community event. So we have members from all over the community, all over grand junction, all over the valley, as well as the students from our school. it’s really rewarding on that day to see all of your classmates lined up on the banks of the river, and we have a tradition where every release we have to kiss the fish, to, you know, wish it good luck on its journey through the river. but it’s a really special day.

MG: a neat thing about this year’s fish release outside of the fantastic work that all of these folks have done. And, ah, that’s the main purpose of the event, is to celebrate these folks, one of the people that are coming to celebrate the students and faculty is Jeff Corwin, the tv conservationist, which is incredible in my mind, just that he even knows about these guys operation. So something to look forward to.

PS: And I think too, you know, these guys here, students here have been a part of not just like a big community event like the release day, but they also take time out of their schedule to work different, community events to educate our public about these fish. They both have been involved with the, with the palisade outdoor heritage days, that the, that, CPW puts on. And they take fish from our hatchery and put them down there, for the public to see, and then they’re there to, educate those folks as they come by. And they’ve done an awesome job with that the last few years. they’ve also been involved with the. The water festival, at Los Colonias park. Right. And so they’ve, been part of, that, operation and education outreach program, too. And so, And so these students that run our hatchery aren’t just working at our hatchery. They’re doing what they have with what they can do, and they’re putting themselves out there, to educate the public as well, which is awesome. It’s great that it’s coming from students.

LM: how many fish do you release at a time, usually each year?

Kiera: Each year? we release, like, about Kale: about 250.

LM: Okay. Okay. And I saw this year’s special because it’s a special number of fish that are being released. Right.

Kiera: This is our, officially 1,000th fish released.

LM: So do you feel a little sad at all when you release them after you’ve spent the whole year raising them and growing them?

Kiera: personally, for me, it’s a little bit bittersweet. like, yes, we’ve been down here every single day raising these fish. but with that also comes a lot of pride in seeing what you have helped kind of grow, like, be, introduced into the ecosystem and the river and their new home. And so it’s very special, and it’s a little bit sad, but it’s mostly good feelings.

Kale: Yeah, I feel the same way. It’s kind of bittersweet. You hate to see them go, but you love to see them leave, because they’re kind of like your children for the year. You take care of them, feed them, give them water, clean up their tanks, and then you throw them into the river.

PS: Hope they survive.

Kale: Hope they survive.

PS: I think what’s awesome, too, with our students is they spend so much time with these fish that they get to know these fish almost personally. Right. We’ve had years where we had names for a lot of fish, you know? and, you know, this year we definitely have some character, unique characteristics of a few fish that, you know, that students identify, and they definitely give those fish some special names. So it’s really a, cool way, you know, that they grow that relationship with these fish, and that’s why it is bittersweet to them. You know, it is like, kind of like letting your puppy dog go and hoping for the best. And, yeah, our excitement is getting to see down the road when, you know, the, fish biologists, that are out collecting population samples come across our fish every once in a while, and, that’s a huge celebration, for us, knowing that they’re surviving and hopefully, getting to the age where they’re reproducing and being able to carry on the palisade hatchery, logo, name, whatever tag number. That’s right.

MG: And just to elaborate on what these folks were saying. Oh, one of the more technical, more technical things that they do throughout the school year, fish related, is putting in pit tags, which are passive integrated transponders, which are a permanent tag that goes inside the fish. And, these razorback suckers, they live to be upwards of 40 years old. And so when kale and Kiera are, what, like 57 years old, these fish that they’re growing this year, they’re hopefully still going to be swimming around out there, and the tags that they put in them will still be working. And, yeah, it’s hard to say all of the information that will come out of these fish in the next four decades, but it’s really cool.

LM: How big is the tag?

Kale: It’s like the size of a grain of rice.

Kiera: Yeah.

LM: Oh, wow.

Kale: when we inject it into them there, they’re

Kiera: they’re very aware.

Kale: They’re taking a nap.

MG: Yeah. And then kind of another cool thing about those tags is, like Mr. Steele said, a lot of these fish literally have names, and those names are going to be in the database. So decades down the road, somebody will be able to scan that, that tag and see, that’s Timmy number three. There’s Chad, ol Chad swimming around down in Ruby Horse thief, doing his thing, living the sucker life.

LM: That’s amazing. That’s so cool. So, how many students are involved with being hatchery technicians?

Kiera: right now?

Kale: Right now we have about three. Three that come down every day.

PS: We kind of range from five or six down to. We’ve had just two before. Right. and then, you know, and so that’s. That’s it’s a commitment. Right. There’s a level of commitment that’s involved with being down here every morning. and then also, you know, these, these technicians are. We rely on them on holidays and weekends and we’re on Christmas break and spring break and those types of things. And so, And so, you know, that’s. It takes that level of commitment and these students are, you know, special students that see that value and understand that responsibility. and so, yeah, it takes a different level of commitment, different than what we would just do in a regular class kind of thing. The nice part is, now that we’ve been doing this for a few years and students are becoming more and more aware of it and they’re involved with the release days. I think I’m sitting at ten students that want to be technicians next year, you know, and so, and so, yeah, we’re excited about those opportunities. We’re incorporating, a career pathway and slash internship program here at our school, to kind of focus on, you know, not just, well, the fish hatchery work, but also just kind of focusing more on natural resources in general and using the fish hatchery as a way to kind of, ah, help steer students into that path, that career pathway. and so, you know, as we build those programs, you know, we’ll definitely have more and more students, involved with that technician piece.

LM: Yeah, because you’re probably the VIPs on the release day. That’s probably a lot of fun.

PS: They run it all. It’s them, you know, we get to stand back and let them, celebrate their work, for sure.

Kale: They give the initial speech and then it’s all on us. Pass the torch.

PS: That’s right.

LM: And you are probably getting future co workers out of this. Out of this program, Mike. Right.

MG: Hopefully. All said and done. Yeah. I’m, very curious to see where Kale and Kiera are ten years from now in their professional world. See if this program actually did have an impact. But I’m very optimistic that these two folks in particular are going fishy places in the world.

PS: Absolutely. And the awesome part about that is already just in our short time of having, you know, our hatchery program here at Palisade High School. We have, students that are focusing on, that line of work, in school. You know, we have graduates that are in the fisheries fish, biology, program m at western state. And we have, a student that was involved in our very first planning stage of the hatchery and helping to fund raise. And she has graduated from Texas A and m and is working for, the, us fish and wildlife in California. And she’s doing a lot of the same kind of work, but with. On different fish species. and so, we have students that weren’t necessarily involved in the hatchery, per se, but they used the fish hatchery as lines of study, for their other science classes, in particular in our international baccalaureate program. And so, they’re, interested in. In that wildlife biology, in pursuing those. And so you never know where those degrees will take them and where they maybe, hopefully want to come back to their roots, and come back into this area and make this a focus of study. we had a graduate, from Palisade high school that didn’t have anything to do with the fish hatchery. And he was kind of a non traditional, college student. And he went back and got his fisheries biology degree at western and used our fish hatchery as part of. Of his senior seminar, project. And, Yeah, and so, I mean, it’s amazing, like, the lines of education and career paths that, this is, you know, kind of slowly starting to, take the students from here. Kiera: I know personally for me, like, you know, my freshman year coming into high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was, like, kind of freaked out about it. I know it’s a freshman, a little crazy, but, you know, and I joined the Hatchery with the intention of doing marine biology. but over the past few years, just working with the Hatchery, I, like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I wouldn’t have gained that understanding without participating in the Hatchery. And so now I plan on pursuing a career in biology, and hopefully sticking to freshwater biology as opposed to marine biology. And, you know, that path wouldn’t have happened without the Hatchery. Kale: Yeah, same thing with me. When I first joined, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with my life. Still, I had a few different ideas, but being a part of the Hatchery really solidified that I want to work with fish and be a part of some sort of fish and wildlife agency or parks and wildlife something, and deal with, like, animals and fish.

LM: one thing I would love to hear from everybody is your favorite fact about fish, or what’s your favorite thing about fish personally?

Kale: my favorite thing or saying about it is caudal peduncle. It’s the little skinny part right before the tail fins, and it’s called the caudal peduncle. It’s just fun to say.

MG: You’re making me proud, Kale.

LM: Yeah, we were talking about that the other day.

PS: how about you, Kiera?

Kiera: I don’t know. This is a really tough question.

LM: You can go last if you want. Okay.

Kiera: Yeah.

LM: Okay.

PS: I mean, I love the colors of the fish, honestly. I’m a fly fisherman, and I love catching, you know, different species of fish. And, I think that. I think that one, thing about these, about our razorback suckers is you. That kind of gets overlooked is that they really are a beautiful fish. They’re very unique fish. and they have some beautiful colors. and they’re different. It is so much different than catching a trout or catching any other type of fish that people consider a trophy fish. Those types of things. when you really look at these fish and the different colors that they portray and the changes that they. They go about, you know, through their lives, you know, from the shape, with their. With their big keel, you know, humpback keel on their back, and then the just different color changes as they go. I always think that’s awesome. I mean, we even, you know, look at, their color changes when they’re stressed out. You know, Mike’s taught us about that and how to. How to identify that. And, I mean, we know they’re stressed, but, man, it’s kind of a neat color change. It’s pretty. It’s pretty, you know. but we also know that’s an indicator of, hey, we got to get these back in the water and let them mellow out for a little while. So, that. So that’s me. I love. I love looking at the different changes in their color.

MG: Yeah, that’s a great question, Lisa, and made me ponder a lot of things, and I could probably ramble on for hours. But I think for these particular species of fish that are endangered here locally, what kind of really gets me going is razorback suckers have been swimming around palisade for 5 million years, and a lot’s happened in the last 5 million years. To put that in perspective, they’ve been around palisade longer than Hawaii has been islands. And, yeah, again, Yellowstone has erupted three times since they’ve been swimming around here in Palisade. And so that just very. Yeah, very intriguing to me. Everything that nature has thrown at these animals and they’ve been able to survive for 5 million years. Very adaptive little, little guys.

Kiera: This is a really, really tough question because there are so many fascinating things about these fish. and I’m fascinated by all of it personally. but one of the many, many things that I have learned, as my experience, or during my experience as a hatchery technician, is over the past few years, we’ve had a few blind fish. And what’s really interesting about that is all of the blind fish that we’ve had grow to be a very, very dark shade. So, like, all of the fish, as they’re really little, are more of a silvery color. And then they grow into like, green and kind, of yellowy. but if we have a blind fish, they will present more black. and I find that really fascinating.

Kale: because they grow to their environment to increase their chance of survival and so they can blend in with the river

Kiera: but if all they can see is dark, then

LM: that’s so cool.

MG: It’s fascinating.

At this point, Kale had to step out to go to work

Kale: OK I’m going to go to work

After which we went got into the story of how Mike and Patrick originally got into their parallel lines of work.

MG: I think I probably got into this field due to my love for fishing. Throughout my younger life. I was always the kid out fishing. I don’t want to say out cutting high school and fishing, but that’s kind of long ago where how I became enthusiastic in this field. But, Yeah, so I have a love for fish, a love for nature, and it’s kind of manifested throughout the years for a love for just conservation in general. And, yeah, my whole family grew up here in the grand valley. We used to go fishing on the Colorado river here locally and down in ruby horse thief and whatnot. And we used to catch these fish before they were endangered. And it was a good part of my childhood, very good memories. And so being able to hopefully protect these fish and bring them back for future generations to enjoy, it’s a magical thing, kind of bringing full circle in my life.

PS: And I think, for me, I grew up here in Palisade, and, of course, spent a lot of time outdoors doing anything and everything that we could. you know, loved just getting out, period. Of course, we’d float the river and that kind of thing. And, I didn’t know about these fish growing up. It was never anything that I was ever taught or, ever just kind of came across, you know. and so, you know, my love for this area even just stems back to the knowing the importance of water through our area. And that was kind of where I, started, was kind of more in that conservation realm. And, becoming a teacher and things, that was kind of one of my goals is to just, you know, understand that, you know, you know, as we live here in this community, we have a direct connection with the Colorado river, with our agricultural areas and just being able to survive here. and then once I started learning as a teacher, started learning about these endangered species and that kind of thing, for me, to me, it was just like a light bulb kicked on. It was like, okay, here is our pathway to teach this correlation to really get students to connect with the river, and understanding that their responsibility of. Of helping to conserve water and understanding the connection that we all have with water here in western Colorado and specifically the Colorado river. And now we can bring something that’s living, that, relies on that water as well, not just us, but in a little bit different facet. and students can touch it and they can feel it and they can connect to it, and then they got to know that they’re releasing it into that river to, you know, hopefully sustain that ecosystem and also help sustain our population really, in the long run. And so, that was kind of my connection and my pathway to it all.

MG: this program has the potential, and it literally is serving as a blueprint for other operations like this that are popping up around the country. Currently, Uintah high School in near Vernal, Utah, is setting up, currently an operation modeled after this where they are going to be raising razorback sucker probably next year. And then, yeah, well, little, little operations are popping up like this, modeling after Mr. Steele’s fish hatchery here.

PS: Ah, which is. That’s pretty awesome. I think that that was kind of in the back of our minds, almost a goal for us, too, to show that if we can do this in this little 14 by 14 room and be able to, raise 250 fish a year and get so many students involved, those types of things that basically, if you, have access to water, our hatchery is run on city water. and so, that helps us a ton right there. We don’t have to clean it. We don’t have to disinfect it. It’s already ready to go. and so if you have access to water and you have, you know, some equipment, basic equipment, you can. You can have a hatchery, you know, as well. And, so getting schools to realize that it is a doable thing and it is a very valuable thing, I think is, incredible. And I also, think that, it’s just, it’s really an example of an awesome partnership, within our community, not just a partnership between Palisade high school and us fish and wildlife and, the upper Colorado river endangered species fish recovery program. Oh, my gosh. Anyways, but it’s also a partnership within community members, community entities that help to fund this project. and so many people, got involved with this, and the whole project has funded locally. we didn’t get out of the valley for any funding, which is amazing. and we well exceeded what we needed to get that which has helped to sustain the program and helped us to get equipment as we see fit. Because we didn’t know much about this going into it. I knew nothing about raising fish going into this, and so we’ve definitely, as a program, learned a ton about what goes into it all. And, the fact that we have students that are interested in it and that want, to be the people that are leading it and really running the program, is awesome. And so we’re excited that it, you know, that it will continue to grow and become mainstay here at Palisade High school. But also, like Mike said, a model for other schools.

Kiera: I know we touched on it a little bit, earlier, but, the hatchery has provided, students, myself and Mr. Steele’s classes with some incredible opportunities. Ah, for example, last year was the first year we got to go out and help spawn our fish. So, this batch is also special, not only because it’s our thousandth fish, but because we were a part of the spawning process for them. so we really were there from, like, you know, start to release, which was really special. And, for the past two years, we’ve had pathologists, ah, come out from. Where is it? Montana.

PS: Bozeman.

Kiera: Bozeman. Yeah, so every year we. In the past, we’ve sent samples of our fish to them so that way they can, you know, test it for, you know, any, harmful things that, you know, could accompany it into the river. and this year, and last year, that pathologist came out and did those tests with us. So we got to learn the process, of testing these fish as well as, you know, we got to get a much closer look at our fish. We got to dissect a few of them and see, you know, all of the inner workings of them, which was a really fascinating experience and.

LM: Yeah, you’re much less squeamish than I am.

Kiera: Well, I mean, it’s very like, you know, while it is sad that we have to cut into our fish, it is a good thing because we are able to test them for these potentially harmful bacteria and parasites and all that. but that was a really incredible opportunity. And I know, speaking for kale and myself, we have been able to gain a lot of connections, for future career paths with us fish and wildlife. and it’s just been an incredible opportunity.

MG: One of the neater things for me that I witnessed this year was watching Kiera present at the upper Colorado river endangered fish recovery program, their researchers meeting, where it’s. It’s a yearly event that has the top researchers up and down the Colorado river basin. I mean, really, really, really big hitters in the science community. And, yeah, Kiera presented there. She was the youngest person to ever present at that researchers meeting, which. Very impressive. Good job, Kiera.

Kiera: It was an incredible opportunity.

PS: I think another awesome part that. The fact that we’re here at a school, and so we have viewed this, Hatchery as like a living lab, you know, we have had students that have set up experiments, students like Kiera in our IB program, used the Hatchery, as her science, one of her science studies that she had to submit to the IB. And so she ran a year long study on the different feed types that we’ve been using and how it’s impacted growth rates. We’ve had students you use know the Hatchery to look at how light can, impact growth rate, in terms of the daylight time as it changes through the year. We’ve had students compare the Hatchery growth in terms of an indoor Hatchery versus, an ah, outdoor Hatchery, growths, in other areas, that grow razorback suckers, And so I think that’s the awesome part. Part of it is that we view it as a living lab and students that have ideas and that want to run tests and to see, help us understand these fish more and more. It’s pretty awesome. It’s pretty awesome opportunity for us. And then also, we’re working with the US fish and wildlife in terms of even the anesthesia, compounds that we use for our fish when we pit tag and when we do our final weigh and length tests, is an experimental piece, with razorback suckers. And so we’re excited to be able to conduct that study and report that data to us fish and wildlife. And hopefully our little hatchery can have a big impact, on some of those things down the road.

Kiera: another thing that I have been able to find through my work at the hatchery is, an internship, through Hutton. It’s a Hutton internship, and it’s run through American fisheries society. And essentially you apply and you get paired up with a mentor at a fish hatchery that is in your area. And It’s a summer internship program, and you get to go and spend the summer with your mentor doing all sorts of things, involving fish. So, for example, I would be going out with, them on the boat looking for my fish and the fish that we’ve raised here.

LM: And, you know, that’s awesome. So you’re going to be doing that this summer?

Kiera: hopefully. Fingers crossed. If it all works out.

LM: I’m sure it will!

PS: But then we, you know, and I think what’s cool about this is like, so our program just at our school is, has been spread through the valley. We have students. So Isabella’s here from Plateau Valley that wanted some opportunities to get involved in the fish hatchery. And so she comes down from Ponto valley once a week and does little things in the fish hatchery to help her learn more and more about that career, path as well. And so, yeah, word is spreading and, students are wanting to or seeing as a great opportunity to get involved with, and so it’s really starting to pick up more and more each year. We even have an art class, this semester that is working on, doing some old Japanese art styles with our razorbacks. And so, they’re gonna be doing a, it’s basically like a fish press with, rice paper and ink and things. And so they’re practicing on some models. We bought some toy, razorback suckers that they’re practicing on. And then, you know, we’ll, Yeah, anyways, get to be able to see their work from that. So we’re really excited about that.

LM: That’s cool. This is amazing. It’s just so cool to hear about all of this happening here. It’s pretty special.

PS: Absolutely.

LM: if people want to like just general community members, if anybody is interested in learning more beyond coming to the release party, what’s the best way for people to reach out and get involved or donate if they want to?

PS: We have a student generated website available, ah, On our palisade high school website, and if you go to, I think, the programs tab, if I recall. But you could even just do a simple search on the website itself and you’ll find the PHS fish hatchery website. And there’s a lot of information there that one of our former students put together and did that as a prize project. and then, Also there is opportunity for questions, or even setting up visits per se, those types of things. We have some platforms for them to fill out some information there. And then, yeah, and then if donations, you know, there’s some instructions on people, that would like to donate as well. So, yeah, without. Yeah, without donations and without funding. And we, you know, we’re trying to, you know, still maintain a lot of the. This kind of daily costs and things like that. and so, yeah, it’s. That helps a ton. So every little bit helps.

Kiera: We also have an Instagram as well @Phsfishhatchery.

Follow the @Phsfishhatchery insta for the latest about everything the PHS fish hatchery team is working on, including the release day…

MG: Hope to see you all there May 3 at 1:30 at Riverbend park. Come kiss a fish, Lisa.

LM: No, thanks. okay, well, thank you so much for spending time with me and also just for everything you do. This is really cool to learn about and such an exciting thing to have here.

LM: PHS’s school motto is:

Kiera: think globally, act locally.

LM: Think globally, act locally. The hatchery is a perfect example of that concept. Not only does it have an impact on the local environment, it has set off a chain reaction by inspiring other schools to open hatcheries and by inspiring students from other schools to come to Palisade to build on the foundation already in place here. I was blown away to learn about the important work being done by these community members.

Go check out the release day and celebrate their hard work!

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

Thanks to Geoff Roper for the music.

E24: Celebrating One Year With the Things that Make Palisade So Special and New Music

March marks the one year anniversary of the Postcards from Palisade Podcast! Listen to find out what’s ahead for year two, to celebrate past guests’ favorite things about Palisade, and to hear the debut of the podcast’s new intro music, created by a local Palisadian!

Music: Riverbend by Geoff Roper.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

It’s hard to believe, but March marks the one year anniversary of the Postcards from Palisade podcast!

A year and a half ago I had an idea to make a podcast about Palisade, my new hometown; to learn all about the place by talking with fellow Palisade residents and sharing what I heard. I hoped it would help me grow my own community and, as a side benefit, help others expand their communities too.

It took me more than six months to get up the courage to actually get started. Six months of fighting that silly little voice in my head that was telling me I didn’t have the right equipment, or enough connections, or a decent recording spot, or the right to even think I could do something like this. But then one day I woke up and decided to go for it. I haven’t looked back since.

And now it’s been a whole year! So I just wanted to take a moment to pause and say: thank you so much for listening! I’m so glad that you all are along for the adventure. While this has been a ton of fun for me, I’m not sure I would have kept up with it if I didn’t hear that it’s been fun for you too.

When I hear things from you, like that my podcast with Christine inspired someone who hadn’t gone to yoga in years to try a class again, or that you learned something you didn’t know, or a business owner had someone mention they came in because of what they heard on an episode, or that those of you who are not physically in Palisade, but whose hearts are here, appreciate the updates on what’s happening in town (the essence of what a postcard is, right).

…well this is why I’m here! If I get to connect people while having a good excuse to be nosy and ask all the questions that are running through my head at all times, I’m calling that a win.

On this occasion, I thought it would be fun to listen back to past guests’ favorite things about Palisade. Here are a few of my favorites:

Danny Tebbenkamp of Paddleboard Adventure Company, from episode 2:

DT: it’s fun to like, go to certain place and see people you know from certain walks of life, around town and be able to just strike up a conversation. They say, as you’re shopping or out and about, don’t plan to – what you think might be a 20 minute stop to the grocery store is probably going to be like, 45 to an hour. Because you’re going to talk to people. So, that’s just a mindset that – back in Steamboat years ago, that’s kind of what it was, and I miss that. Steamboat’s just such a hustle bustle and busy – you see people, but everyone’s in such a rush now. Here everyone’s still like in the slow pace, anywhere you go you’re going to run into somebody that you know or kinda know, but they’re so friendly that they’re going to talk to you – like hey, aren’t you that guy…or how do I know you? So I just love the community aspect of just the closeness, kind of we’re all in it together.

Cassidee Shull of CAVE, from episode 3:

CS: It’s very friendly and it’s very tight knit. We just had an amazing event happen I think last weekend that was called Sing up the Sun that was kind of an homage or welcome to the equinox, and it was all just put on by a community member that just wanted to see a new event happen this time of year, which is a but slower for us. We’ve not yet hit spring, or, I’m sorry, early spring, like summer festivals. Farmer’s market’s not up yet. Our honeybee festival’s not here yet. And to see – I think the first one was last year but to watch that event take off and it’s all community-led and volunteer driven, and people came out with poems and dancing and costumes and puppets and I was like – this is amazing! And it’s all just a small community put-together.

Nelly Garcia Olmos of La Plaza, from episode 4:

NG: I am in love with the valley. Every time people ask me, would you go live somewhere, I say, no. And it’s – I come from Mexico City. A huge city. LM: Huge city! NG: Huge city! And when people tell me, you don’t want to go back to a huge city, I say, no! I’ve been here for such a long time. And it really took me long. To be able to say: this is my home. This is my home, too. It took me a long time. To feel welcome. To feel part of the community. And I don’t want that to happen to other people. That’s what I do. That’s the reason why I do everything I do. I don’t want the same feeling to go to our new people, because I know what my family and I went through. And I think that’s why – I think it’s so hard to think of another change again. To say, oh, now I’m going to go to another place. It’s not like language – when you learn a second language, you are able to learn many more. It doesn’t work like that! It’s different. But also, I miss the mountains. Every time I get to travel, even though I’ve been to such beautiful places, I miss the mountains, you know. Those beautiful skies. When the sun is going down, and you see the orange, and you see the teal in the sky, and the white, and all those beautiful colors – you don’t see that any other place.

Lisa aka Moose Levy Kral of Dancing in My Head Photography, from episode 7:

LK: I love it. I really like it. It’s a very warm community. I mean, I’m a city girl, so I have great stories now. Our neighbors used to have pigs that got loose. Matt and I have chased loose pigs, like, three times, I think. And just like, these stories that I get to say, these words coming out of my mouth. Like, there were pigs rolling around on our pool cover once. And they were over 200 pounds. And they’re like, you know, during the season the pool cover collects rainwater and stuff. The pigs got out and I’m looking out this window and there’s just a pig rolling around and I’m like…and Matt’s, I call Matt and I’m like, I don’t know what to do! And luckily the pool covers can hold up a lot of weight. I mean, I’ve stood on it before, it’s like a water bed almost. But, I was like, Matt, what do I do, the pigs are on the pool! And there were two others, like, looking at it. So Matt comes out and I’m like, oh the photographer in me, I have to record this. So Matt goes out and he’s like, herding them away from the pool and I have it on video. Sorry, this is a podcast and you can’t see it, but it’s like, a really funny video. LM: I can visualize it…I mean when you’re chasing are you trying to like grab the pig, – or were you just trying to herd it? LK: They were so big. So, one time they got little babies. This was the third time that they got pigs. They thought they had secured the, but they were so tiny that the little pigs got out, and those were the only pigs you could actually pick up and carry. Of course I have pictures of that too. But the other ones, the ones on our pool cover, there was no picking those guys up. They ended up being over 250 pounds, so what we had to do, was like, everybody had to grab something. Like a stick, a rake, our pool skimmer, whatever it was, and you have to, like – you need at least four people to kind of corner them off and like kind of run them back to the pen. And luckily one time when they got out, some guy was just driving down the highway and he pulled over and his dog was a herder. Because the neighbors weren’t home and it was just me and Matt and we’re like, trying to get these giant pigs. And this guy comes out and like finally the neighbors get home or their friends come over and so the herder dog saved the day. So, wrangling pigs. That’s another thing I love about Palisade – I get to tell stories like that. Mom, I wrangled pigs today!

Christine Moore of Christine Moore Yoga, from episode 8:

CM: I love being in a small community. For instance, when I had covid, I had little gifts of food left at my door. I know all my neighbors. I feel this real welcoming presence in all of that that’s so different. I lived in a townhouse in Boulder, the last one I lived in, for 20 years and I didn’t know my neighbors the way I know them here. I like how accessible it is to hiking and different – you know, it’s just beautiful to be out in nature here. And so I love that about Palisade. And I feel like it keeps growing and changing, and it’s just fun to be in a small town.

Wendy Videlock, Western Slope Poet Laureate, from episode 13:

WV: yeah Palisade is interesting um so the way I describe Palisade is well obviously we’re ag but we’re also very art which is a really interesting mix um so whatever Palisade does they want to do it well so if they’re going to do a peach they’re going to make the best damn peach you’ve ever had if they’re going to grow marijuana they’re going to grow the best pot if they’re going to make art they’re going to make good art and so Palisade has an interest in excellence and and this to me is pretty awesome

Laura Black of Mesa Park Fruit Co, from episode 14:

LB: it’s special and there’s like a camaraderie of with the local residents that is it’s just something cool and and I think when you’re farming I read this quote a while ago and it was something to the effect of like like a small town a small farming town like rides these these waves together right the highs and the lows because it’s very rare that like we’ll freeze and our neighbor doesn’t right so like we we’re all in this together to some extent it was actually it was really crazy earlier this year it was April end of April 25th 26 27th something like that when we had those freezes and and we have a wind machine over at my um dad’s property and so Brandon was up like running that and then the sprinklers were going in the cherry orchard and and I promise you C Road right there was busier at 3am and then it is during the day and it was even though no one was happy about being up doing what they were doing it was sort of like Brandon was like it was like this cool thing like we are all in this together we’re all out here like trying to do everything that we can to save our crop this year

Scott and Jessica Washkowiak of Field to Fork Organic Farm, from episode 15:

SW: the trains and the peaches JW: oh the trains everybody does really like the train actually SW: I I haven’t I up until this incident I really never had like ever was frightened by it or whatever JW: it’s kind of like this you know the part of American history SW: it’s just the quaintness of the community too I feel that like we’ll always kind of hear about our son and his day out in the in the general public and the big thing is is that over three quarters of all the ski resorts in the area are like two hours away JW: but that’s not in Palisade SW: no but but where Palisade lays is really cool JW: but also I think like the the best thing about Palisade as a farmer and a grower is the microclimate that we have here SW: yeah it’s ridiculous

And finally, from Hillary Eales of Mafia Princess Wine, from episode 18:

I love the community and I still do the people the farmers they’re there’s just this whole like culture around agriculture that I just think is amazing agricultural people no matter what they’re growing the culture is still the same and so coming here and like being part of this like farming community it was like instantly like home you know and I love that and I love like the cooperation between you know the majority of wineries want to help each other and are you know into that the ship rises with the tide you know all ships rise with the tide and like helping out everyone there’s there’s some outliers but of course that’s in any industry you know but it’s like I bought some fruit this year from Whitewater Hill we got some muscat because our Muscat like we already sold out of it because it was so popular and we don’t grow very much of it so they had some extra so I was like yeah I’ll take it and then Chloe their wine maker a day after we got the fruit she called or texted and she was like oh she called and she’s like hey like just want to make sure everything like went well you know the Talbott’s got you the fruit okay cuz they were the ones delivering it and processing and everything went good I was like well actually like we blew the bladder in our press while we were processing and she was like oh she’s like well just bring the fruit over here we’re going to finish up pressing our Moscato couple hours just bring the fruit over here and we’ll help you press it and I was like oh my gosh yes please like thank you went over she I mean it was her equipment so she had to but she helped press it helped clean everything stayed late I’m sure to help me out and then even the next week she like checked in and she was like hey were you able to get a replacement for your bladder for your press you know it’s just like that that community and even like we we still needed to bottle the last of our red and again like having issues getting glass and so I was like hey you guys have some extra bottles and they’re like oh yeah just like when you get your glass in replace it and picked up 60 cases of glass so I could bottle glass you know it’s it’s that kind of neighbor teamwork in one sense we’re competition but I always view it as like a friendly competition

LM: I’m looking forward to sharing another year of stories with you all. This is always a great season to start new things, and we have a bunch of new businesses to support in Palisade this year. New things to learn and new people to meet.

As spring rolls its warm blanket across the valley, as buds swell and burst and pollen tickles the nose, as bird chatter amongst themselves and the sun reminds us of more warmth to come, as the days get longer and traffic picks up and we start to look forward to (or dread) the events of the season: take this opportunity to do that thing you’ve been wanting to do.

So what else is next? You may have noticed that this episode didn’t start with any music. One of the things I’m looking forward to in the episodes to come is the new tune that will kick off each episode! I wanted to play it for you all by itself for its debut.

Local bike shop staple and musician Geoff Roper has created this amazing tune for the podcast. It’s inspired by the sounds of daily life in Palisade – so familiar to us all and part of the background of most episodes, since I record at people’s houses or businesses or in my own echoey rooms, instead of in a professional environment. Of course, when you ask a musician to make a song for you, nothing is going to be accidental. In this tune, the sounds are intentional, but they are instantly familiar. Enjoy.

(music)

Thanks, as always, for listening. Here’s to another year of community, stories, and fun. With love, from Palisade.

E23: Palisade Pedicab Rises From the Ashes, with Mark Williams

Last September, a fire broke out at Mark Williams’ and Sarah Schaeffer’s place when they weren’t home. Their garage, filled with all the implements of Mark’s pedicab business, quickly burnt to the ground, while their house and neighboring structures were damaged. Luckily, trucks from every fire department around the Grand Valley quickly arrived to extinguish the flames before they spread further, but the impact to Mark’s business, Palisade Pedicab, was devastating.

What followed was an incredible outpouring of support from the Palisade community that was wonderful to witness. On today’s Postcard from Palisade, Mark opens up about the fire, his plans for the future of Palisade Pedicab, the unexpected benefits that have come out of this difficult experience, and he shares a heartfelt thank you to the community for their support and encouragement.

To book a pedicab tour: visit ⁠palisadepedicab.com⁠ or call 970-875-7344.

Music by Romarecord1973 from Pixabay.

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Transcript:

Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

LM: We originally heard from Mark in May of last year, during lighter times. Back then, Mark explained what a pedicab is:

LM: How would you describe a pedicab to somebody who doesn’t know what it is?

MW: Yeah, it’s kinda hard, because pedicab is a really bad word for pedicabs, but I usually say it’s either a rickshaw or a bike taxi, that sort of thing, and then people know what it is.

LM: That was in episode 9, a fun interview that you should go back and listen to, if you haven’t already. Things got more serious that fall.

LM: Can you just say something?

MW: hello, this is Mark.

LM: I appreciate you coming and talking to me.

MW: Yeah, no problem

LM: I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but I also didn’t want to kind of pressure you because I want to make sure you’re ready to talk about it.

MW: Well, are we recording right now?

LM: Yeah.

MW: Okay. Yeah, pretty close to that. It would have been too soon for sure, but feel like we’ve, moved through it pretty well and feel pretty confident about how things are going to go, so. Yeah, it’s a good time for sure.

LM: Good. Okay, so tell me what happened last September.

MW: oh for the actual fire. Yeah. I was walking my dog down in junction, and I got a picture sent to me of my house on fire. So then we got back to the car as soon as we could. that took probably 20 minutes. And then when we got to the car, we saw the smoke in the sky from junction. and then we got caught in traffic in junction. All that. It was just, man, terrible. and then by the time we got back, it was already put out. so, yeah, thankfully they got to it pretty quickly. And, yeah, it could have easily caused so much more damage, so we’re super, thankful that it didn’t. and then we went through the investigations and all that. And, yeah, it was linseed oil that caused it, which I had no idea that was a thing until that night. I was racking my brain for anything that could have caused it. and then I tell people that, and a lot of people don’t know that either. Just make sure everyone knows that.

LM: Right. It’s like a public service announcement for linseed oil. It can spontaneously combust. I had no idea.

MW: Yeah, if you clean it up with towels and then you bunch it up, I guess it creates heat when it evaporates and then it can combust later.

LM: that’s totally crazy. I can’t believe that I happened to be biking by right after it started. And that was the weirdest thing, to just be there and to be there before the fire trucks and to know you guys weren’t there and, just to watch it all go down. It was terrible.

MW: Yeah, well, apparently someone has drone footage, so I haven’t gotten that yet. looking forward to seeing that. but, yeah, you know, everyone jumped in to help out however they could. one of our neighbors jumped our fence and went inside to make sure there was no one inside. That was awesome. And then our next door neighbor stood there with a hose to save the fence despite orders from the fire department. That was great. yeah, but it could have been so much worse. Very easily, a week or two after we were kind of in shock, I guess, because, yeah, I had no idea. Fire is terrifying, which I guess you don’t really think about until you experience it. But, yeah, it’s terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. but we’ve learned a lot and, yeah, we’re making it through it. We’re going to be hopefully better off. At least maybe in a couple of years we’ll be better off than we were before. It’s going to take a little bit of time, but, yeah, I’m pretty confident about everything right now.

LM: Good.

MW: Yeah.

LM: So how many people assume, even after you tell them it was linseed oil, how many people just assume it was the ebike batteries?

MW: Pretty much everyone. I mean, I did, too, because that makes sense if you read news articles about batteries. But I’ve been so paranoid about that. Basically the whole time I’ve been using them, I buy the best quality. I make sure I’m doing it safely. So, usually the fires are caused by either just terrible quality batteries or people not taking care of them correctly. and we make sure we take care of that. So, thankful it wasn’t the batteries because that could have made it so much worse.

LM: So how long were you in shock after? When did it kind of sink in? What happened?

MW: It was at least a couple of weeks before I feel like I could think about it clearly. It’s crazy how that works. yeah, man, it’s really hard.

LM: right I mean, the crazy thing is, so you have to deal with what just happened. You have to deal with the fact that this terrible thing just happened. Then you immediately have to start working on things. Like, you immediately have to start working with insurance and filing all these claims and working with the fire department and reports. I can’t imagine that shift from like, oh, my God, this just happened to my business to I have all this work that I wasn’t expecting to do.

MW: Yeah. And I kind of learned that the hard way. I felt like I needed to get all that done ASAP, so I was really stressed about it. But, looking back, I really didn’t have to do it the day after. and I could have. The fire investigators were the first people that came by, and they took. Well, the city fire investigator took, like, two days, and then the insurance fire investigators took, like, three months, so they were taking their time. So once I realized that was happening, I realized I could kind of sit back and think about things without just acting. So that was nice. but if you’ve never been through something like that, which I haven’t, it’s just a kind of learning experience. yeah, it’s just hard overall. Yeah.

LM: And it’s great that you had insurance.

MW: Yeah, well, I had a separate commercial insurance on the structure, so that was great. and they were really easy to work with. It’s not been so much with the homeowners, but we’re working through it. and, yeah, it’s just kind of. A lot of things with insurance is just a waiting game, and you just have to be patient and trust that they’re going to do the right thing. Then you got to work with contractors, too. Learned a lot of lessons there. If anyone needs help finding contractors, I’ve gone through a lot and have some recommendations, for sure. Reach out.

LM: That is always so hard, because, again, that’s just trust. You have to trust somebody to come into your house and do what they say they’re going to do.

MW: Yeah. And I’ve learned the hard way, you can’t do that with anyone. Really. Got to watch it.

LM: Yeah. Because it didn’t just burn the garage, it also damaged your house, and luckily, it didn’t catch the house on fire, but there’s still damage to deal with.

MW: Basically that whole side of the house was damaged. had to redo everything. Basically. They’re redoing the roof right now, which is nice.

LM: Oh, nice.

MW: and then it damaged, our neighbor’s house a little bit, took out a fence, and then, surprisingly, it only broke the windows of the church right across the alley. I’m super thankful about that, because that was closer to the fire than my house. So we’re lucky that, lucky that it only affected us mostly and not too much anyone else, because. Yeah, I feel terrible about that.

LM: Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, it’s a good thing it wasn’t windy. I think it was just such a still day, and that was really helpful.

MW: Yeah, for sure.

LM: What was in the garage? What did you lose?

MW: We had…

LM: I don’t need, like, a complete inventory.

MW: Yeah. Well, through this, in that area, we lost five pedicabs overall. we weren’t using two of them at the time, so those were kind of out of commission for the moment, but I was planning on using them later. And then we lost all of our tools and batteries, chargers, spare parts. Yeah. And I realized, looking back, that the tools was one of the worst things to lose because I’ve been collecting them over ten years or so. So I had a tool for everything I needed, and now I have to start over. but at least I know what I need now, so I can not go through trial and error to figure out what I need.

LM: That’s a good way to look at. Well, I thought one of the coolest things afterwards was seeing how people came together and to support you guys. it was just amazing. Like, spoke and vine and vistas and vineyards put you guys up. there was a meal train, there’s a gofundme. there was, the fundraiser at the ordinary fellow that just completely surpassed our expectations of how many people would come out and what they would do. And then Vintner’s, it was like everybody was coming together and helping support you. And there’s so many messages, know we love you guys, like, you’re an important part of, like, we need you here. It was awesome to see. So what did that mean to you?

MW: It’s, hard to even put words on that, honestly, the messages, it took me over a week to go through all of them. We had so many, I thought we had support here. Before, I thought people liked us, but now it’s just good to know that we’re, accepted by the community and people want us here. and just living here in a community that supports their own, like that feels really good. For sure. yeah, I think I’ve said this a couple of times, but I thought Palisade was really awesome before, but now I know for sure it’s the only place I want to be.

LM: And I say it all the time, it’s such a great community, but then you actually see it in action and you see people come together.

MW: Yeah. People coming together and showing up, donating money and food. Amazing. I don’t know if I can put words on it, but, yeah. Thank you to everyone.

LM: So, looking to the future, looking ahead. You said that you think in a couple of years it’s going to be better than ever. what are you planning on? What are you planning on doing next?

MW: well, before it started, I was kind of on a plan to expand a lot, and we were going to get probably three or four new pedicabs this year. that’s just kind of been delayed a year or two, probably, but, we’ll be back to what we had before, by probably, April, hopefully mid April. So we’ll be able to handle wine tours and everything. but I’m really looking at expanding into more festivals and weddings and events like that. And I was trying to put the brakes on that a little bit, but it’s kind of expanding, in a way that I can’t really stop it now. So we kind of have to figure out how to fill that, for sure, which is great. It’s amazing. pretty much it.

LM: How long does it take to get a new pedicab?

MW: Well, depends who you buy it from. the big green ones we have that carry six people and they face each other. Those are called limo pedicabs. Those take about twelve weeks to build, and that’s a company in Denver. And then the smaller ones we have where they sit back to back. one of my friends in, San Diego builds that. He owns a company. he builds those. So we’ll have at least one of those, and we’ll have a couple more limos and. Yeah, it’s going to be great.

LM: Cool.

MW: Yeah.

LM: Sorry, I don’t want to just like, rapid fire questions at you.

MW: Keep going.

LM: do you want to take a pause? Right. So you did have two pedicabs parked outside, so you’ve been able to keep a little bit of business going in the meantime.

MW: Yeah, we were actually kind of busy in October, which was really great. And, yeah, it was kind of a mistake to leave them out there. I shouldn’t have done that, but I’m kind of thankful I did.

LM: Yeah. Good mistake.

MW: and that’s one of the reasons it could have been so much worse, because if we didn’t have any pedicabs for the winter, that would have been a lot of lost income that we couldn’t have recovered. And then also the time it takes to get new ones. We’re not going to have new ones until after bluegrass bash, basically. So, yeah, we have enough to carry, us through that, too.

LM: you’re kind of bare bones until you get new pedicabs, and then you’re going to be back up and running again.

MW: Yeah, we’re already getting lots of bookings for the summer, earlier than usual, so, all signs are pointing to where this is going to be a really good season. And, yeah, I’m getting hit up by festivals that I don’t even know about, so I’m really thankful for that. things are going really well.

LM: Good. And, of course, you employ other people, so it didn’t just impact you. It would have impacted everybody who works for you. So are people excited to get back in the pedicabs?

MW: Yeah, a lot of my riders are, calling, me now just to make sure things are good and everyone’s really excited. And I’m going to be hiring as well. Probably going to hire two to three more riders this year. So if anybody’s interested, call me, text me. I’ll probably start doing that. Seriously, probably mid march, so, yeah, let me know.

LM: so is there anything that you feel like, anything good that you feel like came out of this, that maybe you had wanted to change, but you were just kind of, like, in inertia and kind of doing things the same way? Did it kind of make you step back and look at how you were doing things and change anything?

MW: Oh, yeah. I’m, a lot more organized now. that was a huge problem, trying to stay on top of everything and looking back, I just had this feeling if I would have managed my time better, I might not have spilled the linseed oil, or I would have been more careful cleaning up that sort of thing. So taking that lesson, I guess, yeah, I’m treating it more like a business instead of a fun thing I do, which is what I’ve been doing, which is really cool. And another benefit is, I guess I had a bunch of tools that weren’t exactly right but work for what I needed, so now I can have exactly what I need. I guess that could be a benefit. And then the overall experience, I feel like I’ve learned and grown so much from it. And my relationships with basically everyone in my life has gotten better because of it. If you look at it that way. I don’t want to say awesome. But. It helped me in some ways, I guess you could say, yeah.

LM: Very cool. I feel like I can see the difference too. Yeah, I do.

MW: What do you mean?

LM: Well, I feel like I can see you being more confident in a way and kind of more motivated.

MW: Okay. I can see that. Especially knowing the community’s behind my back. having that confidence helps a lot, for sure. yeah, that’s great.

LM: what’s the best way people could help support you if they wanted to at this point?

MW: honestly, we’re pretty good on support. I’m just so thankful to everyone that has helped us. Thank you so much. as far as helping us, I guess recommend people to us for, tours. That’s probably the biggest way you could help us because we want to get back and start operating and showing people an awesome time. It’s really the main motivation here, for sure. but yeah, I just want to thank everyone who’s helped and we’re in the process of doing thank you notes and all that, so we’re probably going to do some free rides and tours for people that helped and everything too. So that’s going to be really cool to do that over the summer to kind of give back to people that helped us out.

LM: And so the same way to book is. It’s still the same way. Website?

MW: Yeah, you can go online. it’s really easy to book online. Or you can call or text us anytime and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Yeah.

LM: Well, thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate it. I know you’ve done a lot of interviews lately. Like, you’ve been on tv. You’ve been in the Sentinel.

MW: Yeah, well, this is just fun for me. So those other ones were kind of stressful.

LM: How did you prepare for those?

MW: I didn’t at all I just winged it. I hope people can’t tell.

LM: Yeah, I’ve never done anything like that. And I feel like, I’d probably just black out. I wouldn’t even know what I was saying.

MW: yeah, I’ve actually done it a lot since I started doing this here. And the first probably five times I was pretty nervous. And then you realize they’re just asking you questions and you just talk like you’re in a normal conversation and it usually works out. You hope they edit things out that make you sound kind of dumb, but sometimes they don’t. You just have to accept that.

LM: Cracks me up. I’ll do my best.

MW: I’m not talking about you.

LM: Thanks, Mark.

LM: to book a pedicab tour: visit palisadepedicab.com or call 970-875-7344. Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

E22: The Milky Way Enters Into Palisade’s Orbit, with Kathy and Scott Gilbert

Have you visited The Milky Way? As of Wednesday, 2/28, Kathy and Scott Gilbert are serving up sweet treats, savory snacks, and tasty drinks from their new shop at 330 Main Street in Palisade!

Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be called something different? We’ll get into that, along with all the yummy treats they’re planning to serve up, the fun surprises in store, and lots more, on today’s episode.

Find The Milky Way on Instagram ⁠@themilkywaypalisade⁠

Music by Romarecord1973 from Pixabay.

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Welcome to Postcards From Palisade, where we hear from the people who are shaping our slice of western Colorado. I’m Lisa McNamara.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 28th of February, Kathy and Scott Gilbert will be one step closer to their goal of total Palisade dessert domination!

That’s because tomorrow is the opening day of their new, eagerly awaited dessert shop, The Milky Way. Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be called something different? We’ll get into that, along with all the tasty treats they’re planning to serve up, the fun surprises in store, and lots more, on today’s Postcard From Palisade.

LM: we last talked in May and you’ve been a little busy since then.

KG: Teensy bit. Teensy bit busy.

LM: A few things have happened.

KG: Few things. Finally got our permit to build out, and we’ve been building since we got our permit in, what, July? Because that took a little longer than we thought it would be.

SG: And there’s a saying when you do things like this that takes twice as long and costs twice as much. And we were well past that, but almost done.

KG: Very close.

LM: Still, I think in the grand scheme of things, I mean, to have done this much since July is a lot.

KG: Oh, it feels eternal.

LM: A lot of work.

KG: It just feels eternal. Everything is shiny and new. Whether we wanted it to be or not.

SG: This time last year we were in escrow to buy the building.

KG: We’re like, oh, we’ll be open by June. It’ll be so easy.

SG: Foolishly thinking we would just quickly flip it and open. But, there’s a lot of permitting and rules and time and just. Yeah, now we know what it takes and we’re not going to do it again.

LM: So it’s the day before opening. what are you going to serve? What’s the concept?

KG: So primarily gelato and all things gelato. you can do gelato in a latte. You can do gelato Yeah. You flavor your latte with gelato. A scoop in there and it makes it extra, extra creamy because it’s no calories. It’s totally healthy. So we’ll have the gelato and then we’ll have about 20 to 30 different kinds of loose leaf teas. We’ll be focusing on teas. And we’ll be selling the loose leaf teas. And then we’ll also be selling spices. And then for food, we’ll have quite a few breakfast items. We’ll have a breakfast frittata, gluten free. And what else are we having? Oatmeal, cold and regular. And then, mini pancakes. I’m very excited about these. There’s a fancy name for it. Have you seen them? Like the profiterol? I can never say it. Yeah, there’s a fancy name for it. But they’re little pancakes. And then you pimp them out with Nutella and butter and powdered sugar. And then if you really want to make it healthy, then you add fruit to balance. It’s all about balance. And then, for lunchtime, we’ll be doing a line of grilled cheese. Plus all the pastries, we’ll be carrying all kinds of pastries. and we will be carrying kulina lani in the pastry case. And you can buy loaves of bread here.

SG: Candy.

KG: Oh, yeah, candy. We’ll be doing candy too. We’ll be doing, Enstroms candy. And then we have another distributor where we’ll be doing the fancy candies you can buy in a little box. And then macaroons and

SG: cakes.

KG: Cakes.

LM: Oh, my God. So much good stuff.

KG: We’re aiming for dessert. And then we’ll have some fruit. We’ll have some fruit in the grab and go too, because balance.

SG: at its core, it’s a dessert shop, but it’s got a lot surrounding it to make it a you could have your whole meal here too. But if it’s a dessert shop theme.

KG: Because dessert is great. Life is worth dessert.

LM: Absolutely. So when we talked in May, this was going to be the sempre cafe.

SG that was the working title

LM: But now…

KG: that was our working title.

LM: now what’s the latest?

Electrician: is now a bad time?

LM: did I mention that there was a lot going on when we met? The electrician had just stopped by to hook up the sweet retro light fixture that was directly over the table where we had been sitting, causing us to move over to another part of the shop.

LM: All right, so we’ve relocated over to the counter. Okay. What were we talking about?

KG: I don’t know.

LM: Oh, the name.

KG: The name. It just wasn’t working.

SG: Well, the kids didn’t like it. I liked it.

KG: I didn’t like it. You’re the only one who liked it.

SG: So it became the working title.

KG: Yeah. It has to still say sempre cafe on all of the plans, because there’s no way the architect is going to change them at this point.

LM: Right.

KG: But it’s called the Milky Way

KG: the whole line of drink menus that we have, there’s some fun named things in there, like, what was it, the raspberry retrograde? What was the other one? The Armstrong.

SG: this kind of mid century, atomic age things started to develop, so the name was changed to reflect what it was becoming.

KG: Yeah, because you can’t change the shape of the building. The building is definitely mid century, and you can’t change that. So we leaned into it bigly. It all came together. We were a little skeptical at times. Like, is this the right choice? I’m not sure, but we’re committed, so let’s keep going.

SG: I always assume everything’s a mistake until proven otherwise.

KG: That is true.

LM: So Milky Way. Awesome menu. What are the hours going to be like?

KG: we’re going to be open as the market supports. So probably for the first month, we will be closed Monday and Tuesday just so we can get our bearings. But let’s see, so what? That would be Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, 08:00 a.m.. to 06:00 p.m. And then Friday and Saturday open later. We’re just not sure it’s going to be kind of a work in progress.

SG: That’ll change as it gets warmer. as the town’s traffic flow gets back to the summer.

KG: The touristy. And people want ice cream more and gelato. Sorry, I didn’t say ice cream. People want gelato more when it’s not 28 degrees out.

LM: Right?

KG: It’s 80. Let’s have ice cream

LM: no I mean a scoop of gelato in a latte, that’s a winter treat.

KG: You can always just do an affogato too. Just do a little affogato, which is nice.

LM: Yeah, that’s a winter thing for sure.

KG: Again, no calories. But it’s really good gelato. It’s really, really good gelato.

SG: It’s distributed from Denver, but the company is actually from Italy.

KG: Yeah.

LM: So it’s the real deal.

KG: It is, excellent. It is truly excellent gelato. And we’re leading off with just scoops of gelato for starters. But then we’ll be branching out quickly into milkshakes with it. and then I like to call it gelato nachos. You take some scoops, and then you put cool toppings on it and sauce, and then you dip your little wafer chips and you’ve got nachos. And if you share it with a friend, it has no calories.

LM: There you go. This is going to be amazing. what’s the difference between gelato and ice cream?

KG: Gelato is a little bit warmer, kept at a warmer temperature, and it’s creamier. And it’s actually less calories I think.

SG: it’s richer.

KG: It’s richer. No, it actually is. but it’s richer. But it has less things in it, for lack of a better word. It’s more pure.

SG: It’s more dense.

KG: Yeah, it’s more dense.

LM: less air. that would be more dense.

KG: And it’s just so good. It’s really good. And we’ll have always on tap. We’ll always have one that’s a sorbet. So if anyone has a dairy and that will change. Our flavors will change all the time.

LM: of the things that you’re going to be serving, what’s your personal favorite?

KG: That’s a tough one. I mean, gelato, probably the hazelnut gelato, the hazelnut chocolate. That would be my favorite thing.

SG: Those who know us, for the coffee bus, and the ice cream truck, we will still have our usual line of coffee drinks. So I like the vanilla chai.

KG: You like the dirty chai.

SG: The dirty chai, yeah.

KG: And now we can get it sugar free. We have a distributor that we can get better chai from and have some more options, but there’s like a sugar free one, so less guilt. That’s his favorite drink though.

SG: Yeah. So we’ll still have everything that you were getting on the trucks too.

LM: And the vending machine. So the small art vending machine is here.

KG: Small art vending machine. And some more oddities in there. Some little odd things like trying to think, can I give that away? Some little retro toys that we grew up with and that sort of thing. Oh, I remember that. Oh, that’s so cool.

LM: You still going to have a local artist in there for some of the stuff?

KG: We will still be having some local artists. by the time this is broadcast, the pictures done by a local artist will be outside and she’ll be putting her stuff in the vending machine as well. And she’s done an amazing job on our art. I’m very excited about those.

SC: tell about the courtyard?

KG: Oh, yeah, the courtyard. Okay. Yeah, they’re starting that any moment. They came today to start it. So, we will have all outdoor seating as well. so it’ll be nice and covered and shady with a fountain and plants. And we’ll have, I don’t know how many seats out there. 15-20. More like lots of seating out there.

LM: Awesome.

KG: So we want this to be a fun place to hang out and enjoy yourself. That’s the goal. Trying to figure out how to put one of those, igloos that they have at the maverick out there in the winter. I really want one of those. They’re just so cool.

LM: Totally fits the theme too.

KG: That’s what I think

LM: it does. I wonder if that’s your patio.

KG: I wonder if that’s that would be dominic from spectrum

LM: your cable! Okay, what else do we definitely want to get? do you want to talk about any of, the components of the store? What should people get really excited about seeing or walking in?

KG: Well, besides the bathroom, the gelato case is lovely. what else?

SG: yeah, the gelato case we’re going to do. It’s going to be the sculpted look. It’s just nice to look at. It’s got the decorations.

KG: It will be pretty

LM: like the peaks and then the

KG: Yes. And you put little sample like, if it’s a strawberry gelato, you put cut strawberries on it. If it’s the hazelnut chocolate, you put Ferrer Rocher on it. You can do that too. So you can take a Ferrer Rocher and have it just pour onto the latte. The latte shots pour onto it and melt it. And then you can pour the whole thing onto the gelato. And it’s like inception affogato, I’m like all about that.

LM: Wow. Was it hard to find suppliers for any of the ingredients

KG: not really. Not really. I don’t think. I mean, equipment, yeah, but the suppliers, the gelato. No, we’ve got a really good company. We had to go, of course, field test it. It’s excellent.

SG: You haven’t mentioned the retail yet.

KG: Oh, yeah, we have retail. Sorry. There’s a lot going on. So we will have a small retail section. Not huge, just small. and we’ll have an entire line of spices and entire line of teas. And then retail themed that it’ll kind of change every month as we go. It’ll change like, we’re starting off with mid century modern just because it’s really fun. And I found some great products. And then as we get into the bee festival, we’ll have more of that. And then going into summer, more of that. That will change all the time. The retail, if you see it, it probably won’t be back. So kind of keep changing it all the time. Our Instagram wall. I love my Instagram wall.

LM: What’s this?

KG: That is at the end when you walk in, you will see a couch and two chairs, a nice little conversation area. And on the wall behind it, the decorations will change seasonally as well. So we highly encourage you to take a selfie at the Instagram wall and post it because social media is key. please tag us because we love attention. I like to see pictures, like we do the farmers market. And we’re incredibly busy, and there’s, like, no photo of us out there at all. Wonder how my bus looked, because I can’t get off and take a picture.

LM: Oh, my gosh. I can’t even get up close to it to order.

KG: Crazy, right?

LM: it’s so busy.

KG: Yeah, it’s crazy. But we’ll be doing the bus again next year in the same spot. So Sundays will be interesting.

LM: Yeah, Sundays will be wild.

KG: It’ll be fun, right?

SG: Yeah. The trucks will be events only with still a presence at the farmers market. but this will be kind of our anchor. And then go into events only on the trucks. And there’ll be plenty of events.

KG: Yes. But food truck life is hard. It’s really hard. Like, let me just take everything I might possibly need and put it in this tiny little space and then drive and hope that it doesn’t break down or blow up, but it’s fine. It all works.

SG: This store this building does not have a motor in it.

KG: No, I’m not mad about that at all.

LM: That’ll be nice.

SG: Will it start? Will it make it?

KG: You walk in and you turn on the lights and that’s it. You’re there. Do you want to pause or. Hi, Dominic. I got the text that your name is Dominic. So Wifi…

Cable guy: got you. What’s..

KG: Follow me.

Cable guy: I see you’re under a lot of construction right now.

SG: This is a little more chaotic.

KG: We weren’t expecting this much chaos today. There was chaos this morning, but this is some next level now. Let’s do a podcast. It’ll be quiet in here. Sure.

LM: the last few months have brought visible changes to the facade of the Milky Way. The teal exterior has been repainted a rich cream color. Behind the papered over windows, even more changes have been taking place. Kathy and Scott have spent months working to renovate this former gallery space into a cafe. The interior walls are a calming powder blue, the trim is a bright white. Metal accents are a deep gold and the wooden countertops are stained a rich dark brown, coated with layers of thick epoxy. The floors are a smooth grey concrete.

Walking in, the first thing you’ll notice is the gelato case. Clean, sparkling, and filled with multicolored rectangles of deliciousness, it’s a bit overwhelming to behold.

Metal countertops behind the gelato case hold up a shiny new espresso machine, amongst other equipment. Swinging doors with charming circular windows lead into the kitchen.

Directly to the right is the retail section where Percy, the vending machine that had been posted up outside the Ordinary Fellow, now resides, along with other fun and delicious discoveries.

And then the rest of the space is filled with cream colored tables and chairs, with a back door leading out to a paved patio with more seating, covered with shade awnings. The overall feeling blends a sense of milky calm with a wild sugar rush in a totally unique way.

KG: I think the prettiest things in here, I have to say, I think the prettiest things are the countertop, the checkout counter with the rounded edge, with the brass pole, and then the kitchen doors. The kitchen doors are my favorite thing, I think.

LM: I agree.

SG: We’re getting good feedback on our open sign too.

KG: which is on. I think I’ll turn the open sign off.

SG: it was a bit of a risk because nobody does an open sign like that. But we wanted to do something different.

LM: And you’ll probably have a sign out front, too. Some sort of hanging sign or something

SG: like an aframe or something.

KG: I know what I want to do, but I don’t know if you’re going to like what I want to do. I wanted to have a mannequin, and I want to have the mannequin just say, like, hi. We’re open and holding a basket with the menus if they want to look at it.

SG: Let’s look in the town code.

KG: You’re hoping there’s a mannequin section that I can’t, please don’t let Kathy do that. They have the robot ones that do like, they wave and they move and it’s a little creepy. I won’t do that. Mostly because I don’t have power right there. Otherwise I would.

LM: yet

KG: Oh, bathroom. The bathroom is very unique. That’s all I’m going to say. You’re going to want to see the bathroom. I’m very proud of it.

LM: that’s all

KG: That’s all I’m going to say. It has lots of space.

SG: It ended up being bigger than the kitchen.

KG: Yeah, it actually did

SG: by code. So we might as well use it.

KG: We might as well decorate it. Extremely decorated. We’ll go with that. Let’s let that be a surprise.

LM: I’m not going to say anything.

KG: Not going to say anything till they see it.

LM: Okay. That’s a fun surprise. I feel like you have a lot of fun little surprises and kind of interesting and fun things for people to find.

KG: The goal is to find something new every time you come in to see something new.

SG: And we want to revolve things around. So it is new not every day, but for every season.

KG: the goal is to have a lot of events here during the week. In the summer, Friday, Saturday. We’re just trying to survive. We’re all just trying to survive tourist season. But we want to do some events here that are just fun for the town people. Ooh let’s do a we talked about a couple of wineries, like doing a wine gelato pairing one night. Doesn’t that sound fancy?

LM: Wonderful.

KG: And then we’ll do game nights and trivia nights and just fun. We just want to have fun. because this is kind of a fun place.

LM: And that’s kind of what’s missing too, because there’s a lot of music Friday Saturdays, which I’m not complaining about I love it, very happy.

KG: Right. It’s great but when you’re industry. You can’t go and do that. We’ll be here.

LM: But that’s already kind of going on and drawing people away. So it makes sense to during the week when there’s less to do, when locals are like, I’m bored, I’m off work I want to do something fun.

KG: especially in the winter.

LM: yes, that would be cool.

KG: January and February are hard.

LM: What’s your pitch to get people to come in here? What are you going to tell them?

KG: god you put the pressure on me like that. fun treats. Fun experience. Something palisade has never seen before. The style has never been seen here before.

SG: Our tagline is you are here.

KG: You are here. You’re at the Milky Way. So you are here.

SG: We’ll see you here.

KG: We’ll see you here.

LM: See you at the Milky Way! 330 Main Street, Palisade. And don’t forget to tag those Instagram wall photos and share the love. But please, save me some of that chocolate hazelnut gelato!

Thanks for listening. With love, from Palisade.

Podcast: Postcards From Palisade

E31: Growing Grand Valley Wine with Richard McDonald of Grand Valley Enology, Colorado Vintners, and Cliff Dweller Wine

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E30: Palisade Stories with JoAnn Rasmussen of the Palisade Historical Society

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E29: Do Palisade Right with Hilary Lewkowitz of the Colorado Tourism Office

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E28: The Riverfront Trail Runs Through It with Joel Sholtes

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E27: The Palisade Community Garden Takes Root with Lu Frederick

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E26: Bringing Joy to Palisade with Kristen Seymour of Harlow and The Merc

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E25: Something Fishy is Happening in Palisade!

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E24: Celebrating One Year With the Things that Make Palisade So Special and New Music

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E23: Palisade Pedicab Rises From the Ashes, with Mark Williams

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E22: The Milky Way Enters Into Palisade’s Orbit, with Kathy and Scott Gilbert

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