Fall visitors

El Niño has brought a wet autumn to western Colorado, and with snow dusting the nearby West Elk Mountains, it’s about time to break out the sweaters. Lucky for us, then, that reader Jon Krecker visited the office on a warm day, or we’d have never seen his T-shirt. Not in recent memory has a reader visit invoked such rampant jealousy among staff as when Jon came in from Longmont, Colorado, sporting a vintage purple HCN shirt from 1995. Jon had obtained the shirt — featuring the old mountain goat logo — at a 25th anniversary party and had clearly taken good care of it. Thanks for the flashback, Jon, and for your longstanding care and support — and for preserving the T-shirt, which had scarcely faded. And we want to thank all the other friends who stopped by recently.

Anne Pennington, who moved to nearby Delta in August, was in Paonia having lunch with her granddaughter, Miranda, before popping in. Though she’s a longtime subscriber, she had never been to our office before. Don’t be a stranger, Anne! Faithful subscribers Julie Sullivan and George Whitten of Saguache, Colorado, who passed through Paonia on a sort of mini-vacation, have several interesting links with HCN. When they started an apprenticeship program at their organic grass-fed cattle ranch in the San Luis Valley, our classifieds section was the first place they advertised. It turns out that one of the first apprentices they hired for that ranch, Laura Jean Schneider, is now the writer of our online series “Ranch Diaries.”

Our soggy October weather didn’t bother Susan Sellers, who’s from the rainy town of River John on the bay coast of Nova Scotia. She and her brother, Benjamin, from Carbondale, Colorado, are both new subscribers who grew up in the West and were in town visiting our local wineries.- We’re happy to encourage sibling bonding, especially over a glass of good wine. Other recent welcome visitors were Dave Mayhew, from Hite, Utah, and Robyn and Ed Ceyson, from Woodstock, Georgia. Thanks for stopping by!

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
A few things to clear up, thanks to vigilant readers of our Oct. 26 edition: On page 3, in our scientific integrity graph, the numbers on the left axis fell out of alignment with the ticks on the graphic. See the corrected version here: hcne.ws/political-usfws. Also, although Valles Caldera National Preserve is now managed by the National Park Service, it’s not a national park per se. In a story on getting salt out of the Colorado River, the cost of not having the Paradox Valley Unit would be $19 million annually; $457 million is the amount saved in damage since the unit went into operation in 1991. And “Growing up with guns” should have stated that Brian Calvert’s first firearm — not rifle — was a shotgun.

• Dear Friends