jodibuchan A Bountiful Heritage, A Bountiful History, Art and Agriculture, Heritage Tourism, Uncategorized

Trail of the Barn Quilt

Z's quilt art on shed
Z’s Orchard in Palisade, CO

The journey over the hill and through the woods to grandmother’s house for turkey and pie is a bit more decorative these days thanks to artists who are hanging squares of local culture on the sides of buildings.

Quilting—an old tradition of art and agriculture—has taken on a modern twist with plywood, paint, and brushes replacing the needle, thread, and fabric. While quilting as an American pastime is still a widespread practice, artists are now taking patterns of heritage preservation and hanging them on the sides of barns.

Designated Barn Quilt Trails weave across the country thanks to Donna Sue Groves, who created the concept in 2001 to honor her Appalachian heritage.  With support from the Ohio Arts Council, her idea expanded into a driving trail that featured twenty squares. Today, organized trails include forty-eight states and 7000 quilts. Colorado is one of those states.

Several Front Range counties have united to create the Colorado Barn Quilt Trail, aided in part by the Colorado Quilting Council, Inc. (CQC). Although not a designated trail, barn quilts on the Western Slope are a part of the fruit culture’s landscape along the byways and beyond.

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Cross Orchards Historical Site

 

Along the Palisade Fruit & Wine Byway, orchardists such as Carol Zadrozny of Z’s Orchard and lavender store Sprigs & Sprouts display barn quilts that reflect their agricultural pursuits. At the Museum of the West and Cross Orchards Historical Site in Grand Junction, artist and local quilter “Verda,” crafted more barn quilts using traditional quilting patterns.

 

Barn quilts are usually wooden squares 4×4, 6×6, or 8×8. The Iowa Extension offers a PDF with directions for building a barn quilt by the Le Mars Arts Council. (Click here for directions.) Also, the Monroe County Illinois Barn Quilt Trail Members have a “how to” download that includes additional resources. (Click here for directions.)

Quilt FAQ from Quilting in America:

  • Mothers made “several quilts for each of her children to have when they left home to start life as adults.”
  • “The U.S. government urged citizens to ‘Make Quilts – Save the Blankets for our Boys over There’” during WWI.
  • The Depression prompted thrifty quilters to “saving bits and pieces of material from clothing and other blankets, using material from feedsacks.”
  • During WWII, “quilting was used to raise money to support the Red Cross.”

 

 

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jodibuchan A Bountiful History, Festivals, Food History, Fruit History, Heritage Tourism, Uncategorized, Western Slope

Palisade’s Peach Past (Part I)

Palisade's East Orchard Mesa

The history of Palisade peaches began with pioneers, explorers, and town builders who breached the backbone of the continent—the Rocky Mountains—in the Territory of Colorado. The question is how did they know in the 1890s that peaches would be a juicy contributor to Colorado’s $40 billion plus and growing agriculture industry of today?

They had vision, motivation, and a market.

MARKET

Mining interest cut into the mineral-rich mountains of Western Colorado, extracting gold, silver, and coal. They laid out communities close to their mother lodes and far from their markets. Enter next the railroad companies like the Denver & Rio Grande (D&RG) and the Colorado Midland Railway (later Railroad) who set tracks within the precarious passes to export the precious commodities. The BLM’s Cultural Series No. 10 by O’Rourke, Frontier in Transition, explains:

DSC_0134_1078

 

“The construction of railroad lines in southwestern Colorado during the 1880’s and 1890’s was determined by the desire to connect gold and silver mining camps with the rest of the state, but was also motivated by the necessity of securing locomotive fuel from the many rich coal fields in the area.”

 

VISION

photo courtesy Grand Valley Water Users' Assoc.
photo courtesy Grand Valley Water Users’ Assoc.

“It is uninviting and desolate looking in the extreme.” That is what the Denver Tribune wrote in 1880 of the Western Slope, as cited in Ingersoll’s legendary 1885 book Crest of the Continent.

Yet, elephant-skin colored cliffs and dusty, brush-covered terrain is not what Colorado agriculture and irrigation expert William E. Pabor saw. He writes in his twelve-year agriculture study Fruit Culture in Colorado, published in 1883, “We see, through the mists of the present, the fruit-lands of the future.”  His extensive interviewing of fruit growers, coupled with his knowledge of irrigation opened his eyes to the possibility of a fruitful future in Western Colorado’s semi-arid landscape.

MOTIVATION

The world was moving west at a pace as fast as the railroad could lay tracks. Once the U.S. government relocated the Western Slope Ute Indians (again), the west was open for business. Town founders like George Crawford (Grand Junction) and Pabor (Fruita) set up orchards and communities. They, among others, recognized that the isolated Western Colorado was ripe for development. They untied their motivation with their vision to tap into the nearby market.

“The miners pay cash. The harvest gathered from the soil, under the genial influence of the sun and water, is as golden as that taken from the hills, whose supposed wealth attracts so many prospectors…. The mines furnish a very profitable market, and towns are springing up in every direction,” Pabor wrote, adding that food imported from California, Utah, Kansas, and Nebraska “ought to be raised at home.”

As so it was. In the 1880s, and as the end of the century neared, Harlow, Bowman (owner of the peach-picking sack patent), Blain, and Steele planted the roots of an iconic legacy.

This legacy is celebrated each year in August at the Palisade Peach Festival in Riverbend Park. The Palisade Chamber of Commerce, the Palisade Historical Society (run by chairperson Priscilla “Bowman” Walker), and author of Western Colorado Fruit & Wine: A Bountiful History will honor that history at the 2015 festival August 14 & 15th with a special “Palisade’s Peach Past” booth—a journey through the people, places, and tastes that have made Palisade a juicy destination.

 

jodibuchan A Bountiful History, Food and Wine, Food History, From the Author, Fruit History, Heritage Tourism, Palisade Fruit & Wine Byway, West Elk Scenic and Historic Byway, Western Slope, Wine

What Are Book Signings Like?

West Elks Wine Trail signing poster image

My first signing for “Western Colorado Fruit & Wine: A Bountiful Heritage” is less than a week away. The calendar is filling in with more. People say to me, “How exciting.” Well, sort of. I love to write. I love to learn things. I love to Eat, Drink, Cook—my version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s journey that does not require vaccinations or a passport.

Here is what Mary Janice Davidson says about book signings: “A book signing can be (is!) terrifying. It’s like throwing a party and being certain no one will come …  pens clenched in sweaty hands, smiling brightly (baring [my] teeth, anyway) at every would-be buyer who strolled past …  and not look like a depressed vulture waiting for something to die at my feet.”

Photo courtesy Z's Orchard.
Photo courtesy Z’s Orchard.

Davidson and Eric Gelb, author of “Book Promotion Made Easy” (whose book signing audiences have numbered zero to 200), both say the same thing, though. Have fun with it. Enjoy the ride.

For me, even more than signing jitters, is the idea that my book is a vehicle—with a word count—for the stories of other people and places. I kept that notion with me in the hours, days, and months of research, fact-checking, writing, and revisions while the peach trees and vines lay dormant under the snow. I was reminded that I was a voice for old and new pioneers, for fruit and wine, for profit and nonprofits deeply rooted in the North Fork and Grand Valley’s fruit story when I listened back to the recorded interviews.

Now, with the fruit ripening in the valleys and the wine pouring in the Grand Valley and West Elks AVAs, it is nearly time to talk to the people for whom I wrote the book—the people who every time they taste a peach, or tour an orchard, or sip a Cabernet they become part of the story. It is time to embrace the words of the kitchen magnet: Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone. Yikes.Back cover

 

jodibuchan A Bountiful History, Festivals, Food History, Heritage Tourism, Lavender

Eat, Drink, Plant Lavender

Lamborn Mesa fields

Lavender may be an ancient herb used by Egyptian, Greek, and  Roman cultures, but it is a new crop in Western Colorado.

In the spring of 2009, a small group of lavender enthusiasts explored growing the fragrant herb on the Western Slope—primarily in the Grand and North Fork Valleys.  They formed a nonprofit, the Lavender Association of Western Colorado, and began their cultivation journey with support from the Colorado State University Extension-Tri River Area (Counties: Delta, Mesa, Montrose, Ouray).

July 10-12, 2015 is the 5th Annual Lavender Festival, a celebration of the lovely buds that now thrive under in the semi-arid micro-climates of Western Colorado. The festival activities include: a chauffeured farm tour; a Feast in the Field dining experience; a park packed with demonstrations, vendors, and workshops; and a mapped out self-guided tour.

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Want to learn more? Here are a few Lavender FAQs:

History:

In ancient times lavender was used for mummification and perfume by the Egyptian’s, Phoenicians, and peoples of Arabia. During the Middle ages it was considered an herb of love and was used as an aphrodisiac.

In 1652, Culpeper recommended that “two spoonfuls of the distilled water of the flowers taken helpeth them that have lost their voice; as also the tremblings and passions of the heart, and faintings and swounings [sic].” England’s Queen Elizabeth I drank lavender tea to help ease her migraines, and during WWI, nurses bathed soldiers’ wounds with lavender washes.

Other historical uses include embalming corpses, curing animals of lice, taming lions and tigers, repelling mosquitoes, snuff flavoring, and as an ingredient in special lacquers and varnishes.

Herb:

  • Lavender is a member of the mint family.lavender drying racks
  • English Lavender, Lavendula angustifolia, is the most widely cultivated species (synonyms – L. vera, L. latifola, L. officinalis, L. spica, L. delphinensis).
  • Lavender oil contains up to 40% linalyl acetate and 30% linalol. Linalol is a terpene alcohol that is non-toxic to humans, yet naturally antimicrobial.
  • The potency of the lavender flowers increases with drying.

Culinary:

bee on lavender
bees love lavender

(Additional sources cited/quoted include “What’s Cooking America” Internet resource and NC State University)