River Cleanup Report

The South Platte River was a raving success. The river is as clean as I have ever seen it and I owe a great deal of thanks to all of you that came down and made a difference. 

 

We had really low flows this year, but The City of Denver was gracious enough to bump flows up to about 100cfs in order to get some of the smaller rafts and duckies going. Good times were had.

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Double Royal w/ Cheese

Howdy folks, sorry for the short delay in posts. Been pretty busy. I will have a nice write up on a VERY successful Platte River Cleanup after the weekend, but in the meantime, I wanted to introduce you to one of my newest favorite blogs that written by an artist that I have admired for a long time and one that I personally consider a friend. If you like good tunes, awesome artwork and fish... then go visit my friend Paul Puckett over at rightbrainretrieve.com. You wont regret it.

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Be at The Cleanup... or Mad Dog Will Kill You...

The first year I did the South Platte River Cleanup we cleaned up an underpass that was covered in empty cat food cans (food for Mad Dog, I presume), empty cans of 4Loko, naughty magazines and human feces in it. It had a spray painted sign over the top of it that read "This is Mad Dog's House. Don't Touch Mad Dog's Stuff or Mad Dog Will Kill You!" Well, Mad Dog was probably not happy when he came home to find nothing left but his feces (every river cleanup person has their limits). The South Platte deserves better than to allow Mad Dog ruin it. So if you ever plan on carp fishing on the Platte, or just want to help our coldwater fisheries, then join us this Saturday for the cleanup. Here's the info:

Help Clean Up the South Platte River and Bike Paths April 21, 2012 at Union Avenue Put In.
This is an Earth Day event in conjunction with the Greenway Foundation where volunteers picked up trash along the South Platte River and Bike Paths. We usually have between 150 and 250 volunteer rafters, kayakers, cyclists and pedestrians. In past clean ups we successfully removed an average of 1.5 TONS of garbage from the river and bike path each year. The event garners local and regional media coverage on Fox News and 9 NewsTV channels, as well as appearing in the Denver Post newspaper. We start at the Union Ave Put In, raft, kayak, bike and walk 6 miles of the S. Platte River and Bike Path finishing at Habitat Park.

Please contact the event coordinator: John Kahn, Confluence Kayaks,jkahn@confluencekayaks.com, 303-433-3676 for information about sponsorship, contribution information and details on how to get involved.

2012 Event
When: 4/21/12
Registration starts at 9 am
Clean Up: 11 am - 3 pm
After Party: 3 pm - 5 pm
Where: We will be starting at the Union Ave Put In, rafting, kayaking, biking and walking 6 miles of the S. Platte River and Bike Path finishing at Habitat Park. Put-In/Start: Union Chutes, On W. Union Ave. just west of S. Sante Fe Dr.
Take-Out/Finish: Habitat Park, S. Jason St. & Exposition Ave, Denver, CO 

What: If you’ve got a raft, bring it we will find people to float with you, bikes and your own feet are other ways to be involved. Please see our personal gear checklist for suggestions on how to be prepared for a float trip in April. 

At this time we do not have a sponsor who is providing shuttle service, so please plan accordingly.

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Old Man and The Sea

the old man and the sea from Marcel Schindler on Vimeo.

Turn off the music on the right for a bit and check out this video of Marcel Schindler sketching out The Old Man in The Sea in 4 minutes. I dig the AWOLNation jam as well as just being a cool time lapse video. 

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Rocky Mountain High

Greenbacks are on the horizon!

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12 Months of Awesomeness: April

Twelve Months of Awesomeness continues with another item that I have been meaning to do for years, but simply put off until tomorrow. Well, today is that tomorrow. I have always wanted to learn how to grow my own food. This month, I will be building a large elevated planter and growing my own fruits and vegetables. I have always considered myself a friend to the plant world (hehe), so now I will actually learn how to grow them. Now don't get me wrong, I have planted flowers and trees before, but just never actually produced food for my table through a garden. This may not seem like as big of a goal, but this is something that is important to me as I try to live a more sustainable life. Maybe I will even try eating only things not purchased at a grocery store or restaurant for at least a week.

In fact, I am going to do just that... this will be a dual goal. Once my garden is up, I will also try eating only food from my own creation for a week a month... We'll see how that goes.

I will start building the bed first, because we are getting 6 inches of snow today and my morning looked like this:

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