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Southwest Life
Angela Fountain
Position: La Plata County Extension Office
Nicole Clark
Position: La Plata County Extension Office
Darrin Parmenter
Position: La Plata County Extension Office

Local 4-H stays busy in March

March is a very busy month for La Plata County 4-H. Besides our regularly schedule hunter safety and education training and market beef weigh-in, we have two camps and a Livestock Judging Co...

A superfood for any budget

What luck that you stumbled across this column. Otherwise, the fact that it’s National Nutrition Month may have slipped past your radar. Seems only fair we dedicate this month’s column to f...

Seed swaps, exchanges and sales can help solve sold-out woes

Back in 2021, and even lingering into 2022, there was a shortage of vegetable seed available to gardeners (and even farmers). All sorts of factors led to scarcity, and you could lay blame wi...

4-H a positive environment for youth

Adolescence is a crucial period to develop social and emotional habits that are important for mental health and emotional well-being. Mental health can be extremely fragile, and ensuring you...

Break-the-fast: Benefits of your morning meal

By 5:00 am there’s a hot cup of coffee in hand, a space heater on high, and a stare-off between myself and a blank Word document. In search of a topic, my eyes scan the environment. I brief...

Food and fun

A couple of years ago, after participating in KSUT’s spring on-air fund-drive, I thought it would be fun to have a radio show. Not a novel idea – there are plenty of great gardening radio sh...

Sense of belonging gives young people confidence

4-H is designed to engage youths in learning opportunities that promote positive youth development and create responsible and productive citizens. One of the ways we accomplish this based o...

Live better with life-long learning; La Plata County Extension can help you

After (almost) four years of writing a monthly column for The Durango Herald, I’ve realized how the topics tend to surface as a reflection of adult experience. This month is no exception. At...

For every season, there is a converse

During the winter solstice, I was sitting (on a beach) at roughly 21.6940 degrees N. Daylength was around 10 hours and 45 minutes. Compared to Durango (37.2753 degrees N), I had about 1 hour...

Top five reasons to join 4-H

As the largest youth organization in the United States, 4-H provides youth a unique education on life skills through fun, hands-on, youth-led learning. 4-H programs cultivate a sense of belo...

Take home baking to the next level, be a Cottage Foods producer

Some people just have a penchant and talent for baking. Their skillful blending of art and food chemistry results in a delightful display of edible creativity. What a unique gift for the luc...

The hope for snow a recurring theme

The juxtaposition of the holiday season always messes with me – we speed up to reach the goal of slowing down. We rush to buy presents, wrap and/or mail those presents, decorate the house, m...