Awe, Nice!

Welcome to Awe, Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com.  This week, I talked with Alex Marienthal from Montana. After high school, Alex left Boulder, Colorado, for Montana State University where he studied snow science as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student. Before becoming an avalanche forecaster, he worked for the ski patrol at the Bridger Bowl outside of Bozeman. Part of the job was mitigating avalanche risk which often involved setting off explosives, to get the snow headed downhill preemptively. To further set the scene, Bridger Bowl has some spots that are strictly for advanced skiers and it requires those skiers to have avalanche beacons on them if they're going to access those spaces. As a ski patroller, Alex always skied with a beacon, a shovel, and a probe pole.  Every year, Alex told me, at least one person he knows - a backcountry guide, a ski patroller or someone in his professional community - is killed in an avalanche. According to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, an average of 27 people die in avalanches each winter in the U.S.   Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  We also welcome your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe, Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at here. In this segment, we return to visit with Alex Marienthal, who works in Montana as an avalanche forecaster. Here, Alex shares a near-miss moment. It happened during an intense and extended winter storm which brought more than six feet of heavy, wet snow to the region. It all landed on top of the winter's already developed snowpack. He picks up the account around Cooke City, which is near Yellowstone National Park.  With all the predictability in life these days, I can appreciate how unpredictability lends itself to keen interest and professional fascination. Alex told me that avalanche forecasting lands at what can be a tense intersection of recreationalists, businesses, and, yes, Mother Nature. Sometimes the forecast is dire but nothing happens. Sometimes, as he recounted, the natural phenomenon can be devastating. Last February, despite an avalanche warning ranking of "high", a big group of backcountry skiers near Lake Tahoe, California, headed into the mountains. The weather got worse and ultimately, nine died in an avalanche that was by all accounts considerably smaller than the one Alex described.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  We welcome your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out here.  This week, I interviewed Kyler Brown. Apart from the stink, or, maybe because of the stink, that was a fantastic encounter! I asked Kyler how he first learned to ride. He said his rabbi, back in Missouri, first taught him. Who would have thought? Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Awe, Nice! also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their sponsorships. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out here.  My name is Maddy Butcher, I'm the creator and producer of Awe, Nice! and we are entering our second season of this novel radio segment. Lined up, I have interviews with ranchers, an avalanche researcher, a farmer, a working cowboy, and our first Awe, Nice! moment from Canada. I figure it's time for another segment of Mini-Awe-Polis, a departure from our usual interviews, a snippet of small observations, like hay in my jacket pockets.  My horses, dogs, and I did something new and spent several months in Arizona this winter and spring. When we returned to Colorado, there was a multi-species exhale of sorts. Where we were in Arizona was rocky and with hardly any grass, so the horses were happy to return to the soft red dirt and green grass. They have been moving more and also lying down more often, with audible pleasure. The dogs, too, seem happier, freer. It was getting hot down there and the cold nights here have given us all a snap-to spirit. For the horses and dogs, that means more friskiness, more appetite, more soaking up the sun with moments of relaxation whereas in Arizona they'd be seeking shade. There is something to be said for familiarity with one's surroundings. Arizona was unfamiliar to us and I feel like we all carried a bit of a brace as we experienced the time there. Next time, it will likely feel different. So, when we returned to Colorado, our familiarity added to the pleasing aspect of green grass and open skies.  The drought has been on my mind and I'm grateful that the pasture could rest until we showed up. It's a precarious time to be on working lands. Many ranchers are selling stock to reduce the pressure on their fields. Personally, I'll be cordoning off sections of pasture, to keep the horses from overgrazing it. For the moment, the wind blows beautifully over healthy grasses and the birds busy the skies with territorial calls and with food in their beaks to feed their young. I anticipate rougher going as summer heats up. May the monsoon season be fruitful.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. at awenice.com.  Awe, Nice! also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their sponsorships. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.    

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out here.  This week I visited with Allana Salmon from Ohio. Allana teaches horsemanship and rock climbing, but it was on a trek with friends toward a climb called Listerine Girl, in the Red River Gorge, when she experienced what she wanted to share here.  Allana told me that before three years ago, she was her own worst enemy. No one disliked her more than herself, she said. Since then, she's done a lot of work, including therapy, and has made significant progress in cultivating more peace and balance to her days.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button  here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms.  This week we wrap up our short visit with rancher Joe Morris from California. Joe thinks deeply about his work, literally and figuratively. While many of us are looking at what's in front of us, Joe has learned to see beyond.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button on our about page here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I visited with Cooper Hibbard from Montana. Cooper runs the Sieben Livestock Company, which is part of the Old Salt Co-op in Helena, Montana. The Co-op, with has beef, lamb, and other offerings from five central Montana ranches, is committed to transforming the status quo of beef production to a more regenerative, giving-back model. They're doing some really cool stuff and I encourage you to check them out.  Cooper traveled far and wide - to South American and Australia, to name a few places - before coming back to take the reins of his family's ranching operation.  He told me that he's often had a feeling, when he's fixing fence or gathering cows or hunting, where the hair stands up on the back of his neck and it seems like the air is charged, and he just knows he's being watched. Then he might come upon a cache, where a lion has stashed a deer to come back later and feed on it. What he feels then is not fear but reverence.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. We thank Kershaw Knives and Redmond Salt for their generous sponsorships. Music is by Forrest Van Tuyl.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com.  This week we have another visit with Joe Morris from California. Joe runs Morris Grassfed Beef and is an award-winning leader of environmental stewardship and regenerative ag. This second moment involves the cattle.  The connections we have – with other animals and with the land – become more and more apparent when we can pause and pay attention. The connections are full of energy and communication. There is often an undercurrent of that theme with these segments and I'm grateful to Joe for highlighting it.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button on here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms.  This week, I visited again with Carol Von Michaelis from Arvada, Colorado. Carol runs The Community Farm which seeks to bridge the gap between agriculture, the outdoors, and urban residents. Lots of people visit and when they do, they are likely greeted by Pepsi, a mini donkey that came into Carol's life when the two were paired for a burro race. What's a burro race? Glad you asked! Pack burro racing is the Colorado's official summer heritage sport. Runners and donkeys pair up for races of varying lengths. All donkeys must be loaded with a pack, which includes mining gear. The race Carol and Pepsi ran was about 15 miles and started in Fairplay, elevation about 10,000 feet. It was a bit of a blind date as sometimes goes with people who have donkeys but don't run and runners who are donkeyless.  I was so glad to hear that Pepsi ultimately landed at the Community Farm. Carol told me that Pepsi also serves as a mascot for the Colorado School of Mines, where he specializes in meeting fans and having photo opportunities.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship.  Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe, Nice! donate button here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms.  This week I interviewed Joe Morris from California. Joe is a horseman raised in the vaquero tradition and part of an accomplished, multi-generational line of ranching in his family. He learned holistic management practices from Allan Savory, who many say pioneered the field. Joe told me he sees the animals and the land as one community, a whole. We have three short moments from Joe. The first involves a young horse he started years ago when he was working on a large ranch in Nevada. Joe picks up the story at the banks of the Owyhee River during spring runoff. The current was fast, deep, and chocolate-colored.  Boy, so many elements of this scenario that could have been stressful for horse and rider.  There's the current and the depth of the Owyhee. There's the fact that Joe is lifting his legs way up. And there's having Sissy on his back. But Joe worked very hard to develop a partnership, a relationship with his new horse. I trust you. You trust me. We go forward together.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com.  This week I interviewed Erin Nissen from Mosca, Colorado. Erin farms in the San Luis Valley which is known many things, but in our case, potatoes. Idaho may lead the nation in production, but the Valley still contributes mightily – some two billion pounds of potatoes a year. Just a bit of vocabulary: the words "bin" and "plenum" refer to a specialized building where potatoes are stored. Thanks to careful control of humidity, airflow, and temperature, the Nissens can store millions of pounds of potatoes from October to May. Also, a hundred weight is a sack of a hundred pounds of potatoes. So, a hundred thousand hundred weight is 10 million pounds. Erin has heard from an old timer in the valley, who told her that in the fifties, when he was a kid, his elementary school class shrunk from 20 to six kids as people left due to the droughts.   We'll have images of mano and metate and the image of the storm and the mountains here.  By dedicating more acreage to cover crops and soil building, the Nissens have been able to increase potato yields. At first glance, this may be counterintuitive. I mean, if you have x number of acres, you should plant them all with potatoes, right? Not so. It's important to vary and to give the ground what it needs.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. And you can check us out at awenice.com. That's a-w-e-n-i-c-e This week, I visited with Carol Von Michaelis mc haylis from Arvada. Carol grew up around Golden and it was there as a high school student that she volunteered for the local ambulance. That work evolved into EMT work she served for some time on wildland fires for the forest service. Over time, she got her nursing degree, then her physician's assistant degree, and, for good measure, a PhD in community health promotion. She rides horses, is an avid trail runner, and has founded The Community Farm, a small non-profit farm in Arvada. We have two Awe, Nice! segments from Carol. This first one involves her introduction to farming on Colorado's eastern plains. Do you, like me, kind of consider the eastern plains as vast but vacant spaces? Think again.  The wildlife diversity on the eastern plains was remarkable, Carol told me. She's never seen so many birds of prey, hawks, owls, falcons. Also badgers. She said wildlife around Denver gets so observed, by so many people, it can feel like a zoo. Not so, out on the plains. Carol didn't quite recall the number of bread loaves she helped harvest while working the combine, but it was a lot. Maybe millions? Thank a farmer, y'all.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. We thank Kershaw knives and Redmond salt for their generous sponsorship. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to Forrest as well as an Awe Nice donate button here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher and this week we are giving another nod to the 2026 Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse. I interviewed Robert Eversole, also known as the TrailMeister for his expansive horse camping and trail riding website and for his many clinics he holds on traveling safely with equines. Robert and his two mules live in Washington and here he describes an outing in the Pasayten Wilderness, in Washington, near the Canadian border. Elevation about 7,000 feet.  After recording, Robert and I talked about all the little details of knowledge that one needs to have to pack and camp well with horses. I think for outfitters who have been riding, packing, and camping for decades, the work has become intuitive. For the rest of us, I think we work through stages of competency. Have you heard of that? You start with unconscious incompetence (also known as "you don't know what you don't know"), work to conscious incompetence, then to conscious competence and finally, unconscious competence. It's a journey alright.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. We'd like to thank Redmond Salt and Kershaw knives for their generous sponsorship. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher and this week we are giving a nod to the 2026 Lunar New Year. It's the Year of the Horse. Jeremie Forman returns with a story that's fitting to the celebration. Aside from his work in law enforcement and his running a horse facility, Jeremie is mayor of the small town of Francis, Utah. Population about 2,000. Every year for many years, Jeremie has run the town's summer rodeo. One year, as he recounts, he wanted to do something special as a presentation to open the rodeo. For his idea, he needed a lot of horses and riders. So, he put the word out on Facebook. But, Jeremie told me, he had to be a bit secretive about his plan. Their rodeo is the last one of the summer in the region. It follows the Summit County rodeo. There's a Fourth of July rodeo and a Pioneer Days rodeo. He's found that if he has a good idea and shares it openly, other rodeo planners have copied it and done it before the rodeo in Francis. So, on the QT, Jeremie recruited dozens of volunteers to be part of this production. He borrowed scores of American flags from a local church and made sure everyone could be safe with carrying a flag and riding their horse. His son, Jayce, who stands about 6'6'', rode a big Percheron gelding and carried an extra large flag. I know there may be listeners for whom patriotism is a challenging idea at a moment when our country is so fractured, but I hope you all listen with an open heart.  I was thrilled to hear Jeremie mention Joel Nelson's poem Equus Caballus, which Wylie Gustufson crafted into the song of the same title. Joel is a horseman from Alpine, Texas, a Vietnam vet, and in 2009 received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He was also nominated for a Grammy in the spoken word category some years ago. Watch and listen to Joel perform Equus Caballus here.  The line Jeremie mentions is this: I have suffered gross indignities from users and from winners, I have felt the hand of kindness from the losers and the sinners. I have given for the cruel hand and given for the kind. Heaved a sigh at Appomattox when surrender had been signed.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. We'd like to thank Redmond Salt and Kershaw knives for their generous sponsorship. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher and we are fast approaching our first year anniversary of being on the air. I want to thank KSJD for taking a chance with me as well as Kershaw knives and Redmond Salt for extending some help with sponsorship.   This week, we return to a recollection with Jeremie Forman of Utah. Aside from his work as a police officer. He and his son run a stable facility and an fledgling outfitting operation. Last week, he told us about a wicked lightning storm in the Uintas. This week, he recounts what followed. Just a bit of help on vernacular, if listeners need it: A pack string is several animals, in this case, horses and mules, that a rider leads. Usually all the equines that aren't being ridden have big, heavy loads on them. High lining is one way that horses are tied in the back country. It involves running a tight, high line (highter than the horses) and then tying individual horses to that line with another section of rope. A bell mare is like the leader of the pack. She may not be the strongest or biggest, but she is the one who other equines respect and are most bonded with. We pick up after Jeremie, his friends, family and his stock have all weathered a high mountain storm near Red Castle, elevation about 12,000 feet.  One of the joys of interviewing people about moments of awe is to hear them reflect on not just that particular experience, but the bigger picture. Zooming out. Jeremie told me for him, backcountry time is just normal. And there are lots of guys, he remarked, who are out there more than he is. But he also knows that lots of people never get to have those kinds of experiences and for some that do, it can be life-changing. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This is our 40th segment since this little project started last year. This week, I talked with Jeremie Forman of Francis, Utah. Francis, population around 1,800, is 50 miles east of Salt Lake City and sits near the foot of the Uinta Mountains. The Uintas are unusual because they run east-west while most mountain ranges in the US run north-south. In fact, the Uintas are the highest east-west range in the lower 48, with peaks between 11,000 and 13,000 feet. Jeremie is a busy guy who's managed to combine and juggle police work with horse work. We couldn't talk last week because he and his Summit County Mounted unit were patrolling the streets of nearby Park City, while the Sundance Film Festival played out. This segment is the first of two parts as he recounts time spent mountain goat hunting in early fall, near Red Castle, a stunning mountain and lake at about 12,000 feet elevation.  In our next segment, Jeremie will recall what unfolded next during that trip, so I hope you tune in. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice!, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. My name is Maddy Butcher, I'm the creator and producer of awenice and it's time for another segment that I call, Mini-Awe-Polis, a collection of observations, like hay in my jacket pockets.  If you've been listening to lately, you know that we have dedicated several segments to wildland fire fighting, specifically some moments as told by members of Interagency Hot Shot crews, who are elite wildland fire fighters charged with some of the most risky assignments. I think it would be a safe summation to say that their moments of awe were particularly adrenalin-fueled. It got me thinking about what awe means. What does it mean for me? What does it mean for my interviewees? What does it mean for you, dear listener? Roughly, awe for me means a moment in time that's memorable for what I'm seeing and experiencing with all my senses. Often, but not all the time, moments of awe are around something unexpected, something I have never witnessed before. Or, it could something that starts out as totally expected but then takes a brilliant turn which stops me in my tracks. I have moments of awe that are not adrenalin-y at all. Like seeing Niagara Falls. I have other moments that are quite adrenalin-y. Like seeing my kids run hellbent towards the Niagara River above the falls. This might sound absurd, but when you visit the Falls, you can park in a big parking lot and basically walk right up to the river's edge. Nothing's stopping you from walking right in. My memory of seeing the falls will be forever tied to screaming bloody murder as my sons, then four, six, and eight, chased gulls and sprinted towards the current that would horrendously carry them away.  It's true, as research tells us, that high emotions can cement, conflate, and even embellish memories that might otherwise fade away. Just so you know, there is no embellishment here. My rotten kids really did run for the river. And Niagara Falls is impressive. It's loud and you can feel the mist of it on your face from a long ways away.   Anyway, I've been spending some time in southern Arizona. At night, I take the dogs for a walk and do last call the horses. Sometimes I use a headlamp and when I do, I've been catching these little flecks of reflection in the dirt. At first, I thought they were just shiny parts of sand or rock. But they are not. They are the eyes of certain spiders that build burrows and scoot back in them when approached. Pretty cool. Everything here is prickly, spiny, thorny, and pokey. The dogs and horses have figured it out pretty quickly. Me, less so. Often, plants will have the obvious spines but then also less obvious, frankly impossible-to-see spines that might feel okay at first, when you make the mistake of coming into contact with them, but 10 minutes later you're mumbling and grumbling, shaking your hand and tenderly googling how best to extract prickers you can't even see.  I'm still amazed by how the birds perch and feed on cactus. I don't live near where there are saguaros. It's too cold. But I like seeing them. Did you know that it takes about 15 years for a saguaro cactus to grow 12 inches? And it takes another 60 or more years for it to grow an arm. Saguaros serve as some pretty cool homes for birds, who have, of course, figured out the prickers.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. By the way, Kershaw knives, makers of some of the best pocket knives out there, has stepped up to sponsor Awe, Nice. Check out the Ken Onion line. They're excellent. Awe, Nice! also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button on our about page. Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I'm airing another moment recounted by Steve Nicholson, a division supervisor on the Stoner Mesa fire, here in southwestern Colorado. Steve was able to get away from fire work for a while and was spending time back home in Montana. It was a hot fall, with temperatures approaching 90, and the woods, he said, were really loud because everything was dry and crackly as you moved through. Steve was archery hunting and it made things challenging. Often it's difficult to squeeze Awe, Nice recollections into segments that are under 10 minutes. It's like stuffing a sleeping bag into a stuff sack. So much good stuff. In this case, what I had to edit, was that Steve spent many more days hunting to no avail. He told me he often hikes 10 to 12 miles over a day, with vertical climbs as much as 2,000 feet. That's some serious dedication and enthusiasm, and as many hunters have told me, it's not all about what you end up putting in the freezer.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, we have another interview with a wildland fire fighter. I met Jamie Carpenter on the Stoner Mesa fire this summer. Jamie was on the Cal-Wood fire five years ago, during another history-making fire season, this time complicated by the pandemic. Ten million acres burned across the western US. Thousands of homes were lost and dozens of people died. The Cal-Wood fire was towards the end of a vveerry long season. It was relatively small, eventually contained at about 10,000 acres, but it was right in Boulder County. So, that's pretty scary. Also, it was going on when two of the biggest fires in Colorado history were raging. The Cameron Peak fire and the East Troublesome fire, both burned about 200,000 acres. That's over 600 square miles.  Jamie told me that typical days start with a 5:30 wake up, with breakfast and then meetings where they review the day's game plan, in which weather, fire behavior, and safety aspects are discussed. For planning, they use the PACE acronym which stands Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency. You'll hear it reference in Jamie's account. As I witnessed at the Stoner fire, sometimes the terrain is just too gnarly to directly engage the fire. So, as you'll hear, Jamie and the crew were conducting a firing, burning a limited number of acres in order to create a perimeter, to contain the approaching blaze.  I asked Jamie how he got into wildland fire fighting and he said initially it was a good way to work outside and then have time off in the winter to ski. But then he added some thoughts.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, we return to a moment recalled by Doug Falconi. It's part of a bigger focus on recollections from wildland fire fighters. In the first segment, Doug describes a moment as part of the Bitterroot Hotshot crew, on the Ash Creek Fire in 2012. On the day they arrived, it literally blew up. Each day, he said, it burned 40,000 acres. Temps were in the 90's. Winds gusted over 30 miles per hour and the relative humidity was low. When we pick up here, the fire is converging, burning up three draw to a saddle where several dozen men are, with vehicles – trucks, engines, and, luckily, a bulldozer. But first, here's Doug, talking about what it means to him to be a wildland fire fighter and what he's observed from his peers. Ultimately, the Ash Creek fire killed hundreds of cattle and destroyed many homes along with vital timber and grazing acreage.  The next year, in 2013, 19 hotshots died after having deployed fire shelters in the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. Doug told me that for many career wildland fire fighters, this was the most extreme, intense fire behavior they had ever experienced. It caused them to reevaluate their strategies. That was something we saw on Stoner, when it was simply too dangerous to directly engage the fire. People would have died, Doug said. Riding up there for days and months, I could understand: the country climbs from 8500 to 11000 feet over just a few miles and it is thick with trees, not just living trees, but lots of dead and down. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. I've been turning my attention to wildland firefighters, several of whom I met this summer on the Stoner Mesa fire, which burned over 10,000 acres north of Dolores. I work as a hand up there on a grazing allotment. One of the people I met was Steve Nicholson. Here, Steve shares an anecdote from the 2012 fire season, which as listeners may know, was the 3rd worst in US history. Though he wasn't positive, he thinks it unfolded on the Wenachtee Complex, multiple fires which burned 56,000 acres in central Washington in September of that year. He was a senior member of a hotshot crew charged, on that day, with cold trailing. Cold trailing is following the black of the edge of the fire, identifying hot areas, literally laying hands on the ground for hot spots, and making sure the cold edge is solid and cannot rekindle. This involves cutting down trees, clearing brush, and lots of digging. The terrain was precipitous and rugged. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, a chute is a steep, narrow gully, often between two rocky walls.  Steve is now a division supervisor. He told me it's not uncommon to have close calls on hotshot crews, so after the incident, there weren't any real deep conversations. But, he said, it's not like someone would have walked away with a dislocated shoulder when the rock came down. It would have been a big deal.  Next week, Steve shares an elk-hunting moment, so make sure to tune in.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. Sometimes I think I should call this show, Oh, No! For many, the moments they recall have excitement and wonder, but also scary predicaments. Over the next few weeks, I'm turning attention to wildland firefighters. This is partly because they deserve attention and partly because I met several this summer on the Stoner Mesa fire, which burned over 10,000 acres north of Dolores. I work cows on one of the Forest Service allotments that was right on Stoner Mesa. For weeks, my boss and I were pretty busy tending to the cows and trying to stay clear of the firefighters. This week, I interviewed Doug Falconi, who was a division supervisor trainee on the Stoner fire. He recalls the eastern Montana Ash Creek Fire of 2012. 2012 was an incredibly intense year for wildfires, the third worst in US history. 67,774 wildfires burned over nine million acres. In Montana alone, 1.2 million acres burned. The Ash Creek fire was the sixth largest, burning 250,000 acres. Doug arrived as part of the only hot shot crew on the fire, when it was just 5,000 acres. As you might imagine, fire fighting resources were being spread thin that summer. Just a mention of wildland fire vernacular – 'overhead' is the bosses above the crews. This is the first Awe, Nice! moment that we're splitting into two segments. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button here. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, we return to a conversation with Nina Hance, the backcountry guide from Montana. Nina and her husband have had several encounters with grizzlies. Once they were mountain biking and were bluff-charged. She estimates the sow, who had cubs with her, was 500 pounds or so. While the incident was short, it had a lasting impact on her psyche, including regular nightmares. Another time, she and Alex were hunting and were chased off while field dressing a deer. Because of these events and others, she tends to flinch when she sees big dark objects, what might be a bear, but what might also be a stump or a rock. She's become hyper vigilant and often avoids being in the backcountry at dawn and dusk, especially in the fall when bears go through hyperphagia, seemingly ravenous, in preparation for their winter hibernation.  You'd think that at 10,000 feet, in a bit of a spring blizzard, grizzly bears would be the least of your concerns.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button on our about page.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.  

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I talked with Nina Hance. Nina is a backcountry guide certified by the American Mountain Guides Association. In the winter, she works for Beartooth Powder Guides as a lead guide. Nina shared two events. Her first moment was during a guiding trip outside of Cook City. Cook City (population about 70) is near the entrance to Yellowstone National Park and not far from the Wyoming border. She takes us to Woody Creek Cabin, a 20 x 24 foot, single room cabin which served as the group's base camp.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link and a donate button on our about page. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.  

We're featuring another moment with Maine lobsterman Jon Tanguay. It occurred around this time of year, early winter-late fall, when his traps were all dozens of miles offshore, taking several hours to get to them and to get back home. Some shorthand for a few things he mentions: At the time of this event, the strings laid down between two buoys consisted of 20 traps. Four strings would be 80 traps and it would take about an hour and 20 minutes to get through those 80 traps. Also, when he mentions hauling out, that is to say to bring his boat out of the water for maintenance.   I don't think there is anything like weather that can make us feel so small. I feel like those working outside often have a lot of awe-inspiring but also humbling weather stories to share. Lightening. Fog. Wind. Snow. Maine gets some weather. Mt. Washington, which Jon mentions, is the tallest peak in the northeastern US and just 14 miles or so from the Maine/New Hampshire border. As the crow flies, it was 100 miles from where Jon was hauling and then trying to get home. Mt. Washington has recorded wind speeds up to 231 miles per hour and windchill temperatures of 108 below zero, Fahrenheit.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Jon Tanguay, for another segment from my native state. Jon lives in Harpswell, Maine. He's been lobstering his whole life, since he was going out with his uncle at age three. He said his parents told him his first word as a baby was "boat." He was lobstering on his own by age nine. Many lobstermen pick up their traps in the winter, but Jon has been lobstering year-round since about 1998. In colder months, lobster move off shore and lobstering becomes tougher, more expensive, more dangerous. Regarding terminology, steaming is when you're headed to your location and not fishing. In the winter, the commute, so to speak, takes about three hours. A gang, which Jon mentions, is a group of strings of traps in a particular area. In this case, the gang consisted of roughly 400 traps in one big area.  So you know: adult pilot whales are about 24 feet long and weigh about four tons. They feed on shrimp, squid, mackerel, herring, cod. They use echolocation to find their meals.   Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

 This week, I interviewed Terence Kenney. Terence has lived his life in Harpswell, Maine, and is the third of what I hope will be regular interviewees from my home state. This is the first segment talking with someone who works on the water. Terence recounts a rough scalloping trip to Gouldsboro, up the coast from Harpswell by about 150 miles if you're driving. It's theoretically less if you're traveling by boat, but remember, there are 4,600 islands off the coast of Maine. If you're captaining a 40-foot boat, in a big storm, in the dark, that number can be pretty daunting. Matinicus Island, so you know, is about 22 miles offshore. Terence also mentions Southwest Harbor, or 'sowwest' harbor, as he says. That's on Mt. Desert Island. Mt. Desert is home to Acadia National Park and the tourist haven, Bar Harbor. Also, the scallop drag Terence was using weighs about 1,000 pounds. When you fill it with rocks and run it through the bow cleat, as he describes, it can serve as an anchor since it's so heavy. Steaming is when you're going to your fishing grounds but not fishing. It's like the commute.  I feel like weather can be a lot more daunting when you're outside, and even more so on the water. The storm that Terence recalled happened several years after the No Name Storm of 1991, also a Halloween event. That storm, which came to be known as the Perfect Storm and was written about and made into a Hollywood movie, claimed 13 lives, including six on the Andrea Gail, a fishing vessel lost off the coast of Nova Scotia. Most of the time, Terence told me, scalloping is peaceful. Well offshore, you can go all day without seeing another boat, he said.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

It's time for another Mini-Awe-Polis, a collection of observations, like hay in my jacket pockets.  Lately, after more than two dozen successfully recorded moments for Awe, Nice! I have been having some short and stilted conversations with people who work outside, who spend their lives outside. These are folks who have done incredible feats, witnessed cool weather events, been part of amazing wildlife encounters.  Yet, they struggle to identify and articulate a specific moment of wonder. I get it. As a young adult, I remember thinking Maine was pretty ho-hum. Nice ocean. Nice hills. But bugs and rain. Then I returned as a 40-year-old. I went with a visitor on The Cliff Walk, behind the recycling center, between the Harpswell peninsulas. I noticed the tiny plants and small animals that thrive under the conifers. I watched tide come up Strawberry Creek as if it were marching (Strawberry Creek is a misnomer, more an inlet than a creek, about as wide as I am tall, full of eel grass and opening up to salt marsh and mudflats and the Atlantic Ocean). I drove towards Land's End, a gift shop at the tip of Bailey Island, where I saw a moose swimming. A big bull moose swimming in Casco Bay is a pretty nifty thing to see. But I think it took leaving, then coming back, to say, Wow.  Sometimes, I'm finding, the wonder for people who work outside every day, in the elements, gets lessened by seeing a lot (even during the course of a day) and gets tamped down by the need to get things done. Moments of awe might be acknowledged by a smile or a nod or a pause but there're nothing to write home about. Oohing and ahhing is something that tourists do. Celebrating them, sharing them is something instagrammers and weekend warriors do.  It's not that they don't see stuff.  From my informal surveying over the years, I'd say people who work outside, who work in challenging environments, are very attentive to detail. Last week, we brought cows down from the mountain and we were paying attention to the weather, how cows were moving (individually as well as as a group), whether the calves were tiring, how the dogs and horses were working, how the terrain was affecting our travel, where and when we could anticipate things shifting. Just a few details of many to consider every moment of every hour. The scene changes and we move on. I watched a bear, maybe 20 feet from dozens of cows, simply stop as he was walking along a downed tree and watch us.  Me, personally, I like to think I'm pretty observant. As a kid, my parents, especially my mom, instilled a practice of curiosity and observation. Not just 'what bird was that?' for instance, but 'what is it doing?' Summer field work during my college years taught me to distinguish between a worried, you're too close to my nest chirp and a less stressed, investigative chirp. We were studying the mating patterns of Indigo Buntings, which seem to be monogamous, but, lo and behind, were not. Like a lot of birds, indigo bunting males have a specific song that birders can identify. But with our work, we could identify individual males by their particular variation of that song. Now, when I hear spotted towhees (which were the inspiration for Jody Chapel's Awe, Nice! logo), I do hear the sort of 'drink your tea.' But other times, it's 'drink your' or 'drink, drink your tea.' Some other behaviors I've learned over time: When birds pop up on a branch and wipe their beaks, it's usually because they have been foraging. Birds like to poop before they take off flying again.  Field work taught me to think about animals, not just at that moment, but what might have occurred before I was watching them and what might happen next.  Still, like my interviewees, I tend to get used to what I see, hear, and smell. I can get weary in my observations. I think people who work outside often consider moments of wonder with kind of mental shoulder shrug. Wonder abounds. We're lucky and grateful to be out here. But also, it's just another day.   Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Awe, Nice! also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button here.  Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, we return to a conversation I had with Matt Barnes. Matt lives here in southwest Colorado. He's been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. In fact, this moment that we recorded is from a time several years ago when he was up in the mountains, working with cattle.  Between a close encounter with a grizzly bear (which we hear about a few segments ago) and this one, I can say, "Matt, I'm glad you're still here, man!" Matt told me he got Lichtenberg figures on his thigh from the lightning strike – these are weird, feathering or fern-like marks formed by the transmission of electricity along the superficial blood vessels in the skin. They went away eventually, he said.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Vicki Taussig. Vicki lives in Kremmling, Colorado. She narrated A Brutal, Beautiful Life, which is a short documentary directed by Beau Gaughran. I served as writer and a producer. We just learned it will be part of the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour next year, which is pretty exciting.  Vicki ranches with her daughter, Caitlyn, who was my first interviewee for Awe Nice.  Here, Vicki shares a moment with her draft horse team of Push and Pull, two big beautiful Percherons. The pair spent their whole lives together and helped the Taussigs haul hay out to their livestock every day in the winter, when the cattle were on various pastures within a few miles from the house. Temps regularly get down to 30 below in the winter and Vicki laughed in recollecting that the mares were more reliable than their tractor. Vicki is not quite five feet tall, so imagine those gentle giants lowering their heads as she harnessed them each morning. She said Push was the smaller of the two and the brains of the team. When they were ready to give that first effort, to get the sled going, Push would make all the motions of going but she'd wait until Pull, bigger and stronger, would take that first step.  It's moments like these that give me such joy for this project, even if it means grabbing a Kleenex from time to time. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page. I want to thank the folks who have rated and reviewed Awe, Nice! on podcast platforms. It's great that the word is getting out about it. Thanks so much! Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, that's a-w-e-n-i-c-e, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I interviewed Matt Barnes. Like me, Matt lives here in southwestern Colorado. He's been a rangeland scientist for years and has also worked as a ranch manager. His focus, as he mentions briefly and as has been shaped by his observations and experiences, has been hewn to how can we all get along on this planet. Specifically, how can us humans, especially those working the land, coexist with wildlife and choose practices that benefit not just us as well as domestic animals, but the land and wildlife? For this segment, Matt describes a dicey moment when he was working in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, not far from British Columbia, Canada.  Matt shared a few more recollections, not grizzly encounters but still great and which we'll feature in upcoming segments. So stay tuned! Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week is a bit of a one-off as I'm sharing a few minutes with Forrest Van Tuyl again. Forrest wrote the song Rock Jack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In this segment, he talks about that song and the old-time and time-tested ranch structure that inspired it.  Here is an excerpt of lyrics from the song: Fall settles in and the good work begins The gather the harvest the gleaning The day is shortening but the moon illumines the empty allotment you're leaving Rimrock and red ponderosas live til you learn what you're 'sposed to Eat while there's grass and trust your rock jacks and soon winter will be back.  I had to laugh because both Forrest and I struggled to find online images of rock jacks. He texted that it might just be the last ungoogleable thing out there. Well, we found some. Check 'em out.  Our chat about rock jacks got me thinking about stone walls, which you find in the Maine woods fairly regularly. They, too, are the work of farmers and/or ranchers. All told there are hundreds of thousands of miles of stone walls in the U.S. Nearly all of them are in New England and were created between 1775 and 1825 when colonists deforested the country, moved the rocks to the edges of soon-to-be fields. Sometimes they were built with craftmanship, sometimes they were just rows of piled rocks. By the mid 1800's, many farms were abandoned and the forests came back. To see them, then, is to bear witness the intersection of human history and natural history.  AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Bob Bragg, of Cortez, Colorado. Bob grew up in the Midwest, went into the Army, went to college, rodeo'd, riding saddle broncs and backback. Ultimately, he settled in southwestern Colorado where he's been teaching in ag-related fields for decades. The man is 80 and as spry as a 40-year old.  Here, he shares an encounter from back a few decades ago that I think helped confirm for him a lifelong respect and appreciation for animal behavior and intelligence. Bob describes a day moving cows up Yellow Jacket Canyon. Now that canyon, like a lot of canyons in this high desert area, has steep, steep sides. To scramble up them can mean holding onto a branch of scrub oak for dear life. Following game trails is often your best bet, but even then it can be challenging. The cows that Bob and students were moving were indeed domestic, but they encountered feral cows. Feral cows are cows turned loose and, since no one has handled them in perhaps years, they are on their own, surviving in big country, adapting to their circumstances.  I can just imagine those wild cows saying 'hey, how ya doing' and then hasta la vista, nice seeing you, to their fellow bovines. Bob has a decades-long show called Farm News and Views that plays weekly on KSJD here in Cortez.  I really enjoyed hearing how that scene unfolded and appreciated Ben's take-away. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   If you'd like to donate, find a link here and thank you.   Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe, Nice! where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. We're on the radio and we're also on podcast platforms. My name is Maddy Butcher. I live in southwestern Colorado and I've been a journalist for 40 years.  Thus far, we've focused entirely on interviews with people working on the land, but soon we'll have segments from folks who work on the water. Fresh water, salt water.  I grew up on the coast of Maine and today I wanted to share another mini-moment of awe. Yes, it's time for Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders collected in my noggin. Like hay in my jacket pockets.  A few segments ago, I talked about experiences around tide. This week, I wanted to share another ocean-related thought. Fog. Fog fosters uncertainty.  It's funny, even the etymology of fog is foggy. Danish, Old Norse, Old English, Dutch, and German languages all have somewhat similar words which, back in the 16th century meant things like spray, or damp, moist, or drifting snow storm. Fog appears when water vapor, that's water in gas form, condenses. Fog is tiny water droplets hanging in the air. Fog often happens when there is a difference between the water temperature and the air temperature - like a cold morning on warmer water, or vice versa.  Fog hardly ever happens if there's wind. So, if you're sailing, for instance, and it's foggy, forget about it. Some describe fog as being in the dark and that's true. But, you know, when you're walking in the dark you generally feel the ground beneath you. It's a surface you can rely on. But if you're on a boat and in the fog, you might be traveling through water with depths of 200 feet, 20 feet, or two feet. You might be heading towards the shore or away from it. Hard to say. Fog can completely derail your plans for getting out on the water. Even if you know the area well, even if you have a depth finder, fog will make things difficult, if not impossible. Unless you're clamming. It's good to be a clammer when there's fog, you just need the tide to come at a decent time of day. There are buoys and lighthouses and other marine markers to help if you can see. If you can't see, there are bells as well as fog horns which mostly sound beautiful, low and regular, like a cow calling for her calf but without any urgency. Horns and bells might drive some people nuts. Certainly fog has that tendency. You can't rely on fog lifting at any time. It just will when it does.  I remember painting houses on Harpswell Neck when I was a teenager. We just couldn't paint if it was foggy (which it often was). You might as well be painting in the rain. When I was working construction on the coast (but not painting) the fog would be so thick you'd need a towel to regularly wipe the moisture off your face.   I worked at Cook's Lobster House out on Bailey Island in my 40's. It was, of course, right on the water. I should say almost everything on Bailey Island is right on the water. It's an island which connects to Orr's Island (which connects to Great Island and the mainland) by a cribstone bridge. A cribstone bridge is built from massive blocks of granite and water flows through them. Nothing but gravity holds it together. Of course, it's paved on top but that doesn't really count. It's thought to be the only one of its kind in the world.  Anyway, lots and lots of tourists would come to Cook's to sit in the booths or outside at tables, eat lobster, and look out the three sides of massive picture windows where they could see lobster boats, fishing boats, sail boats, motor boats coming and going. Except when it was foggy. Then you couldn't see past the parking lot.  When will this fog go away? Your guess is as good as mine. Can I get you another rum and Coke?   The poet Colin Sargent wrote: One year the fog stayed all summer As if it were a lodger Picking his teeth after dinner, Refusing to retire To his room upstairs   Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. You can find a donate button here.   Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I interviewed Forrest Van Tuyl. Sound familiar? Forrest wrote Rockjack and he sent the instrumental version to me for the intro and outro. In a forthcoming segment, he's going to talk about that song and the ranch structure that inspired it. For this segment, he shared a moment when he was working in way eastern Oregon, not far from the Idaho border. Sounds like amazing country and here he is to tell us about a long, keen observation.  Forrest is married to Margo Cilker, who is a musician and also someone who sings about time outside. They have performed all around the country, in Europe, Scandanavia, and at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I hope you check 'em out. Forrest Margo AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   My name is Maddy Butcher, I developed Awe Nice to highlight moments of wonder outdoors. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

My name is Maddy Butcher. I live in southwestern Colorado and I've worked as a journalist for several decades.  I like to spend time outside and, thankfully, I have spent many years working outside, not just playing outside. I think it's important to distinguish between the two. In my experience, people's perspectives, experiences, and philosophies towards the outdoors is different depending on if they are building a life where they're working, if they become an important part of their outdoor world, or if they're just passing through.  So far, we've focused entirely on interviews with people working on the land, but that's not by decree. As I've mentioned, I grew up in Maine and I'm looking ahead to interviews with people who work on the water. Occasionally with this project, I share a few mini-moments of awe. My nickname for these segments – cringeworthy, I'm sure – is Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets.  This week, I wanted to share some water-related thoughts, maybe to kind of to prep you all for those interviews with fishermen and lobstermen. Okay, maybe it's just an excuse to share them.  The biggest factor in being on the water where I grew up on Middle Bay, anyway, was tide. I'm guessing you know what tide is. But if you don't, tides are the rhythmic movements of the world's water, based on the pull of the moon. In Harpswell, the difference between high and low tide is nearly 10 feet. In Miami, closer to the equator, it's less than three. Heading up the Maine coast to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Bay of Fundy, the difference between high and low tide is 53 feet. Billions of gallons of water flowing in and out, twice a day, every day. Not exactly, twice a day. The movement of the tide is more like once every 12 and half hours. So high tide would be at three in the afternoon on Monday and more like six o'clock by Friday. Tide, at least for us on the mud flats of Middle Bay, meant the difference between heading out to swim or boat or go clamming or fishing or not.  It meant that a moored boat would likely be aground or nearly so at low tide, but floating freely at high tide. It meant the difference between swimming in water the height of a kiddie pool or the deep end. Living on the mud flats isn't all bad though because at low tide on sunny days, the mud soaks up the sun and heats up the incoming water. By August, that means it's actually swimmable. Maybe water temps in the 60s. In certain areas and at certain times, you do not want to mess with the tide. The flow in tight spaces of the shore creates current that you can't swim against and often can't boat against. Maine's coast is full of ins and outs and wild meanderings. A straight line from the New Hampshire border to the Canadian border is just 228 miles as the crow flies. But the in and outs and peninsulas and islands make it nearly 3,500 miles. 3,500 miles! If you're on the water, you really need to know where you are, where the tide might take you, or how it might make things more challenging. And oh boy if you want to start combining tide with fog. In the coldest of winters, the ice would freeze clear across Middle Bay, a mile wide in spots. But inevitably, tide would break up the ice in chunks, sometimes as big as a yard or as small as a cooler. It was a thing to go iceberg hopping, a really stupid thing that we did as kids. A boy I knew was iceberg hopping. The tide was going out and took him way down the bay. Like miles away from home. The Coast Guard had to fetch him. I want to say something more about mud flats, since they get so disparaged. I mean, they are not picturesque, like rocky coastlines or sandy beaches. If you're barefoot or are digging into the mud, that mud will stay with you. It's so finely grained that it can be hard to wash off. Mud flats have a particularly wonderful but certainly distinctive smell. Earthy, salty, of the seaweed and eel grass and clams and hermit crabs. As a girl, I was riding a bus to summer camp up the coast. There was a girl from New York City who said, 'pew, what's that smell? It smells like a sewer! Welcome to the Maine coast, honey.  AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. at awenice.com. Oh, and AweNice also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button here.  Music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl,. Find more of his terrific music from a link here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Rae Nickerson. Rae lives is persuing a PhD at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, but travels widely in the west. She studies large carnivores and specifically works on conflict reduction between wolves, grizzlies, and livestock.  Rae has had several encounters with bears, some scary, some hilarious, like when a bear was trying to get apples out of the back of her truck while she was trying to sleep in the cab. But she picked another kind of encounter to share with us. Aside from all her work in the field and with producers, she also finds time to help the Western Landowners Alliance with conflict reduction outreach. Apologies in advance for the audio quality. Sometimes when recording people for these segments, we don't get the most stellar reception. Doing the best we can.  AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl, who knows a bit about wonders at work. Find more of his terrific music here.   My name is Maddy Butcher, I'm a journalist and day worker here in the Four Corners area. I developed Awe Nice in hopes of brightening your day. If you'd like to donate, head here and thank you.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Welcome to Awe Nice, that's a-w-e-n-i-c-e, where we highlight moments of wonder while working outdoors. This week, I interviewed Beau Gaughran of Berwick, Maine. Beau directed A Brutal, Beautiful Life, a short documentary about ranching for which I served as writer and producer. It's done well at film festivals and is now online.  Almost all of Beau's work is outside, often in the backcountry. I've learned from him that you need athleticism as well as creative talent to excel at this kind of filmmaking.  The moment that Beau chose to share doesn't unfold outdoors, but it sure is worth hearing.  One of the reasons I love working with Beau is because of how he sees, how he takes in his surroundings. Such a talent.   Hearing, of course, is huge. Because of his decades-long enthusiasm for water sports and because of particularly angular ear canals, Beau's had lots of ear infections and compromised hearing. He's right not to take it for granted, eh? Where would Awe, Nice! Be without it?  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. You can find a link to his music and a donate button on our about page.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Kim Kerns. Kim is a fourth generation rancher in eastern Oregon. The country is remote. No Man's Land. Services are distant, which is why her family and their neighbors banded together to organize a rural fire fighting entity, which you'll hear about. I met Kim several months ago and we talked about dogs, mostly. Kim and her family have about a thousand sheep and hundreds of cows. They have eight guardian dogs, several stock dogs – those are mostly kelpies and border collies, and she also has Burt, an 18-pound Jagd terrier, who keeps down the pack rat population and takes on all comers, Kim told me.  Predators are a constant source of concern. Mountain lions, wolves, coyotes. She relies on her incredible guardian dogs to keep her animals alive, especially during calving and lambing, in the spring, but really year-round.   It's a big operation and she tackles it with her parents, her husband and two employees. Kim said she met a big family from Seattle up on Big Lookout Mountain during the 2017 eclipse. They were planning to just watch the eclipse in a parking lot or something, but they ran into some NASA guys who said, "Heck, no. You've come all this way. You're going to get up to this mountain!" And they did.  Afterwards, that family tracked down Kim's dad online and got a message to him that visiting with Kim and her friend, Maddie Moore, was a highlight of their trip.  Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Find a link to his terrific music here.  If you'd like to donate, find the link on our About page and thank you. My name is Maddy Butcher, I developed Awe, Nice! to highlight moments of wonder outdoors. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Sisto Hernandez. Sisto lives in Arizona and I met him at a training for range riders. Range riding is a successful strategy for deterring wolves from predating on cattle and Sisto was teaching, sharing his insights from work with the reintroduced Mexican wolves.  A few notes on some things Sisto mentions: - Traps aren't metal contraptions, they're fenced off areas of between five to twenty acres, built for holding cattle.  - Tapaderos are leather fittings, sometimes rawhide, over stirrups that keep anything from getting wedged in your stirrup. That's a scenario which can be pretty dangerous for you and your horse.  - The Mogollon Rim forms the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau and features big sandstone and limestone cliffs. As you might imagine, it is a significant natural boundary for flora and fauna.  - The Rodeo-Chediski Fire burned nearly a half million acres in 2002. At the time, it was the biggest fire in Arizona history.  That country that I've seen on or abutting the Grasshopper Livestock Association acreage (which itself covers nearly 200 square miles) is everything he describes. Beautiful and sometimes treacherous. Hopefully you can check it out. At least by taking a drive down Highway 77, which runs through reservations, National Forest, and Salt River Canyon.  I did a little research and learned that aside from his work on the land, Sisto was an accomplished saddle bronc rider, competing for years at the national level. Brain and brawn. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl.  If you'd like to donate, find the link here and thank you.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Sara Lowe. Sara lives in central Wyoming where she's a livestock investigator and a detective for Fremont County. Fremont is about 9,200 square miles, about the size of Vermont and has about 40,000 residents.  At a mental health forum last year, I got to hear Sara and a few other officers talk about the on-the-job stresses that bleed into their off hours. Sara's moment of awe didn't happen during her work, but because of her work. Because of her work, she's spent years cultivating a way to generate her own sense of peace and calm. Heck, it was Sara who taught me about box breathing. She also does horse clinics.   Sara said that just last week, a chaplain was brought in, to help the officers with the steady stream of tragedy and violence that has unfolded lately. This fall, Sara is headed to the University of Wyoming, to work on her master's in the mental health field. She wants to help the officers and ranchers who, in her observation, desperately need support. Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Find a link to his terrific music here.  If you'd like to donate, go here and thanks! Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Summer Peterson. Summer lives in Colorado now, but up to recently she's been in central Utah as a farmer, a horse vet, and a competitive rider.  By competitive, I mean, really accomplished. She was for years a semi-professional three-day eventer. Three-day eventing is dressage, cross country, and showjumping. The sport was originally conceived as a test for cavalry horses and riders, to gauge bravery, endurance, discipline. Summer calls it the triathlon for horses and riders.  I felt so fortunate to be able to record this moment.  The pandemic hadn't figured into the Awe, Nice! scheme of things until now. I know the outdoors was a great solace to many during this time, even for those of us who are (were) outdoors and away from other people as a matter of course. There are more stories out there, for sure.   Awe, Nice! welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl. Find a link to his terrific music here.   My name is Maddy Butcher, I developed Awe, Nice! to bring a bit more attention to those non-verbal connections that we have and that Summer generously brought to light with this segment. If you'd like to donate, find the link here and thank you.   Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

  We all are capable of experiencing moments of wonder. They are not reserved solely for creative or religious people. Moments of awe cross the political spectrum. They cross the livelihood spectrum. Awe is a positive force that can be felt by everyone.  Nonetheless, I carry a fair amount of skepticism around with me. It's a journalistic thing. Like. I tend to think moments of awe actually happen with ho-hum regularity. It's since we're humans – distracted, in our heads, with dulled-down senses, that we miss them. When we do witness awesome moments, it's because that moment occurred just when we happen to be particularly present and tuned in to our surroundings.  I mean, how often to you find seaglass or a shard of old Indian pottery when you are not intentionally looking for it? How do you hear the 'drink your tea, tea, tea of a towhee (the bird in our logo) if you're not listening? Most Awe, Nice! interviewees tell me they experience moments of awe all the time. Yes, cool things are happening all the time, but these folks, these interviewees see them because they're kinda special in a 21st century way. They're quiet and connected, with their senses that is.  Occasionally with this project, I share a few mini-moments of awe. My nickname for these segments - cringe away!   – is Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets.  Since we working our way into the dog days of summer, I wanted to give canines some attention. While dogs sure can wreck nature sightings – because they tend to investigate eagerly and like to eat or chase things that you might want to see – they are also good at helping you discover things you might have otherwise overlooked. So I try to pay attention to them. When we're working cows, for instance, they alert me to things I should be paying attention to all the time. Cows can hide. I know this may sound silly, but in big country, they can tuck in under scrub oak and you can ride right past them. Of course, this doesn't happen if your dogs are with you.  In the fall, we bring cows off of the National Forest and down to winter pastures. It's a week of long days and, after a summer of moderate work, the dogs are primed and I feel like they take this week seriously. One day, in the middle of the day, I watched my dogs Monty and Tina over several hours as they helped move cows up a gully and across a big meadow, bordered by scrub oak and Ponderosa pines. I knew they were thirsty, but they are so dedicated to the task that they won't leave the cows. So I developed a command, 'get some water' so that they can essentially give themselves permission to drink. On this day, I saw a drainage and told them to get some water. They heard me but still took turns. Tina went for water. Monty stayed with the cows. When Tina came back, Monty went for water. On the next day, we had more interaction with other help, folks with their dogs and horses. We got the cows to their stopping point that evening, a high desert grassy area with a pond, and settled them in. The dogs knew we were done for the day. I watched as almost all of them seemed to let down. Most of them peeed and pooped. Some starting playing. They had punched their time card and were headed for the tailgate party.  My mom told me many times: a productive life is a happy life. Sure, maybe she was telling me to work hard, but she also felt this way – passionately - when it came to dogs. I do think that my dogs are happiest when they are working. But what do I know?

 I developed AweNice with the notion that we all are capable of experiencing moments of wonder. They are not reserved solely for creative or religious people. Moments of awe cross the political spectrum. They cross the livelihood spectrum. Awe is a positive force that can be felt by everyone. This project specifically seeks out interviews with those who work outside and work with animals, people I feel aren't heard from often and whose daily life is relatively quiet and disconnected. I should qualify that: disconnected in the mainstream, digital sense. I'm finding, though, that they are deeply connected in other ways, to other things. So, anyway, I want to share a few mini-moments of awe that I've experienced. Get ready to cringe all you listeners! This is the first segment of Mini-Awe-Polis. Mini Awe Polis is a bundle of small wonders that have collected in my noggin. Kind of like the hay in my jacket pockets.   There is a big, solitary, feral cat that comes around at night, especially in winter. I've named him Dana because I'm not sure if he's male or female, but I'll call him a him. Dana is fat and smart and friendly, which I think is a pretty unusual combination for a feral cat. Because he is not stupid, Dana knows he can handle one dog, but probably not more than one. My dogs are not warm to cats, so, not surprisingly I rarely see Dana during the day. But at last call (sometime between 8 and 11 at night when I check the horses and take a little walk with the dogs), I can sometimes spot him. More than once, he's crouched in the scrub, a hundred feet from the house, and watched as the dogs, clueless, go streaking by. I think Dana has us pretty well figured out. It's fun to consider how he considers us.  And speaking of cats. I was helping gather calves on New Year's Day last year. I had two dogs with me and was riding my grey horse, Ray. The country was rough, full of piñon, juniper, and scrub oak. I was sussing out a small, narrow canyon alone. When I say sussing out, I mean that I suspected the calves were down in the canyon, grazing their way east, and I was zigging and zagging, trying to find a way down to them. But the sides were steep, mostly unpassable, and I was having to back up and turn around a lot. My dog, Tina, jogged across this giant boulder jutting out over the gully and I took a picture to capture how frustrating the going was.  We paused and listened for animals moving. Then I look across and watched as an adult mountain lion strode up the other side of the canyon, some hundred feet away. She walked with purpose but not urgently. She was large and lanky and graceful, and powerful – I remember her tail, which seemed as long as her body. I soaked it in, not taking my eyes off her, not moving or reaching for my phone. Then I saw another one, a juvenile, following her at a distance. I've lived in cat country for more than a decade and I know well the feeling - in your bones and in your mind - that you are being seen by them. But I'd not laid eyes on one until now. Stay safe, Dana.   AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here. AweNice also welcomes your support. You can find a donate button on our about page.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

This week, I interviewed Andrew Clements, of Cortez, Colorado. Drew works for the state, but the program also does work for the US Forest Service in Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. Here, he shares an encounter with a grizzly bear in the Yellowstone National Park, while he was part of a team collecting forest health data near the confluence of the Thorofare and Yellowstone Rivers.  Drew told me that a fair amount of logistical work goes into planning for his field season. He tends to hit locations of lower elevation early, then chase the snow up to higher plots before being pushed down lower, again, by the snow, in the fall. Drew figures during any given year, he hikes four to seven hundred miles and is hoping to keep on keeping on until his knees give out.

Scotty Calhoun is a fourth generation horticulturalist, raised in Rochester, New York, now living in Cortez, Colorado. He talked with me about the knowledge he's gained from his forefathers. His great grandfather came over from Holland with seeds in his pockets. That man, then his son (Scott's grandfather), and Scott's father and, of course, Scott himself, all worked the farm in upstate New York. It's a business that still exists today, run by Scotty's uncle and cousin. Scotty continued his horticultural journey with work at places like the Chicago Botanic Garden. This work is a constant calculus of considering the weather, the seasons, the soil, the condition of the plants, the state of the equipment, and who is showing for work on any given day. Scotty shares some thoughtful thoughts on, of all things, burlap. Burlap is essential and low tech. And when it decomposes, is it gone? Is all the burlap used by his family really gone? Or does it live on in the soil and in the plants themselves?

 I interviewed Ben Longwell of Pendleton, Oregon. Ben grew up in Colorado, but has cowboyed all around the western US. For many years, he worked in New Zealand, where his wife, Natalie, was born and raised.  Here, Ben shares a moment way up in the Big Horn mountains of northern Wyoming and southern Montana. The Big Horns are remote and wondrous, but also daunting, with their own weather and terrain. This particular moment unfolds along the Molly Crospey livestock trail, just east of Shell, Wyoming, at around 7,500 feet elevation. It's pretty unpopulated thereabouts. In Big Horn County, which is twice as big as the state of Delaware, there are fewer than four people per square mile. I really enjoyed hearing how that scene unfolded and appreciated Ben's take-away. What a beautiful lesson to fold into your life.   Also, you are one for understatement, my friend. I've herded horses horseback before, and, it can sure get, as you say, 'interesting.' We'll put a link to Ben's horse work on our website. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us at awenice.com. Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl, who knows a bit about wonders at work. Find more of his terrific music here.  My name is Maddy Butcher, I developed Awe Nice in hopes of brightening your day. If you'd like to donate, check out this page. And thank you.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Aidan Gaughran lives right here in Montezuma County, but for five years he worked in Panama. First, he was in the Peace Corps, then he returned to manage an eco-lodge. As a PCV, Aidan worked in the community environmental conservation sector on the Azuero Penisula and helped bring sustainable cook stoves to his community. He also helped develop a fruit orchard.  While his moment of awe stemmed from a recreational outing, he told me that similar events have unfolded closer to where he worked, near Las Minas, and during work projects.  Yes, we have rattlesnakes and wildfire in Colorado. But I think Panama has us beat in terms of ways to get hurt and die when out in remote areas - scores of venomous snakes, scorpions, spiders. The combination of heavy rains and varied terrain can sure be treacherous. Indeed, another Peace Corps volunteer from Colorado was found dead in a creek, during Aidan's time there. They think he slipped and hit his head while trying to cross. Community members have died from snake bites.  Aidan's juxtaposition of time - the slow, deliberate progress of the vine snake, the rising water, and finally their urgent move to get out of harm's way - makes this segment particularly fascinating.  AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.   Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl, who knows a bit about wonders at work.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.      

This week, I interviewed Mike Ewing. While Mike doesn't work outside all the time, he's committed thousands of hours to service work on the Appalachian Trail, that's the legendary 2200-mile route that runs through 14 states, from Georgia and Maine. About 300 of those trail miles are in Maine.  I'm from Maine and, as a kid, I spent lots of time camping and hiking. The 8-, 10-, 12-year old me thought those were vacations, but they were actually us doing service work on sections of the Appalachian Trail.  For listeners who have mostly hiked in the western states, it'll be helpful to describe the stark contrast between here and there. Maine gets a lot of rain. Maine is heavily forested. Hiking can be daunting. Often you can't see where you've been or where you're going. It's easy to get lost. Some trails are only for the fit and agile, with house-size boulders and seemingly endless verticality. Particularly craggy sections are called notches. They aren't gaps or passes – which are other ways to describe low points between mountains. Notches are more gnarly and treacherous. My son, Beau, believes they have their own kind of weather. He's hiked Maine's Mahoosuc Notch, reputed to be the Appalachian Trail's most difficult mile, and said, "it's technical and easy to get injured there. And if you do get hurt, it's hard to get out." Mike, who went to Colorado State University and worked for the forest service in northern Colorado after graduating, maintains a stretch that includes Sawyer Notch and Hall Mountain.  Check out this interactive AT map. We'll share an interactive map of the AT in the show notes. AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl, who knows a bit about wonders at work. Find his music here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.

Nina Fuller lives in my native state of Maine where she raises a small flock of sheep on her farm in Hollis. I grew up in Harpswell which is about 60 miles up the coast. In fact, she mentions Harpswell in this segment. Nina also is an accomplished photographer. Check out her brilliant work here. Nina's is a true explorer and lifeling learner. Who gets into sheep farming in her 60's? Nina does. Oh, and, she also has a master's degree in counseling pschology.  Farms and ranches vary in scale. My friend, Sarah, visited a ranch in South America last year which managed 20,000 sheep. Nina has about 40, along with horses, on her 35 acres.  Each year, she swears she's going to scale down, but it can be hard to part with ewes when you know them well, name them, and develop histories with.  AweNice welcomes interviewees. If you have a moment you experienced while working outside and would like to share it, contact us here.  Our music is by my friend, Forrest Van Tuyl, who knows a bit about wonders at work. Last name "t u y l" Find more of his terrific music here.  Keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Until next time.