March 4 was the first annual Rural Voices Day, highlighting the work of rural public radio stations around the country.
To celebrate the new annual event, Aspen Public Radio hosted a special live broadcast of All Things Considered from the Pitkin County Library in Aspen.
Rock Bottom Ranch director John Middleton joined the broadcast for an interview with host Sage Smiley to discuss how the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies is adjusting to the dry winter season.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Sage Smiley: I'm so excited to be speaking with you on this beautiful day. Unfortunately, though, this beautiful day is a bit of a hallmark of the weird winter we're having.
Rock Bottom Ranch does a lot of different programming — livestock, with vegetables, with farm education. How does a winter like this one impact the way that you're thinking about programming, or what you're able to provide to the community?
John Middleton: Yeah, it's been very concerning as we're watching the snowpack. I think, snow water equivalent I was looking at — was it less than 25% of where we should be at?
Obviously, the runoff is the main driver for all of the water in the whole valley, and well beyond into Los Angeles. But for us, we have to be really concerned about the kind of water flow that we're going to get, especially when it comes to irrigating pastures.
We are flood irrigators, which is completely dependent on river flows. Last year, I think, was the eighth driest year on record, and we had trouble. So now, we're looking at even less snowpack this year, and sometimes you have to make some really difficult contingency plans, which could even include culling animals.
If we can't get pastures to grow, we may have to consider thinning the herd, buying in hay, which can get very expensive. Oftentimes, it could be coming in from states away. So we are planning for that. Particularly the livestock, though, can be very, very concerning.
Smiley: Definitely. So when you're thinking about that sort of operations that are contingent on the environment, how do you think about sustainability in terms of taking care of the land and also balancing the programming that the community comes to expect from Rock Bottom Ranch?
Middleton: Yeah, I think you know, first and foremost, the ranch is a nature preserve. Actually, the bulk of it is a nature preserve. So we're only farming on about 40 acres, and that's where we do all of our ag programming.
A drought isn't going to affect the programming that we're doing. We're still going to have our summer day camps and field programs that the educators go on. We are lucky that we have a high water table. We're blessed in that respect, which is unique for Colorado. So things like vegetables, I'm not as worried about our ability to irrigate and continue to produce.
The main effect is really going to be beyond pastures, if we got into that, and how that might affect, mostly our farmer training program, and the depth of teaching we can provide to our farm apprentices. Luckily, our watering chickens, things like that, aren't dependent on river flows directly, because we have well water for that. So things like public egg collection would still be happening. The main issue for us is really the carrying capacity of how many animals we would be able to stock if we reach a true crisis.
Smiley: So speaking of animals, you mentioned when we were speaking earlier that you're bringing the pork program back, which went away for a little while. How does a decision like that get made? How do you decide to take an animal — a species — away and then bring it back? How did those decisions happen?
Middleton: Yeah, it was. I don't know exactly why they disappeared. I think it had to do with the ability to kind of rotate. There were maybe some parasite issues. So it went away for about seven years, and a lot of it has just been, honestly, public clamoring — people constantly asking, “Where are the pigs? Are there still pigs? I remember there being pigs here.” I like pigs. I'd like to have them back. They're just fun animals to raise.
But I think it's also within our former training program. The more animals and livestock and exposure we can provide and teach around, the more well-rounded the training will be for our apprentices. If they're learning to work with sheep, with cattle, with pigs, with turkeys and chickens, that's a pretty well-rounded experience. So a big part of it is a robust program.
Smiley: So, in addition to the programs housed at Rock Bottom Ranch, you also do a lot of work with other local producers in the valley. How do those things develop? How do you support local producers?
Middleton: Yeah, well, I think about our farmer training program. I always say one of the most important things is that we have almost 100 crops that we grow — or 50 crops, 100 varieties — all these animals, but the most important thing — valuable thing — that we can produce as farmers is through our farmer training program.
So I always like to give a shout out to those who have continued on in agriculture and right in our valley: Marigold Livestock Company, Two Roots Farm, and then this year, Raw Mountain Farm. Ariel, our former vegetable production manager, they are all farmers who have gone on to start their own operations, and I would never want to take credit as ACES that we created them. Right? These are strong, powerful women who are dedicated to the craft of farming. But I think having an opportunity for them to get a start at the ranch and move on, it's also important. To shout out Pitkin County, they also all farm on open space, given some of the issues of land access.
So I think that's an important thing we do. But then, working with our farmers’ union chapter, trying to have our site open, we're talking about hosting farm Olympics this year. It's kind of a fun, social activity — things like that. So we have a pretty tight-knit, small farming community that we try to work with closely.
Smiley: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to tell us a bit about your perspective as the director of Rock Bottom Ranch, the ACES facility. We really appreciate it.
Middleton: Yeah, my pleasure. It's great to be here.
