August 2024

“The newspaper business just isn’t what it used to be,” a good friend called to lament last week. Like me, he’s had that ink in his veins most of his life.

Late summer and early fall signal the monsoon season for West Texas. It is during this time that our area of the state receives the vast majority of its annual rainfall, which is estimated to be anywhere between six to sixteen inches. For those who have been in the area for an extended period of time, there has been a noticeable decline in average annual rainfall years, along with traditional monsoonal weather patterns.

The Biden Harris supporter, I recently read a strange letter to the editor in the Fort Davis Mountain Dispatch, on August 8, 2024. The letter glorified Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s actions on the economy and their impact on the USA.

Joe’s hobby was classic cars and trucks from the 1950s and 1960s. Joe was known for his perseverance and ability to analyze and repair plumbing issues as well as many engine issues on old classic cars and trucks. He was self-taught on solar and battery systems. He built a home in South Double Diamond. He and his wife, Cindy, lived there for 28 years, and the first 15 years were off the electric grid. Joseph

The Texas A&M Forest Service (TFS) began planting new Rocky Mountain Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa var. scopulorum) in the Davis Mountains recently, specifically at the Davis Mountains Preserve (DMP) but also at the McDonald Observatory. TFS planned to plant 350 seedlings with a treewatering device called a cocoon. The cocoon will test the effect of slow watering on the seedlings’ survival rate. The Davis Mountains contain the majority of these endemic stands of pine trees in the state.

Dr. Justin French, the Big Game Specialist at the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI), along with BRI’s Trans-Pecos Grasslands and Riparian Conservation Initiative Coordinator Mike Janis, recently participated in the 30th Biennial Pronghorn Workshop in Redmond, Oregon.

Big Bend National Park’s current Artist in Residence Colleen O’Brien brings her own supplies and does not use any soil, artifacts, rocks, or plants from Big Bend National Park. O’Brien, an earth artist, utilizes natural pigments and clay in her work. Recently, she has been spotted around Big Bend, showcasing her open studios. Her artistic research delves into geomorphology and the passage of time, capturing the earth’s topography through paintings and ceramic works. Employing natural pigments, water, and pastels, she creates surface recordings on canvas and forms clay vessels inspired by erosion pathways and natural water formations.

Send your community events to kara.gerbert@alpineavalanche.com August 15 Alpine Public Library, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Lisette McGuire, formerly of Marathon, was found guilty of the murder of local Alpine resident Aquiles Gonzales in June 2023 in the 394th District Court and received an initial sentence of 39 years. In an article published in the Avalanche back in February of this year, a new punishment trial was set to begin on May 6.

Dear Neil: My wife purchased a lovely orchid recently. It had about an 8-inch white bloom on one of the stems. Over a 6-week period, the bloom shattered, leaving a couple of bare stems about 10 inches tall. With proper care will it rebloom? What would that care be? Should we plant it outdoors to see if it will grow or maybe just buy another one?