http://denver.yourhub.comThe latest blog posts in The Denver Newspaper Agency YourHub.comen-usnews@yourhub.com(c) 2009, YourHub.com5Hive Number of times use of teeming is justified. Innumerable. Exact moment the queen stops laying. Undetectable. Sudden drop in temperatures. Bibb lettuce bolting to asterisks. Beets forced from their soft beds. Message to the hive: There's still time. ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~657716.aspx9/20/2009 3:50:57 PMMeghan Howes I'm beginning to believe there is not just one Cole neighborhood--there's two. What's harder to ascertain is the exact--or approximate--dividing line. My attempts to find this "line" have been thwarted lately by a bum hip, which translates to less walking on a regular basis. (Tomorrow: a visit to...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~649374.aspx8/24/2009 4:32:39 PMMeghan Howes An editorial in yesterday's Denver Post summed up much of what I've been circling for awhile now...when it comes to issues of race and class in today's Cole neighborhood, that is. Read the column here... Playing with Fire . The accompanying cartoon was perfect too...because no one is blame...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~644935.aspx8/10/2009 8:20:19 AMMeghan Howes Moses unloads groceries while talking on his cell phone. I cross the street to my house after leaving Tom's place, laughing at Adam and the neighbor boys who'd been running in the automatic sprinklers in Tom's back yard, their shirts soaked and sticking to their small bodies. Their giggles and s...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~644859.aspx8/9/2009 12:26:13 PMMeghan Howes Summer, often, equals travel. We've went to Montana over Memorial Day and then embarked on a cross-the-Midwest-into-the-northern-territories adventure from which I am currently downloading 720 pictures. Recovering from a 3600 mile journey to Ontario (by way of Ohio) and back makes home all the m...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~642493.aspx8/1/2009 4:11:09 PMMeghan Howes Catchy title, eh? I can't take the credit...I got it from a nice young (6 yo) friend of mine. I heard him walking around trying to find his left shoe and saying "Jesus Crickets!" over and over again. Since I am not this boy's parent, I did not correct him--not that I would have, even if I'd been ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~632320.aspx7/1/2009 2:16:51 PMMeghan Howes And then it came back. If I think about it too much now, the feeling I had in that moment, I get nauseous. The way the walls shiver and buckle and turn, and I'm on them, in them, of them. Sky is ground and ground is sky and my stomach is in my throat. I grabbed S. and said, over and over, oh s...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~628305.aspx6/18/2009 7:16:02 PMMeghan Howes I'm going to veer from my usual Cole neighborhood chatter into some territory that explains why I've been silent these past weeks. Sure, I took a vacation, which is one reason. But mainly my reason for not writing is health-related, and I'm writing about it here for two reasons 1) by way of an e...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~624193.aspx6/7/2009 10:28:39 AMMeghan Howes Yowza. There's so many amazing things happening in Cole, especially in the area of urban farming, permaculture techniques, business development andcommunity gardens,but alas, I am unable to craft a full blog entry right now. Dastardly medical problems have knocked me for a spin (literally) and I ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~616700.aspx5/18/2009 12:48:14 PMMeghan Howes It's an overcast, cool day, and DIA is altering its flight patterns, diverting planes over our house. There's weather around, high winds out west, and a low ceiling, all combining to hamper descents. We've been working in the yard a good deal this past week; wet snow fell most of last Friday and...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~608048.aspx4/25/2009 7:10:26 PMMeghan Howes It's for sale. The house that has fascinated me ever since my first walk around Cole a decade ago-3404 Race Street-is on the market. Built in 1910, the original owner's daughter inherited the house and had lived in it from the age of six until her death, at 94, last June. Elfrieda Riedel. ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~602819.aspx4/13/2009 1:42:02 PMMeghan Howes My neighbor from across the street was over here shoveling my walk and steps around 11:30. Now, at 3:00, you can't see an evidence that he was here at all. the snowfall diminishes in intensity then kicks back up, as it is now. Drifts on my back deck are wonderfully sculptural, but this heavy spri...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~596550.aspx3/26/2009 3:03:09 PMMeghan Howes This past Saturday, a neighbor of ours, Maisy, had her Fifth Annual St. Patrick's Day dinner, complete with corned beef, colcannon, various soda breads, and a dessert called Better Than Robert Redford. I will go on record and say that Better Than Robert Redford was more delicious and addictive...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~591841.aspx3/16/2009 2:02:38 PMMeghan Howes There's an old cheesy Chicago song with the lyric "you don't know what you've got/until it's gone/and I found out/a little too late..." I keep replaying this little ditty when I think about the demise of the Rocky Mountain News . Close to 150 years of journalism in a town that's seen horse dr...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~589805.aspx3/10/2009 5:05:50 PMMeghan Howes New Kitchen Nine months in the making like our own version of a baby born instead from concrete and cherry wood and still no glass in two of the cabinet doors and the red wood-grain-like linoleum floor, reclaimed, scratches too easily, boasts smatterings of black circles formed ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~587208.aspx3/4/2009 2:09:54 PMMeghan Howes Responding to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's recent comment that the U.S. is "a nation of cowards" because we refrain from (wholly avoid?) "frank" conversations about race, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Charles Blow said this: "Talking frankly about race is still hard because it's conf...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~582663.aspx2/21/2009 11:25:43 AMMeghan Howes Ten years is a decent amount of time in one place: you watch the patterns of people, their intersecting lives and stories, read the jumbled and fascinating narrative of a city block minutes from the downtown core. I've come across myriad people in my time here who believe change and progress-cha...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~580381.aspx2/15/2009 12:34:45 PMMeghan Howes I am slightly obsessed with the housing "complex" at the corner of 38th and York. For as long as I can remember it has remained unoccupied, save for a couple of units that appear to have someone living in them. It could be that the developer of this property planned poorly, making the units too s...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~575874.aspx2/3/2009 9:57:42 AMMeghan Howes Yesterday it was in the 50's here in Denver, sunny, the perfect day for a bike ride. Around 1 p.m. I jumped in the saddle and made my way downtown. I had a vague idea of destination(s): maybe I'd head south to the library and peruse photos in the Western History Collection, a stop in to Tattered...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Travel/Blog~569806.aspx1/18/2009 2:12:20 PMMeghan Howes I saw it written on a piece of paper left in a cart at King Soopers. "I can't believe it's the new year all ready!" scrawled amongst other chatty bits. All ready. Was I ready? For 2009? Are we All Ready? I will admit this: for days on end during the holiday break, I did not listen to the ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~566326.aspx1/8/2009 8:36:38 PMMeghan Howes It's cold out there. Last night, before heading to bed (way too late), it was -17 outside. The furnace, which is older than I am, elicited its tell-tale bang! whoooosh as it kicked on every 20 minutes or so.The furnace is 100,000 BTU's; in other words, it's big enough to heat a house three ti...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~558827.aspx12/15/2008 2:27:43 PMMeghan Howes Luck is a funny thing. It can bleed into fate, or good fortune, or it can be one of those things that seem ever more elusive the more you wish for it. I have felt cosmically unlucky at times, as if the world were conspiring against me (me being the center of the universe and all) and railed ag...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~557052.aspx12/9/2008 1:41:13 PMMeghan Howes A friend of mine has sworn off morning-internet time. Instead of stumbling out of bed and immediately firing up the laptop, she is spending her mornings quietly, with tea and cats and the occasionally squash baking or sauce making. For the most part, she has consciously let go of morning rituals...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~552275.aspx11/25/2008 1:40:25 PMMeghan Howes Since I brought it up, I think I'd best fill you all in on the God Story. I don't much like that phrase, as I'm not sure that it correctly sums up all that I experienced and felt on that fateful day, but using the word "God" works, in this case, as a means to introduce a damned-near spiritual oc...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~537588.aspx10/20/2008 3:23:12 PMMeghan Howes Tuesday night in the Cole neighborhood was anything but quiet. I sat on my back deck with a cold one and listened as fireworks went off, people honked their horns, yelped and yahoo-ed. It was like the Fourth of July, but better--less smoke in the air, and my dog was not seeking cover under the be...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~545488.aspx11/7/2008 1:07:04 PMMeghan Howes The nights are getting colder, and this past week, for the first time since May, our completely inefficient furnace kicked on with a bang and a whoosh, filling the house with that distinct furnace smell. Still, we've yet to receive any measurable precipitation, so I'm out watering the parched cl...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~536644.aspx10/17/2008 2:55:01 PMMeghan Howes It's raining, steadily, and Amanda is out on her front porch, arms bent at the elbows and tight to her chest, hopping up and down and making noises that sound like a cross between a cat in heat and a dying siren. I can see her face from where I sit on my own front porch, and it's plastered with ...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~531164.aspx10/7/2008 12:02:45 PMMeghan Howes That's right, 63 G's, split between two cashier's checks. Mr. Carter tellsthe story as Sophie finally settles on the sidewalk, her nose resting on a leaf. "I took my granddaughter with me to the lot," he says, pointing west. "That one up on 70, Medvetz." He then proceeds to paint a rather ugl...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~530420.aspx10/6/2008 11:38:21 AMMeghan Howes Moses is cutting his grass with his silent-but-deadly battery powered law mower. It's funny watching him slowly walk back and forth across the expanse of lawn to the south of his house, pushing a machine that makes no sound. I yell something to him about noise ordinance and he laughs. It's lik...http://denver.yourhub.com/DenverNorth/Blogs/Archive/Blog~529480.aspx10/3/2008 4:30:24 PMMeghan Howes Moses is cutting his grass with his silent-but-deadly battery powered law mower. It's funny watching him slowly walk back and forth across the expanse of lawn to the south of his house, pushing a machine that makes no sound. I yell something to him about noise ordinance and he laughs. It's like ...http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Blogs/Archive/Blog~529437.aspx10/3/2008 3:26:51 PMMeghan Howes