Instead of sending organic materials to landfills and paying the city for the service, compost your yard clippings and kitchen vegetable scraps. As much as 1/3 of city waste comes from yard clean-ups and 1/10 from kitchen garbage. Composting is nature's way of building soil. by Sandra Harper    more »

Alice Waters, author, restaurateur, advocate for farmers’ markets and sustainable agriculture and the founder of the Edible Schoolyard has written a book that all of us can use and treasure. Read it and let her lead you from the farmer to the kitchen to the table. It’s a cookbook whose heart is based on the relationship between people and their awareness of nature. “I’m convinced that the underlying principles of good cooking are the same everywhere,” said Waters. by Sandra Harper    more »

(Photo of Judy Magers, "The Burro Lady," in Terlingua, 2002, by Bonnie Wunderlich)
Magers was, unwittingly, a highly public persona throughout West Texas, though she remained intensely private throughout her decades of walking the highways of the region, sleeping on roadsides and talking with locals mostly just enough to obtain the bare necessities. by Don McDowell, Fred Gossien, James Evans, & Bonnie Wunderlich    more »

The Tri-counties has mind-boggling diversity in weather, soil, pests and moisture. But once you know the basics, it’s a matter of fine-tuning to get your vegetable garden just right. The soil is the beginning. What’s in the soil will be in our food. by Dallas Baxter    more »

John Poindexter of Houston has told The Big Bend Gazette that he is interested in acquiring the 9,869-acre Christmas Mountains Preserve located in Brewster County and currently owned by the Texas General Land Office (GLO). Poindexter is one of several parties interested in acquiring the property. Last year, Poindexter, a successful Houston-based businessman, made a failed attempt to purchase a 46,000-acre parcel of Big Bend Ranch State Park. Poindexter currently owns the 30,000-acre Cibolo Creek Ranch in Presidio County where he operates the posh Cibolo Creek Ranch Resort. by John Waters    more »

“My husband and my mother did not have a horrid death,” said Jo Tucker, who lives south of Alpine, and experienced the benefits of hospice care from the local team of providers for the death of both her husband and mother. “There was no agony, no pain, no horrid expression – thanks to hospice…. You couldn’t ask for a better team…. They know how to stay one step ahead…. I knew what was going to happen because they told me…. [My husband] could stay at home, look out the window, listen to music he loved.” by Marlys Hersey    more »

“There are obstacles, we know,” said Acosta during his opening remarks. “We are working together. This is for me a great honor, to begin and grow together. A river and border separate us, but there is interdependence, a constant interdependence between us.” by John Waters    more »

The rationale of the route is that it would save four days in travel time for U.S.-bound imports from Asia compared with traveling from west coast ports such as Long Beach or Oakland. According to Mangrem, politics is the driving force behind La Entrada, not economics. He added, “There is a lot of political pressure to do this.” by John Waters    more »

Recently, graphic designer Katherine Shaughnessy joined the Gazette to help design, fine-tune, and maintain our website. As it turns out, she’s even more multi-talented than we realized. On November 1, Katherine published her first book The New Crewel. In addition to all that creativity, Katherine and her husband Tom Michael, freelance editor and station manager of KRTS, Marfa Public Radio, are expecting their first child in late December. They live south of Alpine.

“Soaking...under the stars was absolute heaven,” a guest from Wimberely, TX wrote. “We were blessed with a new moon, so more stars than I ever knew existed out there in this vast universe - wow...” by Marlys Hersey    more »

Glimpses of the busiest weekend in Marfa, TX. by Marlys Hersey    more »

Hipster Terlinguans Erik Walker and Mark Kneeskern ready their multimedia experience for Marfa and the world during Chinati Weekend. by Marlys Hersey    more »

“People have $1500 radios on their desks.” Which is to say that many of us in the region have only one means to listen to any radio (much less public radio): the Internet. Now that’s about to change. by Marlys Hersey    more »