How Beulah, Colorado was saved by the dairy farmers.

                                                                             This is a totem right in front of the volunteer fire station in beautiful Beulah, Colorado.  The sign on it reads "This tale might have been very short had it not been about a cow."  This is located across the street from the Beulah Post Office.  It is also located in front of the fire station and the man who carved this is in a small room behind the fire station.  These people make really good use of space, I'm here to tell you.

This is a full shot of the totem as it stands.  It is hard to see the little cottage on the top and the intricate work that went into that!  You are actually going to need to jump in the car and drive on out there and take a look.  Call me if you need directions!                                                                

The next picture shows a close up of the cow.  You can also see a few peas in the pod there, although I do not know what they symbolize.  I can also see a goose that seems to have laid some rather golden eggs.

Now, I lost my notes on this, but I am going to try to relate the story to you briefly as it was told to me. It seems several years back the beautiful mountain community of Beulah found itself in the throes of a drought.  There was no rain and no signs of rain.  The snow melt had already found it's way down the mountain and as you all know, water does not run uphill.

People were hauling water for drinking as best they could but how would you like to try to haul all your water you use everyday up the hill and try to store it?  Ah, to the rescue came the dairy farmers! They had the means to haul milk to market and the return trip could be carrying water!  Of course, they had to make a few extra trips, but that is how the dairy farmers saved the town of Beulah from extinction.  Seems like I recall reading about this after I had relocated to Colorado, so I know it was in the last 30 years. 

So this work was commissioned by folks in Beulah in honor of the dairy farmers.  This totem was created by John Clay who has made several of these totems around the Beulah area. John gave me a map of the locations of some of his art work in the area and if you are interested just leave me a note. 

I am sort of keeping my eyes open around his shop cause he has a big tree root back behind that he is starting to whittle away on and when it is finished it will be "The Dragon's Nest."  That is all I am going to tell you about that.  I plan on doing an update on John in the very near future and showing you pictures of his shop and the band aid box on the wall!

In the meantime, if you want to get a hold of John and have him carve up one of your dead trees, his number is 719-485-9605, and as always, just tell him Lou sent you!