ABOUT COLWELL CEDARS

We — Joe and Katherine Colwell — visited the North Fork Valley in 1990 — and like so many others — fell in love with the area. We were fortunate to find these 40 acres on the southeast end of Redlands Mesa, and began planning for Joe’s retirement. For the next seven years, we spent long weekends and vacation weeks here — camping, cleaning up the old homestead, and building trails.

The land was homesteaded by Hazel Short in the 1930s and continued in her ownership until her death in 1988. From 1998 to 2000, Joe interviewed Redlands Mesa residents who knew Hazel, gathering information for “Hermit of Puccini Ridge” his 2022 novel based on and inspired by her life on this property, and his own attitudes about her.

Over the years, we have documented with photos the homestead cleanup, our landscaping, our visitors experiences, and of course the flora and fauna.

Looking back over the years, it has been a remarkable journey — incredibly interesting, challenging, and rewarding — with no end in sight. Joe keeps “finding” new trails to build, his words continue to pour forth, and Katherine’s artwork grows larger and more complex. In some ways we may be growing younger as the land is restored.

Katherine and Joseph Colwell exploring Colorado high country.

A BRIEF BIO FOR JOE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

During his 27½-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, Joe worked in most areas of land management on 6 different ranger districts, on 5 national forests: range management, timber, recreation, wildlife, land-use planning, environmental education (certified facilitator in Project Learning Tree and Project Wild), and mediation and facilitation. Before his Forest Service career, he spent summers during college working at Idaho State Parks in recreation management, and at Mt. Rainier National Park on the trail crew, thus getting on-the-ground experience, which he still puts to use.

Joe's BS from the University of Idaho-Moscow is in Wildlife Management. In 1978-79, the USFS sent us to the mid-West for Joe to get an MS in Resource Economics and Land Management Planning from Michigan State University. Until 2011, Joe spent several weeks every year during the wildfire season, dispatched around the western states to do fire information on large fires.

When he is not doing trail maintenance, landscaping projects, defensible space work throughout our 40-acres (thinning and removing fire-prone vegetation), Joe reads extensively (non-fiction and fiction), and he works on his Forest Service memoirs, several novels, poetry, and essays. Go to his Author page for details on his eight published books: Canyon Breezes; Zephyr of Time; Sands of Time; Tales of Ravens Nest; Echoes of Time; Tuscola: a Memoir; Hermit of Puccini Ridge; and Flight of the Raven. He will be publishing a second edition of Sands of Time in 2026, and continues crafting its sequel (tentatively titled The Beginning of Time). His memoir of wildland fire experiences will be published in late 2026 or early 2027.

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

Beginning in 1978, Katherine explored using her plein air graphite pencil drawings as image sources for her embroidery; these were independent studies to complete her BA in Fine Art (University of Northern Colorado). Then, while Joe was studying economics and planning at MSU, Katherine studied embroidery-as-drawing in the MSU visual arts graduate program. She subsequently delved into small business management to learn how to make a living as an artist. The decades since have been an amazing creative journey. The term fiber artist does not begin to describe the work she creates.

As a life-long-learner, every medium and material explored over the decades simply makes more unique syntheses and synchronicities in her artwork. Three examples are: studying with Lakota beaders; a year researching archival-conservation materials and techniques applicable to her media; and learning traditional pulled-thread needlework techniques from master-craftswomen.

The adage “To teach is to learn twice” is relevant, too. Katherine continues to teach art, and as an art educator she has worked with individuals (including home-school students), organizations, and in small workshops and art classes in her studio — focusing on design fundamentals, assessment-critique skills, drawing, and fiber media. Please go to her Art Classes page for more information.

merging awareness, creativity, and nature COLWELL CEDARS

ABOUT COLWELL CEDARS

A BRIEF BIO FOR JOE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

A BRIEF BIO FOR KATHERINE

OLD HOMESTEAD REMAINS THAT YOU MAY SEE

There's much to see here.