Peering upward on late September evenings, the sky is dominated by the Milky Way, which arches from the southwest to the northeast.  High overhead, we can easily view the Great Rift, an area within the Milky Way but, seemingly, almost completely devoid of stars.  In fact, this absence of stars is due to the gas and dust, common in spiral galaxies such as our own, which obscures the stars beyond.

Host Jill Spears and gardeners Lance Swigart & Lulu Volckhausen discuss fall gardening and take calls from listeners.

Western dams are a contentious issue. But in this episode of West Obsessed, the writers and editors of High Country News discuss the realities of dam removal, from Washington’s Elwha River, whose dams came down six years ago, to Utah’s Bear River, where a diversion is still being planned.