The sun is a few hours into its long arc across a clear April sky as the farmer pours pink seeds from bags into plastic bins behind a tractor. But Steve Mauro, who had waited for a dry day to plant his chiles, isn't hopeful. 'I'll probably be wishing I planted yesterday,' he says, looking up into the cloudless blue sky. 'Probably get rained on today.' Mauro, 44, has spent his life here in southern Colorado on a patchwork of acres east of Pueblo, cutting furrows and scattering seeds and broadcasting water across the same plots of land as his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. As a farmer, he grew up in a culture fluent in the varieties of the sucker-punch. Optimism doesn't come to him naturally. But year after year, the seeds he drops in long lines sprout and grow heavy with peppers and cantaloupe, with watermelons and cabbage and tomatoes and corn. And so would the seeds he pressed into the earth on this brilliant morning. Four months later, many of his peppers sat aside Federal Boulevard in Denver, where urbanites lined up to get them roasted before they lugged them home and, often, turned them into what has become a Hispanic-food staple: green chile sauce. The road from seed to sauce isn't smooth: Hail, too much rain, too little rain, wind, pests, weeds. Some years seem cursed; others, blessed. Either way, Mauro, a gruff, good-humored guy whose creative use of expletives could be described as fountainlike, makes the journey from tempestuous spring to critical harvest in much the same way. Early mornings, late nights, lots of staring at the sky, daily tests of muscle and endurance, and month after month of jumping from crisis to crisis. 'A lot of people look around and say, 'Oh, it's so easy,' ' says Mauro, his voice freighted with sarcasm and disgust. 'And they go and plant, and it's a friggin' mess.' For Mauro, learning to farm came with growing up. As a youngster, he drove tractors without cabs. His father remembers when farmers plowed fields staring at the hindquarters of horses. Now, Mauro pilots a massive machine with 6-foot-high tires. In the cab, he listens to talk radio and pushes buttons, including ones on the GPS device that steers the tractor down perfectly straight rows. 'Before GPS, by the end of the day, your neck, your back, it would kill you,' he shouts in the cab, over the roar of the engine, the vehicle rocking back and forth as it navigates the bumpy field. At one point he stops the tractor, hops out, and digs into the soil with a butter knife to make sure the seeds are deep enough, about an inch beneath the surface. Then he continues, in quarter-mile-long rows, removing the cell phone from the front pocket of his Levis now and again to take calls, talking in short bursts, punctuating the conversations with low, sardonic laughter. Mauro tried something other than farming -- a gig with an electric company in Colorado Springs -- decades ago when things were slow on the farm. 'That was enough for me,' he said. 'I'm not the kind who can take orders from somebody else.' Still, he often dreams of doing something else, something less grueling, a job with more security. 'My attitude on this farm will change daily,' he said. 'One day I love it, the next I want to be behind a desk.' Either way, after that brief flirtation, he never gave anything else a shot. So he digs, plants and harvests on about 240 acres -- including 40 that he owns -- for a living. It all requires a fair bit of guesswork and hunches. Yields vary from season to season. Last year, he was getting 120,000 pounds an acre of cabbage. This year? About 75,000. Variations in weather, more than anything, influence harvests. Mauro planted about 30 acres of chile seeds this year, which he predicted would produce between 15,000 and 30,000 bushels of peppers. At best, he thought, he should harvest something approaching 1 million pounds of Anaheim, Mosco, Dynamite and other strains of pepper. With this year's long summer -- Mauro is still harvesting chiles in early October -- he's not sure how many bushels he will clear from his land. Compared with commodity crops like corn and wheat, fields of which can stretch into the horizon in some parts of Colorado, 30 acres of peppers isn't much. But according to state records, Mauro's plantings account for a large portion of the state's pepper crop in terms of acres -- over 8 percent. (Colorado in 2007 had 372 acres of peppers. By contrast, New Mexico supported 10,684 acres that year.) Mauro grows a wide variety of other vegetables and fruits, much of which he sells in his big, permanent farm stand alongside jars of homemade salsa, Italian olive oil and pasta, and (begin ital) potica,(end ital) a Slovenian pastry his Italian family has been making and selling for decades. The stand, he said, pumps enough money into the family bank account to keep the farm alive. He remembers his father and other Pueblo farmers ceasing their toil in October and not beginning again until the following spring. The men spent the winter playing poker. But now, the stand operates year-round, and Mauro keeps busy until January and February, when he can take a short break before returning to daily farm work. Four months after that April planting, waist-high green plants, so thick with shiny leaves they look like shrubs, cloak the land. A group of six men from Mexico walks down rows, blue surgical gloves on their hands, bending at the waist, reaching into the shrouds of greenery, plucking chiles and dropping them into plastic buckets. The air smells like green pepper. The sun glows with an almost malevolent intensity and heat. The farm depends upon the work of these men, some of whom have been employed in Mauro's fields for 20 years. The guys, all on the farm legally, make about $8 an hour, live rent-free in a house supplied by Mauro (they stay for six or seven months a year), and have use of a pick-up truck to get around the farm. He sometimes employs U.S. citizens, but they rarely work out. This summer, he gave a few a shot, but, in typical form, they vanished after a few hours in the hot Pueblo sun. Chiles performed adequately this season, but not perfectly -- it rained too much. The moisture invited worms into the chile crop, and Mauro had to spray chemicals -- reluctantly -- to keep his peppers healthy. The problem would have been less severe had he used hybrid seeds, but they are expensive (Mauro spends between $40 and $60 a pound for seed; some hybrids sell for $1,000 a pound). Mauro uses open-pollinated seed varieties, which aren't as engineered for resistance to plant diseases. After a rainfall, 'Disease will walk up a whole field,' he says as his workers, in trousers and long-sleeved shirts and hats, some with bandanas over their faces, inched their way through a chile field. 'With an irrigated field, you really don't want rain.' Later in the day, after the workers had filled 50 bushel sacks, each weighing between 25 and 30 pounds, with green chiles, Mauro called a few farmer neighbors. 'Let's go out and get some dinner,' he said to them. 'We all have been pounding for weeks.' Much of Mauro's tough toil is in the fields. But the work extends beyond the dirt and plants. Everything, for example, has to get sold, and in the case of chiles, that generally involves one of two paths: they either remain on the farm, where Mauro roasts and sells them, or workers pack them into 18-wheelers and drive them 100 miles north to Denver. The Chili Guys Store is the world of Aeron Calkins, Denver's impresario of green chile. He brings in peppers from all over Colorado and New Mexico and distributes them to many of the people who appear on roadsides in Denver every September. About 50,000 bushels of chiles -- many of them grown by Mauro -- move through Calkins' refrigerated storage facility before meeting a roaster. Calkins, 42, a large, looming guy with an easy grin, started selling chiles about 10 years ago, starting with a tent and a single roaster. Now he has six locations along Federal Boulevard alone, a main north-south thoroughfare that hits many of the metro area's Hispanic neighborhoods. He recently bought a farm in Brighton north of Denver, where he sells and roasts chiles, which go for between $20 and $30 a bushel, depending on the variety (a bushel of roasted chiles weighs up to 15 pounds). Calkins grew up in an Italian family in Denver, he said, and chiles were part of the immigrant culture. But it wasn't much of a Denver thing. Times are different today. 'With frozen chiles, we are selling it nearly year-round,' he said, as two workers poured bushels of fresh chiles into a metal-caged roaster, turned on the flames and began crisping a customer's peppers, perfuming that block of Federal with an almost tactile aroma. One customer, Michelle DeFeyter, 38, drove from Brighton to Calkins' Denver facility for a bushel of Mauro's Mosco chiles, also known simply as 'Pueblo' chiles because that's primarily where the peppers are grown. The strain is the favorite of both Calkins and Mauro, who trumpet its combination of unrelenting -- but not volcanic -- heat and complex flavor. 'When we moved to Brighton, a lot of our friends were making green chile. And that's how we got hooked on it,' said DeFeyter. 'When the fall comes, I think everybody just craves that, sitting on a Sunday afternoon watching football and eating green chile while it's snowing outside. It's a warm, comforting feeling.' A few days later, Calkins held a chile cook-off at his Brighton farm. About 40 people arrived with crock pots and bowls full of different green chile preparations: casseroles, dips and a lot of stews, including one made with alligator meat prepared by DeFeyter. Like a lot of the contestants, DeFeyter used chiles grown on Mauro's farm. People in pepper-emblazoned Hawaiian shirts and lugging chile cookbooks fanned out around the mass of dishes, discussing heat levels and trading preparation tips. 'I can't believe I lived 40 years without the smell of roasting chile,' said Heather Boulanger, 48, who moved from Rhode Island to Brighton a decade ago. She came to the cook-off to sample chiles and get recipe ideas. The winner, Sadie Escarcega, 48, has been making chile since she was a youngster. She grew up in Colorado, but most of her family is from Taos, N.M. 'I love everything about green chile,' she said. 'Even the texture. I'm the type who has chile with everything. Even just green chile and a tortilla.' About a week later, another customer of Calkins' ordered a few bushels of roasted Mauro chiles -- a mixture of Moscos and mild Anaheims -- and drove them up twisting mountain roads until she reached her home atop Conifer Mountain west of Denver, elevation nearly 10,000 feet. Here, Anita Edge, the engine behind the popular website denvergreenchili.com, peeled the chiles and prepared them for the stew. She was making a Colorado-style pork green chile, she said, (as opposed to New Mexico-style), so she added diced tomato. This batch would travel back down the mountain a few days later, to be served at one of Edge's chile-cooking classes. After about two hours of chopping and sauteing and stirring, Edge ladled some into a measuring cup, dipped a spoon into the sauce, and tasted. 'Good heat,' she said. Old-Fashioned Colorado Green Chile Recipe by Anita Edge. Makes 8 to 10 servings Ingredients 2 pounds cubed pork (shoulder works well) 1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2 cloves) 1/4 teaspoon pepper 3 tablespoons flour 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes (or one 14-ounce can), seeded if desired 1 can chicken broth (about 14 ounces) 1 cup water (adjust to your preference) 2 1/2 cups diced, roasted green chiles (about 20), seeded and skinned if desired 2 cups diced onion Salt and pepper to taste Directions Brown pork, garlic and pepper in skillet. Add flour, stir and cook 2 more minutes. Place all ingredients in crock pot and cook on low 2 to 3 hours. Chunky Vegetarian Green Chile Recipe by John Kessler from the Sept. 4, 1996, edition of The Denver Post. Makes about 1 quart. Ingredients 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 or 2 large garlic cloves, minced 1 cup diced tomatoes, canned or fresh 2 cans (14 ounces each) vegetable broth 1 pound roasted green chiles, peeled, seeds and stems removed, coarsely chopped 2 medium russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 3/4-inch dice 1 large bay leaf Directions Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium-high flame. Add garlic and brown lightly, stirring constantly. Add tomatoes, broth and green chiles. Bring to a boil and reduce heat until mixture comes to a gentle simmer. Add diced potato and bay leaf. Simmer, covered, for 30-40 minutes. Salt to taste. Green Chile Recipe by John Kessler, The Denver Post, Dec. 28, 1994. He wrote: 'I prefer my green chile without onion because I think the flavor of the capsicum is purer and more direct. However, a small onion chopped and sauteed with the garlic does add a certain roundness of flavor to the finished product. I also prefer a smooth consistency, so I blenderize the chiles. If you like it chunky, then finely chop the chiles instead.' Makes about 1 gallon. Ingredients 1 pound boneless pork butt, cut into cubes 1 pound roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped green chiles 2 ripe tomatoes 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 tablespoon minced garlic 3 tablespoons flour Salt to taste Directions Place the pork in a pot and cover completely with at least 2 quarts but no more than 3 quarts of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat until the water is simmering vigorously. Skim off scum. Cover pot and cook until pork is tender enough to pierce easily with fork, about 2 hours. Pur?e chiles in blender with enough of the cooking liquid to achieve a smooth consistency. Set aside. Cut tomatoes in half lengthwise. Pluck out seeds with your fingers and discard. Place a box grater over a bowl or dish and grate tomatoes, cut sides facing the large holes of the grater. You should end up with fine tomato pulp in the bowl and the tomato skins left in your hand. Discard the skins and set the pulp aside. Heat vegetable oil in bottom of 5-quart pot over medium heat. Add garlic and flour and fry, stirring constantly until mixture is a uniform pale brown, about 2 minutes. (Remove pot from burner if it starts to color too quickly.) Add pork and all its cooking liquid, pured chiles and tomatoes, and stir to dissolve flour. The mixture should reach 1 inch below the rim of the pot. If not, add water until it does. Bring to a boil and reduce to a vigorous simmer. Cook 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt. 