Business

In 1968, two boys fishing at a Littleton watering hole snagged an old shopping cart. To their pre-teen imaginations, it looked like part of an amusement-park ride.

The cart soon became the foundation of a basement-based haunted house that the boys created out of a plaster skull they got from their older brother, a footlocker for a coffin, bedding hanging from the rafters, string, and other props found around the house.

Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage plans to open a 15,000-square-foot "full-service organic grocery" at South Kipling Parkway and West Coal Mine Avenue, north of the Chase Bank on Kipling. The site had previously been considered for a multi-story assisted-living center.

The proposed store will replace an existing outlet in the shopping center on the northeast corner of South Simms Street and West Ken Caryl Avenue.

The owners of the Gardens at Columbine, an assisted-living center, have purchased an adjacent lot and want to demolish the existing home and build a senior care facility for about 22 residents.

The Gardens’ main building at the southwest corner of Platte Canyon Road and West Ken Caryl Avenue is in Arapahoe County, while the proposed building would be in Jefferson County.

The weekly farmers market brings a splash of life and color each Wednesday to the parking lot at the Aspen Grove Lifestyle Center.

The annual event kicked off summer 2012 on June 13, with some 35 vendors plying an eclectic collection of loosely defined local goods, including coffee beans, bread, Alaskan salmon, rock art, dog leashes and fabric bags. Stands offered Colorado-grown fresh cherries, apricots and other produce. The farmers market, which continues through October, is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.