Archive for April 4, 2009
Grow Your Own – Alas, Poor Stringbean; I Knew Him, Horatio…
by John Weckerle
In a tragedy of not exactly Shakespearian proportions, we must finally accept the fate of the string beans we’ve been attempting to grow in the plant room. They appear to have succumbed to pests, or at least very nearly succumbed. This is too bad, as they had actually produced a few string beans. We believe the culprits to be fungus gnats and perhaps some odd-looking creature that appears occasionally on the undersides of the leaves – but only on the pea/bean contingent (the snow peas appear to have bounced back from this). This is not our first abortive attempt at indoor string bean cultivation; we had similar problems last year. While the fungus gnats don’t seem to damage anything else, string beans seem unusually susceptible. We’ll give it another shot soon. The lettuce is doing nicely, and has produced leaves for a few sandwiches already. »» Grow Your Own – Alas, Poor Stringbean; I Knew Him, Horatio…
100 Days of Solitude – Well, Slow-itude, Anyway
by John Weckerle
According to the latest information received from the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT), we can expect the lane closures/repositioning on I-40 to remain as it is (one lane westbound, two eastbound) for the next 100 days. The next phase will also have two lanes eastbound and one lane westbound. The reason for this is that the bridges are only wide enough for three lanes. The lane width restriction through the construction zone is 11 feet.
This is, I suppose, the price we have to pay for the great highway we’ll have when it’s all done. As I sailed by on Route 66 most days this week, the shortest backup I saw was about three miles. I’ve been jumping onto I-40 at Tijeras, and note that the westbound lane includes the shoulder rumble strip, right where the passenger side tires go. We applaud this development on behalf of people who will be getting paid to tighten up all the little rattles that will be developing in people’s dashboards over the next 2/3 of a year.