I’m always looking for new, clever t-shirts, so when I received an email about new engineering- and science-themed shirts, I had to make a decision. I liked these two: But here’s the cleverest one, which I bought: If you like these shirts you can buy them here. And because my grandniece Rachael–the volleyball star with a 4.1 grade point average–always … Read More
2021 Garden Harvest Report
Image Above: A small fraction of all the ‘Punta Banda’ tomatoes grown. As usual, the growing season in the South Valley of Albuquerque was hot and dry and in general our garden did okay, but not great. I’m still spoiled by the summer a few years ago when the garden produced 302 pounds of tomatoes; that will probably never happen … Read More
Beauteous Bougainvilleas
The two spectacular plants above are tropical bougainvilleas that are thriving in New Mexico because I winter them over in my small greenhouse. They require constant pruning because they are vines that must be tamed in order to behave like normal house plants. As you can see from the first photo below, these plants are very determined to be vines … Read More
Some Thoughts on Picking Beans
I grow pole beans, but not on poles. Mine climb up a six-foot-tall chainlink fence and the foliage is dense, making it difficult to see the beans I’m trying to pick. But I’m not picking the actual beans, but rather the pods that contain the seeds of the bean plant. The seeds are also called beans, but only in their … Read More
Sports from Drought to Flood
I’m not a baseball fan, so the summer is a vast athletic wasteland for me.