On Mechanization On another wet day on the hillside, I am pondering the mechanization of my gardening efforts. I will start with a simple commentary on manual versus automated work. It is true that I can get a strong Mexican laborer’s back for the day for $160. That’s $20/hr plus lunch and transportation for eight hours of work. Let’s keep this simple and talk about moving mulch or stone (as in smaller rocks and pebbles)…
The Shifting Wind Do you remember Mary Poppins? In case you don’t, she blows in on the East Wind and when its time to leave she blows out on the West Wind. I’m not altogether sure what the East and West designations means but I remember what Burt the chimney sweep has to say about it. He says, “winds in the east, mist coming in, like somethin’ is brewin’ and bout to begin…can’t put me…
Where To Stop For the past four months I have slowly but surely been reworking the back hillside. What has been simple gardening for the most part has turned into a passion of sorts. This was not a grand plan that was carefully thought through, but an evolving vision that just happened. It started with a set of existing paths that the prior owner had used to access the different parts of the back hill.…
Dream Sweeper Today I up and decided it would be a good day for a longer ride on my new motorcycle. As I have mentioned, the new bike is a BMW RNineT, which is a stripped-down version of the classic BMW boxer twin. It’s a lot of engine, 115 horsepower, on a very basic frame and accoutrement. There is nothing fancy about the bike, but rather, it stands out in its plain simplicity. Compared to…
Forced to Fly I find myself in a most unusual place. Two years ago, when planning a motorcycle ride to Spain, I had the brilliant idea of buying business class seats through a specialized third-party vendor who promoted being able to offer business and first class seats far cheaper than otherwise available. That was appealing to me because when we fly internationally, we pretty much insist on going business class (our size being a significant…
To Listen Is To Be Strong My youngest granddaughter Evelyn just started Kindergarten. She did well in her science-oriented nursery school (her father is a bit of science buff), but as the younger of two sisters, we don’t tend to think of her as the brilliant sister. She has the image more of the spunky sister. But truth be told, Evelyn is actually very smart. I’m glad I said it that way since the word…
McDonalds On My Mind For ten years I taught at Cornell on Monday evenings, ending at 7pm and then getting in my car for a four hour drive back to NYC. I have a house in Ithaca, so I’m still not sure why I did it that way, but I did and it lasted ten years with very few exceptions. Part of the routine was to stop at the East Hill Plaza, which was on…
Feelin’ Prickly No, I am not in a bad mood and I am not annoyed with someone or something…at least not at the moment. It’s just that when I have stuff to do, I have such performance anxiety as a natural part of who I am that I get that prickly feeling in my backside. I imagine that the feeling itself is somewhat primordial and comes out of the cerebral cortex rather than the cerebellum.…
Too Old For Adventure Something came over me in the past week and I don’t know that I can explain it. I got an email from the local BMW motorcycle dealership saying that on September 18 they were having a special event to celebrate the new BMW R18. This is a massive new transverse twin with 1,800 ccs of displacement. That means each cylinder has about 900 cc’s (almost a full liter) of displacement between…
Sticky Finger Politics I went through my normal ritual of reading a recently written story to Kim. It’s my way of editing (I catch many, but not all, mistakes editing this way) and it helps me to read the story aloud so that I can determine if the story hangs together the way I intended. When I finished my reading I asked Kim what I should write about next. I have a ritual process for…