We are getting a nice steady snow fall in Rio Rancho today. Still debating weather I’m heading to Sandia Peak for some skiing today (I’m definitely going tomorrow).
In Mid April I started a Solarization experiment where I use solar heating to kill off everything in the soil of my back yard. So far the results have been mixed.
The weather in Rio Rancho has cycled between days of heat and days of cool with rain. The cool days help to create a greenhouse effect under the plastic that cause plants to grow and the days of heat have killed them off. This is good since it’s easier to kill plants than seeds. Hopefully everything that can sprout has sprouted and died.
Since we haven’t had enough days of heat in a row, I don’t think the ground has really baked deep into the soil. It doesn’t appear it has baked the surface enough to decompose organic matter there.
The cycle of rain and heat appear to be over and we are now we are just getting heat. Parts of dead vegetation with sharp edges along with the prolonged time in the heat has caused some of the plastic to break down and break apart. Of the two sheets I put down one has almost completely broken down. The other sheet of plastic is partly shaded and has held together, it is currently experiencing a greenhouse effect with some plants growing underneath.
All the early summer rain has caused a large amount of goat heads plants (Tribulus terrestris) to sprout outside of the solarization area. I did my best to pick the plants but I had to violate my rule of not using chemicals and apply Roundup to a most of the back yard. My concern with using Roundup is the potential of creating weeds that are resistant to Roundup. Also, Roundup is turning out to be toxic.
This will be one of the few times I used chemicals to control weeds. Depending on how much time I have for the rest of this summer, I will try to apply more plastic to the backyard to take advantage of the late summer heat.
For the last month the weather has been mostly sunny and warm on the days I work and either windy, cold or rainy or all of the above on the days I’m off. I had a some sun and little wind yesterday but today it snowed.
Were not getting anything like Denver’s projected 20 inches of show. The lack of cooperation by the weather isn’t helping because I have a number of outdoor things to do around the house before I potentially go out of town for three months starting in May.
Every year during the Balloon Fiesta there will no doubt be a balloon crashing into something, usually power-lines. This year there was a spectacular crash when the “Wings of Wind” basket caught fire after running into power lines. One of the two passengers died and the pilot was badly injured. The incident occurred about 3 miles from my house at the intersection of NM 528 and NM 550.
During 2007’s Balloon Fiesta, a woman fell out of a balloon and died later in the hospital.
It seems some years the Balloon Fiesta goes on without a hitch, other years it just kinda ugly. The balloons are always at the whim of the weather and in fall the only thing you can predict is it will be windy.
Back in October of 2007, Cool Tools recomended Melnor Quick Connects for garden hoses. The quick connects are similar to quick connects used on air tools. I am a big fan of these quick connectors and I use them on all my hoses. The only problem with the ones recommended by Cool Tools is that they are plastic.
There’s a number of problems with the plastic connectors for which I don’t recommend them. If you leave them outdoors all year round they get brittle and they don’t take a lot of abuse like when your dragging your hose across the cement. Instead I recommend the brass connectors such as the ones made by Camco
Another issue with these things is they tend to get dirt in them and expand and contract with the weather. Sometimes you have to bang on them to get them to move again, try doing that with a plastic part.
I’ve found little use for Dashboard. I use the stock and weather widgets and that’s about it. Package Tracker is a extremely handy widget for tracking packages. It works well as a widget since it’s something I simply want to check out once or twice a day. It also supports Growl, so if I’m sitting at my computer I get a instant notification of the status. The interface is well thought out and it’s free, as far as I can tell.
The 4.0 beta is out with a lot of improvements. check it out at Mike Piontek’s website.
What a better way to start spring in New Mexico than with a snow storm. It’s actually coming down pretty good right now. It’s not sticking though, and it’s barley making the ground wet.
Talk about bizarre weather.
Remember that sprinkler project I took a while back, back in March as a matter of fact. I had planned to only take a few weeks to complete it. Here it is 4 months later and it’s still not done.
I did make some progress. I have the valve box installed, vaves installed and one of the two lines hooked up. All I need to do is install the 2nd line and leak test and I can burry everything.
OK, so I admit that general laziness has slowed the project. I’m also going to blame the weather. We’ve had so much rain that the 24 inch trench has filled up with water to the top. There hasn’t been that much time in between rains to let the ground dry up, and I don’t want be playing in the mud. Depending on how the weather cooperates I plan to make this a priority again.
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