Maybe if I tell you to plant everything this weekend, you will, and then you will come back in next week and have to buy all your vegies and flowers again. Definitely a good deal for me…but not for you. If you think of it another way, just think of me as another politician telling you what you want to hear—like it is spring and time to plant. It may or may not be the truth, or nothing but the truth, or maybe no truth at all.

In other words, farming and gardening, are just other words for legalized gambling. You plant late in May because of frosts, and we don’t have one. You plant the beginning of June and we have a frost on the 15th, or hail on the 19th. Or the grasshoppers invade, and the aphids, and the cabbage loopers, too!  Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why we garden at all, with all the associated challenges. I think it’s because the sense of accomplishment is so HUGE when you harvest some peas, and a couple of carrots and oh, my goodness, those tomatoes can’t be beat!

When I talked with Sheldon Rockey last week, he said they don’t plant potatoes until about the 10th of May. When I asked him how deep to plant, he held up his hand and pointed to the top of his wrist and said “this deep”. I don’t know what happens if your hand is tinier than his…lol. I know that a lot of people are planting potatoes right now, because it does take a while for them to begin growing. If they start to break ground and it looks like the weather is getting crappy, just rake a little dirt over them for protection. If we get the snow/rain that is predicted for this weekend it may be pretty easy NOT to plant.

In thinking back, over the past 15 years of driving to Tres Piedras for the bedding plants I sell, I have never had a trip canceled, and it was this past Wednesday. I have such spring fever, I was going to beef up my order—even as stores in Taos and Santa Fe and Espanola were canceling their orders. Can’t say that I’m disappointed in not having more to take care of inside.

On Wednesday I had to go to Ecodynamics, just east of Monte Vista. I go down the Co-op road from my house. I noticed Alamosa County trucks picking up bags and bags and bags of trash. And tires, and pieces of wood and even a toilet. I noticed that the bags weren’t the typical ones (orange) seen on the side of the road so I turned around to find out who had done the clean-up. The guys on the truck didn’t know who cleaned up, so I called Tim at Road and Bridge. He didn’t know either so he called Rachel Baird, Alamosa County land use administrator. Rachel helped solve the quandary and gave me the name of Monte Collins.

WOW! I called Monte and told him how amazed I was! I mean he cleaned BOTH sides of the road, between the 103 and the 104. That’s two miles of cleaning up the trash that jerks have so callously thrown out of their vehicles. For all you neighbors who live in that area you need to bake some chocolate chip cookies or a cake and take it over to Monte. It was over 50 bags of trash with all the other stuff on top—50 bags! Took him a little over two days. 

A very sincere thank you, to you Monte, and I am going to try and do my part on my road—the Nine Mile, just south of you. Maybe if everyone did their part, every day, we would live in a better world and we wouldn’t have to organize clean-ups for Earth Day—because it would already be done! Wouldn’t that be great? Try to imagine….

Does anyone else get nervous about the “new buildings” that the recent penny tax increase will pay for, are already over budget, and they haven’t even been started yet? I just HATE the fact that we, as a community, are building for MORE crime! Maybe 24 hour court with less courtrooms would save money—or maybe just evening court and Saturday court. Sharing courtrooms--would that save money?  Maybe no tile or linoleum or carpet, but only concrete floors—would that save money? Just wondering.