Weekend update

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Had a pretty good weekend doing the things I love. We haven’t talked about gardening lately, but I’m in the mood. Saturday, I spent the morning in the garden: pruning dead leaves on my squash, harvesting tomatoes (got a bit of blossom-end rot, probably an irregular-water issue), planting some beets, carrots and peas for a late harvest.

How is your garden this year? A lot of my stuff was very late to set. Bumper year for spaghetti squash, but I only set one butternut. I’ve harvested two paddy pans and two cucumbers (which are freaking great still warm from the sun). The tomatoes and peppers, while they got a late start, are now producing regularly. I planted Blue Lake string beans this year, and I sure prefer the stringless variety. My friend Steve Litsinger recommended I try dragon’s tongue next year. I also saw a kind of woodpecker—small and black and white—that I’ve never seen before.

We had guests for dinner Saturday night. Kathleen made posole. We sat on the deck, drank some beer and wine, and solved the world’s problems. The hummingbirds, which also were slow to arrive this year, were very busy. This year, one male staked out a territory around the front yard feeder, and another took the backyard.

Sunday morning, I got to use my plasma cutter, working on a couple projects for a friend. Say what you will, there’s just something about 60,000 degrees right there four inches in front of my nose, cutting three-eights inch steel like butter, that focuses my mind in a way that’s as pleasurable as it is intense.

That afternoon, I caught some post-Hot August Nightmare action at a few downtown drinking establishments with one of my oldest friends in Reno. She’s not old—and you know if she sees this, there would be a comment—but I’ve known her since ’87 or so. Do you ever stop and think about how the really important things that make Reno a decent place to live have very little to do with what government has done to it?