A leisurely ride

The Renssselaer Republican had an article this week on the Harvest Garden at SJC. This past summer a couple of faculty members with the aid of some students planted a garden to the south of the campus with a variety of vegetables. They are now harvesting these and using them to prepare meals for the freshman. One of the goals of the program is to teach students about where food comes from and how to prepare it. People who live in the city often do not know much about the food they eat other than it comes from the store. Here is the SJC press release on the program.

My interest in the program is largely because one of the organizers told me that they had some extra land and asked if I wanted to use it. I accepted, and planned to plant squash. Things did not go quite as well as planned. First, I wanted to plant butternut squash because they are less susceptible vine borers. I planted seeds I had saved from last year, but forgot that I had saved some seeds from my acorn squash as well as the butternut squash. Most of what came up was acorn or acorn hybrids. Acorn squash will cross with summer squash or pumpkins because they are all the same species. And then there were the squash bugs, the second major squash pest. There was a plague of them and they killed the plants. I still have a some stuff left. The nice tall plants--over five feet tall now--are okra. There are also tomatoes that I transplanted from my home garden. I expected most would be the tiny cherry tomatoes because I was transplanting the volunteers, and unfortunately I was right. I got some things out of it and did not spend money or much time on it, so it was a success, just not as big as success as I wanted.

After picking a a few dozen tiny tomatoes, I decided to take a leisurely bike ride west of town. One of my first stops was to take a picture of this preying mantis that was on the road. (Maybe I should have captured it and taken it back to the garden so it could eat squash bugs.) I suspect there are actually quite a few mantises around, but they are only easily visible when they are out of place, like on the road.

I was surprised to see workers doing something to the tower at the intersection of 700S and 900W. Unfortunately the worker on the tower was pretty close to the ground, not near the top. I think this is more than a cell-phone tower. I think it is part of the microwave network to relay telephone calls. If you know more about this tower, please tell us what you know in the comments.

There has been construction on I-65 for quite some time, but I almost never travel the section of the highway between the SR 114 exit and the US 231 exit. There is work on the shoulders, and in the picture below there is a small white vehicle in the median strip that was uprooting the sod. I tried to find an explanation of the work on the Internet, but could not. This project has been ongoing for at least several weeks. What is going on with it?

I noticed a cornfield that had been harvested, the first one I have seen around here. Some of the soybeans look ready to harvest, while others are still completely green.

Often the fall equinox falls on the 21st, but this year it does not occur until the 23rd. Hope you enjoy the final couple days of summer.

Update: Speaking of cell phone towers, about a month ago the Goodland facebook page said that Verizon was building a new 4G tower in Goodland. If progress is on schedule, it should be done in another month.