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.
Does your city ever get a weather forecast of “blowing dust”? Mine does. I hope this is the end of it.
Point Forecast: Rio Rancho NM. Areas of blowing dust. Mostly sunny, with a high near 57. Breezy, with a west wind between 20 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph.
So much for using my days off to work on the yard. The weather went from warm and sunny to cold and windy. The weather forecast for Rio Rancho is more wind. It’s also not helping my allergies.
SOUTHWEST WINDS WILL DECREASE GRADUALLY THROUGH LATE EVENING… WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH CONTINUING PAST MIDNIGHT. STRONG WINDS WILL REDEVELOP SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT… AS WINDS SHIFT TO THE WEST AND INCREASE SPEED TO 35 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 50 MPH. EXPECT STRONGEST WINDS OVER SUMMITS AND HILLTOPS… AND THROUGH GAPS AND PASSES. VISIBILITIES WILL BE LOCALLY POOR IN BLOWING DUST.
The temperature has been in the 60’s and 70’s in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque this last week. I decided to stop work on the master bathroom project and foucus on outdoor projects why the weather is good. There’s a good chance I will be sent out of town in spring and early summer so I won’t get a lot of chance work on the outdoor projects until fall.
There’s a structure in on my front porch under my front window, the best I can think to call it is a flower box or a raised planting bed. It’s about 8 feet long and two feet wide and a permanent structure made of brick.
The previous owners had something growing in it. I’m not sure what it was as there is no signs of life in it and it’s filled with potting soil. The only thing that it has really been used for is a litter box for the neighborhood cats.
This area of the front of my house is ugly and I get disgusted to look at it every day I walk by it. I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do with this area for a while, I considered tearing it out and concreting the whole area but that’s going to be just as ugly as the mess that is already there. I decided to make it into a desert rock garden with a few low water usage native plants. This will also be the prototype for what the rest of the front yard will look like.
I’m using low water usage desert plants in the yard which generally like sandy soil. I removed about 6 inches of potting soil (and cat crap) from the raised bed and replaced it with sandy New Mexico dirt from the backyard. I didn’t worry too much about the dirt being clean and I doubt the plants will care.
Of of my goals with this project is try and reuse materials I already have. I searched my property for volunteer plants that have sprouted up around the yard. I found two different types of Yucca in the yard (yucca is the state flower of New Mexico). Yucca is a rhizome and from what I have read, appear to be pretty forgiving when removing from the ground.
There was one kind of Yucca in the very front of my property near the road. It was challenge digging these two plants up because of the spikes on the end of their leaves.
Further up my property there are several more mature Yucca plants of a different variety. They had some smaller plants sprouting near them. The smaller plants were much easier to dig up. I actually don’t know exactly what kind of Yucca varieties any of these plants are.
I was dissapointed that I didn’t find any cacutus anywhere on my property. I ended up buying a small barrel cactus from Lowes for about $10. In retrospect, it was probably easier to buy the cactus and transplant it from the panter rather than dig it up. Getting it out of the planter was difficult enough by itself. Each of the Yucca plants would have probably cost about $10 each, so I saved about $40 in plantings.
I found some small bunches of what I believe is buffalo grass on the south side of my property. They have been growing there for several years but I have a feeling they won’t survive due to the lack of a full day’s sun at the front of my house.
The material I have in the most abundance is rock. It’s unfortunately the kind of rock I would rather not have. It’s small, less than 1 inch, round and grey river rock. The original landscapers were in love with this stuff. It’s everywhere, in the front yard, in the backyard and on the side yard.
The side yard has a thick layer of the round river rock and this is where I access my back yard with a vehicle. Driving on round river rock is very much like driving on marbles. A better choice would be to use the angular aggregate and if I was starting over I would use decomposed granite. In any case I’m stuck with this stuff so I will try to reuse as much of it as I can and make it look nice.
There’s also a small amount of dark red volcanic rock aggregate, which is native to New Mexico, and larger boulders in the yard. I used both the river rock and the volcanic in the raised bed.
This is my first attempt at desert landscaping and I think the results came out good. You can view all the photos of front porch landscaping project on Flickr.
The next project will be to do something about the ugly 1970’s white rock that borders the raised bed.
New Mexico’s location to Mexico means there’s often some sort of dead body out on the mesa related to drug trafficking.
Danny Baca was apparently supposed to take about $7000 worth of drugs to a drug cartel contact in El Paso. Instead he decided to come to Albuquerque. A mistake since they found his body, which had been burnt and shot, out on the mesa.
Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department says Baca was killed over a relatively small amount of money–but the drug cartels aren’t know for cutting people breaks.
You would think anyone getting into the drug business would know this.
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I’m not going to do a full out resturant review here. I’m not a good person for that. I don’t normally venture out of my comfort zone when it comes to food. If it wasn’t for my freinds I would have never tried Indian food.
Now I love Indian food. In Rio Rancho there is terrific restaurant called Namaste Cuisine of India and Nepal located at 1520 Deborah Rd. NE. I’ve only had the buffet. I don’t know the names of all the dishes but I really like the rice, spinach & cheese, meatballs and chicken in some sort of sauce.
If your in Rio Rancho be sure to check it out and read nmgastronome for a real review.
Man, what is the deal with this guy. How did he ever con himself into Mayor of Rio Rancho?
Former Rio Rancho Mayor Kevin Jackson has landed in trouble again.
Jackson is in a Pennsylvania prison charged with violating a protection from abuse order filed by his wife.
The former mayor was being held Monday at the Erie County Prison, in lieu of a $20,000 cash only bond.
Charges against him include violating a protection from abuse order, burglary, criminal trespass and carrying a firearm without a license, according to a Pennsylvania State Police report.
I have often thought that New Mexico government is more corrupt than it should be. At least comparing to where I come from: the Phoenix Metro Area. Apparently I’m not the only one according to the New Mexico Independent.
The numbers were good when we looked at how New Mexico did in terms of raw numbers of guilty officials (we were 48th) and guilty officials per capita (46th). But then there was a twist: ”Reporters who cover the Roundhouse in New Mexico think it’s a pretty darn corrupt state — we’re ranked No. 3,” Marjorie Childress wrote. “…Does this mean our reporters are biased? Or does it mean we have really poor ethics laws and really poor prosecution by U.S. attorneys in our state?” she asked.
This is all in relation to Governor Richardson withdrawal as commerce secretary and the pay-to-play scandal. Prior to that the Manny Aragon courthouse construction scandal. Even prior to that the Rio Rancho Mayor.
Lets say you lived in the Albuquerque metropolitan area and were considering purchasing a new phone come July 11th, you will be happy to know there is 3G coverage in the city. Through Rio Rancho and Bernallio even. Travel no further than Los Lunas or the east side of the Sanidas else you should have stuck with the first generation.
There’s a giant sink hole on Paseo Del Norte, a major artery through the west side of Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. The following comment was posted on the KOBTV’s article on the road closure.
Well, those crews had better get busy! I need to use that road to get to TD’s every day for my daily fix of skin and wiggles!
TD’s is a strip club in Albuquerque.
Doesn't Fit In 