Good morning, and are you hungry? Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.
It's been another hot, dry week here in Denver. We've been consistently in the 90s and just as consistently taunted by cloud cover in the afternoon — but until yesterday evening, no rain fell in my neck of the woods. We didn't get much, but at least it was enough rain to cool it down.
We could really use a good soaking here — I'd love to skip watering. Alas, although we largely have xeric plantings, there are those plants which aren't xeric, or which eventually will be xeric but need watering the first couple of years until they become well established.
Meanwhile, I've also been making a double-batch of coffee ice cream for the Colorado Pootie & Pie Caucus this afternoon at Brahman Colorado's place. It's not too late to decide to come: there's always room at a garden blogging garden party.
This may come as a surprise, but I can, when pushed, become somewhat ill-tempered and foul-mouthed when annoyed.
I know, I know — I come across as such a sweet, gentle, ladylike soul. But sometimes....
As previously reported, Xcel Energy has been causing disruption in my neighborhood due to their current natural gas line replacement project. Over the past several weeks we've had our on-street parking (the only parking we have) unavailable and street closed signs on the end of the block — even though there was only one 5 day stretch when they actually were doing work on our block.
This week we've been rid of the no parking signs — but had to thread around the "street closed" signs to actually park by our house. But Thursday — finally — the "street closed" signs were removed, and just in time. Denver has curb-side recycling and two weeks ago, on our last pick up day, the recycling truck skipped our street because of the damned street closure. Our bin was stuffed; we desperately needed a pickup.
I was off work yesterday, and outside whacking back the giant catmint, when a dude came down the block with a truck full of signs putting out the no parking signs again, and blocking off the ends of the block again.
No, there was no work happening on our block — the work was happening a block down. Wasn't even any equipment on our block.
So I pointed out to the dude that we all had our recycle bins out; we'd missed the last pick up; that there was no reason to block off our street. Dude said "don't tell me, tell Xcel".
Actually, I called the subcontractor, and explained our problem. I was offered either the cell phone number of the project manager, or leave a message on his voice mail. So I took the cell phone number and left an intemperately worded voice mail message. This was repeated on the cell phone as, of course, the project manager didn't actually answer his cell phone.
Then I went down the block and asked the first guy I saw on the work crew "just who the hell is in charge of this clusterfuck? Because you're causing some goddamned big problems blocking the street and our parking whenever the whim strikes". The guy was somewhat taken aback and stuttered that the foreman wasn't around. I explained that we by gawd needed the street closed signs removed until the recycling truck could get through, and some consideration as to the frequency of blocking off parking. He mumbled that he'd be sure to pass the message along.
For good measure, when I got home I called my City Council member's office and left another message (and just why is it that I can't actually talk to a person anywhere?), explaining just what Xcel and its subcontractor had been doing for the past month, and the problems that it had been causing.
Within an hour of my round of berating everyone I could think of, the street closed signs had been pulled aside, and later on the recycling truck made it down my block.
It seems to me that in a situation where a private company is working on a project which interferes with individuals' access to and use of their homes, and the public's access to public thoroughfares, one of the highest considerations should be making that interference as unobtrusive as possible. The planning should include ensuring that other services, such as trash pickup and street sweeping, are rarely, if ever, interrupted and, if such interruption is unavoidable, that the service be rescheduled — not just skipped.
Instead, the contractor and its subcontractors have no hesitancy in closing off streets for days or weeks if they happen to be working somewhere in the area — whether or not they actually are working on that block. Maneuvering through the Baker Neighborhood right now is like running a maze, trying to figure out how to get from here to there; I was late for an appointment a couple of weeks back because one of the main thoroughfares was closed, and when I tried to go over a block to bypass the closed street, found that the next street was closed two blocks down, and the street next to that one closed another block down — even though I could see no equipment or activity on the closed sections.
That's what's happening (or not) here. What's going on in your gardens?
Update [2010-7-31 9:2:26 by Frankenoid]: Wow! It was a real error -- misplaced quotation mark -- rather than a phantom one. Those are much easier to find.