| Ask Dan: Of lawn mounds, poor grass and plant scale
What a ride these past few weeks; the ups and downs of gardening in our area can teach us a little patience if not anything else. With May on its way, plants and people alike are all looking forward to warmer days. QFor many, many years, my lawn has been plagued with hundreds of small mounds of dirt (the size of a child's fist) on the grass. They've started again this season. The mound does not look as if it's from a small ant, but more from something larger. The hole it leaves averages the size of a pencil eraser. Sometimes, the dirt looks layered, as from a bee. Whatever is doing this must do it very early in the morning or after dark. We've dug down deep and found nothing. What do you think? Please help! I've become like a crazy lady raking over the mounds every day to save my lawn.
Community gardening enjoys long history
Nearly everyone in Vermont who dreams of starting a community garden can tap into a source of help this year, through the Vermont Community Garden Network and Friends of Burlington Gardens.
Todays reinvigorated community gardening movement is firmly rooted in Vermont history. Expanding from a 1970s concept developed in Burlington by Gardens for All, it embraces hundreds of community and school gardens in Vermont and thousands more throughout the country.
Growing food for the common good began much earlier, of course, with American Indian gardens as communal plots providing work and produce shared with all families.
Even before 1900, Philadelphia and other cities had vacant-lot gardens designed to help people grow their own food, and Boston had begun school gardens to introduce children to nature and practical skills.
BCE buyout banks on shifting landscape
The question that's being asked is why take the enormous risks that come with a $32-billion leveraged buyout of an out-of-favour phone company for what appear to be relatively puny returns? Private equity buyers target 20-per-cent-plus annual winnings, while analysts running the numbers on BCE say it yields 12 per cent a year. Potential buyers -- the CPP Investment Board and its allies and rival consortiums that include one led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan -- aren't sharing their assumptions, as this is a game for the highest of stakes. But behind the scenes, a fascinating piece of regulatory arbitrage is playing out. First off, pension fund owners would be happy to take over Bell Canada, stanch the customer bleed to cable, and bank 12-per-cent returns.
Review: Tale of two trucks
I'm not really much of a truck guy. I don't use one for work, I don't have a boat or trailer to haul, and I wouldn't buy one as my regular car. Oh, yes, like many people, I wish I had one stashed somewhere in a garage so I could use it for the truck things that always seem to crop up, things like moving or gardening or home improvement. And, in fact, I have discussed with some of my neighbors - only semi-seriously - that we should pool our funds and buy a truck to share. But seriously, I know a few people who prefer driving a truck to a car; I'm just not one of them. Every now and then, though, I get a truck or two in my job as an auto reviewer, but not as many as some of the other reviewers since my column is called " Executive Wheels." Someone once told me, however, that deep down inside all guys have a little " truck person" in them, and there was a time in my life when I thought having a pickup would be the end-all, be-all.
Once overshadowed, Golden Bears making waves in DIII landscape (IL)
Amid disappointing seasons from many of the region's lacrosse powerhouses, the Western New England College Golden Bears have been the area's highlight program so far this spring. Ranked fifth in the Inside Lacrosse's DIII rankings, the Golden Bears had another successful last week by upending previously undefeated No. 3 Tufts by a score of 9-7 and improving their own unbeaten mark to 8-0. They have since extended that mark to 9-0 with a win over Clark University on Wednesday night. So far this season (and for perhaps the duration of his four years at WNEC), one of the players most integral to the Golden Bears' run has been senior All-American attackman Adam Cherry. Cherry, the returning Pilgrim League Player of the Year and second Golden Bear ever to receive All-American honors, recently became Western New England's all-time scoring leader by netting his 227th point in a recent win against Eastern Connecticut. With a team-high 69 points in 2006 (on 49 goals and 20 assists), Cherry has shown an improved ability to see the field this season and has become more of a playmaker than a simple, talented goal-scorer.
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