(no subject)
Back in the day, I once said that Kinslayers don't jump line like assholes. When I said that, in mid-2003, it was true. It was especially true when I was behind the wheel - when I know that I'm going to have to be in a particular lane, I get in that lane and then follow it, even if there is a lot of traffic. If the traffic is heavy and the line is moving slowly, then so be it.
Well, that was true. It's not anymore. I have become a linejumper.
As some of you know, I have moved. I still work on the east side of Louisville but now I live on the south side. This has made my commute somewhat longer, and the most efficient way to get home is to take the Watterson Expressway west to I-65, and then hit 65 going south.
If you want to follow along, click this link and then scroll the map a little south and east to find the Watterson-65 interchange. Zoom in a bit - you're not really appreciating the confusion of this interchange until you're at least 2 clicks shy of completely zoomed in.
The trouble lies in that cloverleaf in the northwestern corner of the interchange - that is the lane that takes you from westbound Watterson to southbound 65. It carries a single lane of traffic and is posted at 20 mph. It's such a ridiculously sharp curve that there are rumble strips leading up to it to warn you that you need to not be going the 55 mph of the roads that you're leaving and joining. Oh, no. Both the Watterson and I-65 are 55 mph zones, but you must slow to 20 to actually make the transition.
Okay, so any car could take that curve going 35-ish, but that's still a significant slowdown, and there are a lot of semis that take that curve going about 15 lest they roll.
To make things even more interesting, scroll east a little bit along the Watterson until you find Poplar Level Road. Google maps doesn't make this clear unless you look at the satellite view, but the Poplar Level on-ramp does not merge with the Watterson. Instead, the two lanes of the on-ramp merge into one, and that one lane becomes the new right-hand lane of the Watterson for about half a mile. Then it exits the Watterson and joins I-65 northbound.
Traffic from Poplar Level onto westbound Watterson is quite heavy at rush hour, and most of the traffic coming off Poplar Level wants to actually continue west on the Watterson. And so almost all of those cars must get out of that lane in the space of about 1/2 mile and get onto the Watterson proper. Meanwhile, the old right-hand lane of the Watterson (now one lane over) is where you need to be in order to hit that 20 mph ramp that leads to southbound I-65.
There is therefore a great deal of churn in that half-mile stretch, as cars coming off Poplar Level try to get out of that right-hand lane. They certainly don't want to stay in that second-to-the-right lane, though, as it moves very slowly, but the passage of these cars through that lane of already-slow traffic only slows it down further.
The upshot is that the traffic back-up starts all the way up under the overpass where Poplar Level crosses the Watterson. That's where traffic becomes stop-and-go in the (at that point) far-right lane. And that's the lane you ultimately need to be in a mile further ahead in order to get to southbound I-65.
The first couple of times I did this commute, I totally got into that lane as soon as I saw the slow-down happening. I waited my turn, creeping forward, taking 10 or 15 minutes to make it down a mile-long stretch, and fuming as cars would zoom up from behind me, not waiting their turn but jumping line ahead of me and slowing my lane down even further. I tried to keep them from doing it by hugging the bumper of the car in front of me, but they would simply skip me and find another spot to steal farther ahead.
No more! Now I am one of the linejumpers. I stay in the middle lane of traffic until I get past the worst of the on-ramp churn, and then I find a space between vehicles and scoot over. It never fails that such a space exists somewhere in that line of traffic, closer to the place where that lane splits from the Watterson toward the 20 mph ramp. I thus spare myself a considerable wait and a lot of gas and aggravation.
The worst part is that I don't even feel guilty for changing my ways and selfishly prioritizing myself over the people who waited patiently in line. Like many systems, this is a system in which those who follow the rules are penalized, and those who cheat the system are the only winners. I think about it almost every time I do it, but I have yet to experience guilt. The people who actually wait their turn are either from out of town (and therefore unfamiliar with this interchange) or else they are suckers. I am not willing to be taken advantage of by linejumpers - I have become a linejumper myself, instead.
I'm not sure what this says about me.
And now, for some plants!
Here is the Washington navel orange, tied to the lamp! The back yard here is a lot more windy than my balcony was, and every time a stiff wind would come up we'd find my orange trees knocked over.
And here is the navel orange that's been growing on this tree since last November. There was a second one almost this size, but it fell off the tree last week and I ate it. Yes, I ate it green, and it was delicious. I cut this one off the tree today - That four-inch stretch of brown branch next to the lemon is dead sap-oozing horror.
I don't know what that lesion was. It was brown and oozing sap. I noticed it on Sunday, and it had grown an inch up the branch between Sunday and today. D: That stretch of brown branch was totally dead, and the green leaves under it were in the process of drying up and falling off. Since it was clearly spreading and I don't know wtf it was, I cut the branch off about 6 inches above the lesion. This meant cutting the orange off, too. This saddens me, as this was the only orange I had left from last year and I wanted it to get ripe and orange and lovely. I also totally lost most of a really nice branch that was bending downward.
The orange is in the fridge right now. Maybe it's ripe enough to turn at least a little orange. I doubt it, though. The other one didn't. That other one sure tasted ripe, so I dunno. I'm going to try to eat this one in a couple of days regardless and we'll see how it tastes.
After cutting the tree, I cleaned my pruning shears in bleach. I don't know if it's a bacterial infection, a fungus, or some kind of bizarre mechanical injury, but irregardless I don't want it to spread to the next branch I trim.
Here's the Minneola tangelo. Sadly, it has no fruit on it this year, either. I'm not sure what to blame for this. Maybe it was the wind in the back of the truck as we moved it over to the new place. Who knows. It looks almost matted, with all its nice new growth piled up in one spot. My pruning plans for it in the spring were thwarted a bit when some of the branches were broken during the move.
It's tied to the stakes a bit lower now than it was before. I'm going to try to wean it off the stakes in the next 2-3 years. I'm tired of staking this tree.
The tangelo, too, has to be tied to something solid to keep it from blowing over in the wind. It's tied to the back of the porch bench, which is wrought iron and very heavy.
The Eureka lemon is doing really well, although it has no fruit. I am very happy with how well this tree has grown this year.
Even though it looks a bit more peaked, the Meyer lemon is doing really well this year, too.
In both of these pictures, you can see how I've propped the pots up on top of paving bricks to keep them off the ground. This improves drainage and keeps the pots from staining the porch. Each lemon tree is atop three paving bricks, while each orange tree is atop four. This probably contributes to the blow-over-ability of the oranges.
I have no idea what this tree is. If you can identify it, please leave me a comment. We'd all like to know. I personally think it's highly unattractive, but my mom for some reason doesn't want to get rid of it.
When we first moved in, all these spindly branches fell in a mop down to the ground, and there was a second tree growing up the middle of this one. When I went under the tree to investigate this second tree, however, I discovered that this shrubby looking tree is a graft, and what had looked like a completely different tree was actually a bunch of ambitious suckers growing off the rootstock.
I cut all the suckers, and trimmed the tree some, but my mom still wasn't happy and gave it a more severe cut with a hedge trimmer, resulting in what you see here.
This, however, is my garden corner. The tree in the far back is a weeping Atlantic cedar. The small one in front is a weeping Japanese maple, and the little green shrub beside the maple is my rosemary.
This stuff is the Cypress vines. They didn't grow as well as I'd hoped ... only 4 or 5 vines grew, and they were less eager to grow up the fence as I'd anticipated. I propped up this trellis for them just to give them something to grab, and you can see that they are almost totally at a loss after they reached the top. A couple of the vines found their way through the slats in the fence and then back again, which bothers me because there is a neighbor lady over there who may not be as hip to Cypress vines as I am. This could also conceivable damage the fence.
Next year, I am going to check with my dad to see if I can pound some nails into the fence to give the vines something to grab. If that isn't kosher with him, then I will buy a better, more attractive trellis for them. I really like the fluffy, ferny look of the vines, and they are supposed to put out some pretty red flowers late in the year. If they do, I'll take more pictures then.
I planted Cypress vine seeds all along the fence, but most of the ones that sprouted, as you can see, were the ones that somehow ended up in the sedum. My hope is for this sedum to take over the corner and carpet the ground to choke out weeds. I think I should have bought more than one patch, tho. Next year I will buy a few more patches to get it jumpstarted.
This is a couple of daylilies. The picture on the package said they'd be a pale pink, but they ended up being a dark maroon instead. It's a good thing I like maroon daylilies. You can also see here the only Cypress vine that sprouted aside from the ones in the sedum. I gave it a stake to climb and it got lost once it reached the top.
The weeping maple. The color is kind of random right now - it was a deep crimson in the spring, but it's lightened up some over the summer. That wooden wash basin kitschy thing was my grandma's, and that's the only reason it hasn't gone in the trash. I frankly don't know what to do with it, so it ended up in the garden.
That low-growing clover looks pretty nice right now, but it will soon get lanky and unattractive if I don't pull it up. The hope is for the sedum to choke all that out - sedum never gets very tall.
The weeping portion of this weeping maple is a graft. I discovered this sucker growing below the graft line as I was taking pictures.
This is how the leaves are supposed to be shaped - this is the grafted portion. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, though. I kind of like the look of the rootstock, but that isn't why I bought this particular tree. I suppose I'll cut the sucker in the next couple of days, but it makes me unhappy that I can't have both.
I hate these things. When I took over this corner, these had been planted in a line along the bricks to form a sort of verge. I think they look utterly tacky and dug them up, but my mom didn't want me to throw them away, so I planted them at the corners of my corner. There is one clump of 5 plants, here, and a second clump at the other corner of 3 plants.
Only the cedar and these froofy things were here when I started. All the other plants were added by me. Other than the weeds, that is.
The corner was full of weeds like this when I started this project, and you can see that I'm not yet finished pulling them. These weeds continue to exist, however, because this is where that big ol' fast-moving spider of EVIL and DEATH attacked me last week - if you were in the Church the evening that happened, you know the one I'm talking about.
I think I got him once with the spray poison, so I'm hoping he's dead. I keep planning to go back in there and check for his webs but I keep putting it off because he's at least three inches wide if you count the legs and fast as hell.
This is what the view looks like from the porch bench. With most of the weeds gone and a couple of plants added, I think my corner looks pretty nice.
And, that's all I have.
Well, that was true. It's not anymore. I have become a linejumper.
As some of you know, I have moved. I still work on the east side of Louisville but now I live on the south side. This has made my commute somewhat longer, and the most efficient way to get home is to take the Watterson Expressway west to I-65, and then hit 65 going south.
If you want to follow along, click this link and then scroll the map a little south and east to find the Watterson-65 interchange. Zoom in a bit - you're not really appreciating the confusion of this interchange until you're at least 2 clicks shy of completely zoomed in.
The trouble lies in that cloverleaf in the northwestern corner of the interchange - that is the lane that takes you from westbound Watterson to southbound 65. It carries a single lane of traffic and is posted at 20 mph. It's such a ridiculously sharp curve that there are rumble strips leading up to it to warn you that you need to not be going the 55 mph of the roads that you're leaving and joining. Oh, no. Both the Watterson and I-65 are 55 mph zones, but you must slow to 20 to actually make the transition.
Okay, so any car could take that curve going 35-ish, but that's still a significant slowdown, and there are a lot of semis that take that curve going about 15 lest they roll.
To make things even more interesting, scroll east a little bit along the Watterson until you find Poplar Level Road. Google maps doesn't make this clear unless you look at the satellite view, but the Poplar Level on-ramp does not merge with the Watterson. Instead, the two lanes of the on-ramp merge into one, and that one lane becomes the new right-hand lane of the Watterson for about half a mile. Then it exits the Watterson and joins I-65 northbound.
Traffic from Poplar Level onto westbound Watterson is quite heavy at rush hour, and most of the traffic coming off Poplar Level wants to actually continue west on the Watterson. And so almost all of those cars must get out of that lane in the space of about 1/2 mile and get onto the Watterson proper. Meanwhile, the old right-hand lane of the Watterson (now one lane over) is where you need to be in order to hit that 20 mph ramp that leads to southbound I-65.
There is therefore a great deal of churn in that half-mile stretch, as cars coming off Poplar Level try to get out of that right-hand lane. They certainly don't want to stay in that second-to-the-right lane, though, as it moves very slowly, but the passage of these cars through that lane of already-slow traffic only slows it down further.
The upshot is that the traffic back-up starts all the way up under the overpass where Poplar Level crosses the Watterson. That's where traffic becomes stop-and-go in the (at that point) far-right lane. And that's the lane you ultimately need to be in a mile further ahead in order to get to southbound I-65.
The first couple of times I did this commute, I totally got into that lane as soon as I saw the slow-down happening. I waited my turn, creeping forward, taking 10 or 15 minutes to make it down a mile-long stretch, and fuming as cars would zoom up from behind me, not waiting their turn but jumping line ahead of me and slowing my lane down even further. I tried to keep them from doing it by hugging the bumper of the car in front of me, but they would simply skip me and find another spot to steal farther ahead.
No more! Now I am one of the linejumpers. I stay in the middle lane of traffic until I get past the worst of the on-ramp churn, and then I find a space between vehicles and scoot over. It never fails that such a space exists somewhere in that line of traffic, closer to the place where that lane splits from the Watterson toward the 20 mph ramp. I thus spare myself a considerable wait and a lot of gas and aggravation.
The worst part is that I don't even feel guilty for changing my ways and selfishly prioritizing myself over the people who waited patiently in line. Like many systems, this is a system in which those who follow the rules are penalized, and those who cheat the system are the only winners. I think about it almost every time I do it, but I have yet to experience guilt. The people who actually wait their turn are either from out of town (and therefore unfamiliar with this interchange) or else they are suckers. I am not willing to be taken advantage of by linejumpers - I have become a linejumper myself, instead.
I'm not sure what this says about me.
And now, for some plants!
Here is the Washington navel orange, tied to the lamp! The back yard here is a lot more windy than my balcony was, and every time a stiff wind would come up we'd find my orange trees knocked over.
And here is the navel orange that's been growing on this tree since last November. There was a second one almost this size, but it fell off the tree last week and I ate it. Yes, I ate it green, and it was delicious. I cut this one off the tree today - That four-inch stretch of brown branch next to the lemon is dead sap-oozing horror.
I don't know what that lesion was. It was brown and oozing sap. I noticed it on Sunday, and it had grown an inch up the branch between Sunday and today. D: That stretch of brown branch was totally dead, and the green leaves under it were in the process of drying up and falling off. Since it was clearly spreading and I don't know wtf it was, I cut the branch off about 6 inches above the lesion. This meant cutting the orange off, too. This saddens me, as this was the only orange I had left from last year and I wanted it to get ripe and orange and lovely. I also totally lost most of a really nice branch that was bending downward.
The orange is in the fridge right now. Maybe it's ripe enough to turn at least a little orange. I doubt it, though. The other one didn't. That other one sure tasted ripe, so I dunno. I'm going to try to eat this one in a couple of days regardless and we'll see how it tastes.
After cutting the tree, I cleaned my pruning shears in bleach. I don't know if it's a bacterial infection, a fungus, or some kind of bizarre mechanical injury, but irregardless I don't want it to spread to the next branch I trim.
Here's the Minneola tangelo. Sadly, it has no fruit on it this year, either. I'm not sure what to blame for this. Maybe it was the wind in the back of the truck as we moved it over to the new place. Who knows. It looks almost matted, with all its nice new growth piled up in one spot. My pruning plans for it in the spring were thwarted a bit when some of the branches were broken during the move.
It's tied to the stakes a bit lower now than it was before. I'm going to try to wean it off the stakes in the next 2-3 years. I'm tired of staking this tree.
The tangelo, too, has to be tied to something solid to keep it from blowing over in the wind. It's tied to the back of the porch bench, which is wrought iron and very heavy.
The Eureka lemon is doing really well, although it has no fruit. I am very happy with how well this tree has grown this year.
Even though it looks a bit more peaked, the Meyer lemon is doing really well this year, too.
In both of these pictures, you can see how I've propped the pots up on top of paving bricks to keep them off the ground. This improves drainage and keeps the pots from staining the porch. Each lemon tree is atop three paving bricks, while each orange tree is atop four. This probably contributes to the blow-over-ability of the oranges.
I have no idea what this tree is. If you can identify it, please leave me a comment. We'd all like to know. I personally think it's highly unattractive, but my mom for some reason doesn't want to get rid of it.
When we first moved in, all these spindly branches fell in a mop down to the ground, and there was a second tree growing up the middle of this one. When I went under the tree to investigate this second tree, however, I discovered that this shrubby looking tree is a graft, and what had looked like a completely different tree was actually a bunch of ambitious suckers growing off the rootstock.
I cut all the suckers, and trimmed the tree some, but my mom still wasn't happy and gave it a more severe cut with a hedge trimmer, resulting in what you see here.
This, however, is my garden corner. The tree in the far back is a weeping Atlantic cedar. The small one in front is a weeping Japanese maple, and the little green shrub beside the maple is my rosemary.
This stuff is the Cypress vines. They didn't grow as well as I'd hoped ... only 4 or 5 vines grew, and they were less eager to grow up the fence as I'd anticipated. I propped up this trellis for them just to give them something to grab, and you can see that they are almost totally at a loss after they reached the top. A couple of the vines found their way through the slats in the fence and then back again, which bothers me because there is a neighbor lady over there who may not be as hip to Cypress vines as I am. This could also conceivable damage the fence.
Next year, I am going to check with my dad to see if I can pound some nails into the fence to give the vines something to grab. If that isn't kosher with him, then I will buy a better, more attractive trellis for them. I really like the fluffy, ferny look of the vines, and they are supposed to put out some pretty red flowers late in the year. If they do, I'll take more pictures then.
I planted Cypress vine seeds all along the fence, but most of the ones that sprouted, as you can see, were the ones that somehow ended up in the sedum. My hope is for this sedum to take over the corner and carpet the ground to choke out weeds. I think I should have bought more than one patch, tho. Next year I will buy a few more patches to get it jumpstarted.
This is a couple of daylilies. The picture on the package said they'd be a pale pink, but they ended up being a dark maroon instead. It's a good thing I like maroon daylilies. You can also see here the only Cypress vine that sprouted aside from the ones in the sedum. I gave it a stake to climb and it got lost once it reached the top.
The weeping maple. The color is kind of random right now - it was a deep crimson in the spring, but it's lightened up some over the summer. That wooden wash basin kitschy thing was my grandma's, and that's the only reason it hasn't gone in the trash. I frankly don't know what to do with it, so it ended up in the garden.
That low-growing clover looks pretty nice right now, but it will soon get lanky and unattractive if I don't pull it up. The hope is for the sedum to choke all that out - sedum never gets very tall.
The weeping portion of this weeping maple is a graft. I discovered this sucker growing below the graft line as I was taking pictures.
This is how the leaves are supposed to be shaped - this is the grafted portion. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, though. I kind of like the look of the rootstock, but that isn't why I bought this particular tree. I suppose I'll cut the sucker in the next couple of days, but it makes me unhappy that I can't have both.
I hate these things. When I took over this corner, these had been planted in a line along the bricks to form a sort of verge. I think they look utterly tacky and dug them up, but my mom didn't want me to throw them away, so I planted them at the corners of my corner. There is one clump of 5 plants, here, and a second clump at the other corner of 3 plants.
Only the cedar and these froofy things were here when I started. All the other plants were added by me. Other than the weeds, that is.
The corner was full of weeds like this when I started this project, and you can see that I'm not yet finished pulling them. These weeds continue to exist, however, because this is where that big ol' fast-moving spider of EVIL and DEATH attacked me last week - if you were in the Church the evening that happened, you know the one I'm talking about.
I think I got him once with the spray poison, so I'm hoping he's dead. I keep planning to go back in there and check for his webs but I keep putting it off because he's at least three inches wide if you count the legs and fast as hell.
This is what the view looks like from the porch bench. With most of the weeds gone and a couple of plants added, I think my corner looks pretty nice.
And, that's all I have.