SATXBlog Crossword Puzzle 2-"Papa's Gems"
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Papa's Gems' Crossword Puzzle #2 by Myles Mellor
Across1. Young salmon 6. Kisser 10. Droops 14. Lowest point 15. ___ believer 16. Small gull 17. 1952 novel, with The 20. Split 21. Rowboat adjunct 22. Not too brainy 25. ___ Rebellion of 1857-59 26. Twisted 30. Hoodlum 32. Fuse 35. Sniff out 41. Author of 17 and 63 Across 43. Meager 44. Broad view 45. Square 47. Che or gen followers 48. Item with a ladder 53. Pastoral poems (var.) 56. Wheels for mom 58. Lest 63. 1929 novel 66. Cost of living? 67. Ashtabula's lake 68. Exhaust 69. Deuce topper 70. Turned blue, maybe 71. Interesting |
Down1. Prig 2. French Sudan, today 3. Betting data 4. Beer garnish 5. ___ housing 6. "Harper Valley ___" 7. Ashes holder 8. Logic game 9. "La Scala di ___" (Rossini opera) 10. Inscribed stone 11. Greek moralist 12. Artist, with El 13. Sinuous 18. ___ degree 19. "48___" 23. Yen 24. Sang like a canary 26. Scores high 27. Do the trick 28. Doctor Who villainess, with The 29. Big bang matter 31. Beam 33. Sixth sense 34. Peeper problem 36. "Walking on Thin Ice" singer 37. Shrek, e.g. 38. Holiday opener 39. Weak 40. Young falcon 42. Lots 46. Napa Valley area 48. Sting 49. Certain inmate 50. Empty 51. Kind of pool 52. "Give It To You" rapper 54. Illuminated 55. Muzzle 57. Blown away 59. Hombre's home 60. "Iliad" warrior 61. Blue books? 62. See 64. Go horizontal 65. Directed |
Click for the Answer to Today's Crosswords Puzzle #2. | Press Here to PRINT
But if I knew then what I know now about the topsoil in the yard around my 
This is what I have finished up with in most of those places where I have plants growing, by the way – doing it at the very start would have saved a lot of time and trouble. The prevailing topsoil around my neighborhood is clay – splendid for making adobe bricks from. It’s dense, heavy and soggy when wet, and as dense as a conblock brick when dried out. With a pick and a shovel you can plant things in it – but getting them to thrive and grow is another thing entirely.
In any event, one either has to amend the soil considerably – or just say the heck with it and plant things in pots. Growing things in pots has the advantage of being able to move them around, to arrange for best effect – rather like trying out various bits of furniture inside the house.
Anyway, last summer’s project to revive the garden is continuing – it’s not at all too early to begin planting a vegetable garden. We went out to the San Antonio home of 
This is just a start; we have three huge grow-boxes on hand, and will use them for more vegetables, later in the spring. I finally took a close look at them, for the first time that my daughter brought them home. Now we know why they were in the trash – someone had drilled drain holes along the bottom, which I suspect pretty much destroyed their usefulness. Ah well, this is what duct-tape and plastic cement were invented for. 
Eventually, this area will be wall to wall vegetables, just as the frame for the topsy-turvys will be. That’s how I’ll be spending the next couple of weekends – what about you?
Well actually, MAARs doesn't want pizza – they actually want you to want their pizza. The 
It's right around the corner from where we live, in a building at the end of humongous strip mall at the corner of O'Conner and Nacogdoches which has been a restaurant of some sort for as long as we have been living here. When we first moved it, it was Salsalito, but they soon moved across the street and up a block or two into splendid new digs of their own, then it was something else, and then Pizza Bella, and – hopefully finally - it has become a family pizza place. Family in both senses of the word; family run, and catering to families ... of which on a recent Saturday afternoon there were a good many. There was even a birthday party going on in the corner ... and on Tuesdays they have a karaoke night. When we go past in the evening, the joint seems to be jumping, every night. Which is all to the good; too many restaurants simply can't make it past the three-year mark, and it is not a good sign for a location when eateries open and close with the regularity of clams at high and low tide. There was a time when we began to think the building on Nacodoches which now houses the Checkers Diner was cursed, as nothing until they took it over seemed to last for long there.
The menu at 
You simply can't miss the building, driving up Nacogdoches between O'Connor and Judson. The outside – and the inside as well – is adorned with lots of murals in a cheerfully colorful UFO and space-alien motif, although I did wonder why a multi-tentacled space critter would have a belly-button. Eh – maybe it's where he put the marinara sauce when he wanted to eat Italian cheese breadsticks in bed.
As the backyard of my 
The other place is from the outer edge of the mulberry tree – and most of the limbs of it are too far from the ground to suspend much from. We wrote off using that space until we saw something in the back yard of one of our neighbors – a long 2x4 beam hung by chains from a pair of stout limbs, with a row of hooks set into the bottom surface, and a number of topsy-turvies. A light went on – why didn’t we do that? And better yet – make it a double-decker, with a second beam suspended below the first!
As soon as we could afford it, we hurried off to Lowe’s for the necessary materials: one 14’ 2x4, which they very kindly cut into equal 7’ lengths, the hardware, two lengths of vinyl tubing, and four lengths of chain – also cut to length for us. I guesstimated that 2 lengths of 4’ chain and 2 of 5’ would be sufficient to hang our vertical 
The only tools needed were a drill and a length of kitchen string. It went together in about twenty minutes. I drilled a hole about six inches from the end of each beam, and two more in what would be the top beam about eighteen inches in. The eye-bolts for the inner set of holes in the top beam went in with the eye up, and those in the outer went in, eye-down. Then I drilled a series of smaller, starter-holes on the lower side of each beam for the screw-hooks, and my daughter brought around the ladder.
The string? That was to attach to the end of the longer length of chain, and draw it through the length of tubing, to pad the chain where it went over the tree limb. If I was old-school thrifty like my father and grandfather, I could have used a length of old garden hose for this. So we looped the chains over two adjacent limbs, secured the end of the chain to itself with the quick-links. Then we attached the top beam eye-bolts to the chain with s-hooks, and then used the shorter chains to attach the lower beam. All the extra lengths of chain made it possible to adjust it all to hang level. The empty topsy-turvy’s fit perfectly, although I think we will have to do some adjustment, once we plant them with tomatoes for the new season. It will make a hanging divider of plants, once spring comes. The only downside, as far as we can see is that in a high wind, we’ll need hard-hats to venture out there.