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First, the big news. BP's undersea oil gusher appears to be stopped, at least temporarily. I say "appears" because a pressurized reservoir of fluids is a dynamic system, and any time you strengthen the weak point in a dynamic system (by, for instance, plugging a hole), you create another weak point at another location. Unless the complete envelope (particularly the area around the borehole) is able to contain the considerable pressures, another leak is likely. Still, as far as it goes, this seems to be good news.
Next, the smaller (unless it's the bigger) story. Sweet corn is now in season around Backboro -- 2 to 3 weeks early. In the short term, there's nothing not to like. A warm spring, a good amount of sunlight, an adequate amount of rain, everyone's (or nearly everyone's) crop came in early. With luck, the season will last through its traditional end date, and we'll just get an additional 15-20 dinners featuring corn on the cob. What might make this the bigger of the two stories is if it portends a general shift to an earlier (potentially longer) growing season here in the northeast. Not that I have any thoughts about what could possible cause such a shift, you understand, but I can't remember local corn ever being available this early before.
