String Bean Theory: A Problem Solved

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One of the great things about taking up blogging these past 15 months or so is the wonderful people that I have met, few of whom I get to talk to much, but whose thoughts I am privy to almost daily.

Take Erin, for example, the lady engineer who raises and home schools children and spouse and applies her advanced degree from Ohio State U to the everydayness of life here on the prairie in her blog, bearing blog.

This morning I placed a polyethylene bag full of fresh string beans on the kitchen counter in front of me. I set a metal colander at my right hand. I tore open the bag of beans. With my left hand I picked up one bean and examined it briefly, turning it in my two hands until my left (dominant) hand grasped the stem end. I pinched the bean just below the stem, between my index fingernail and the pad of my thumb; my left hand then held an amputated green-bean stem and my right hand held the long end of the bean. I dropped the stem onto the counter and grasped the bean again, holding both ends, then broke it in half. I passed the half held in my left hand to my right hand and with my right hand dropped both beans into the colander. I picked up another bean. The piles of stems to the left and beans to the right grew slowly. You must read the rest here!