Bogieblog

Tranquil Saturday

We spent a good amount of time on yard work today. With the temps in the 70's, lots of sun, and windy conditions keeping the bugs at bay, it was perfect weather for outdoor activities.

WS sucked up dandilion heads with the leaf sucker, then mowed. I weeded flower gardens and planted a couple of potted plants into permanent locations. Unfortunately our winter was so mild that it seems to have killed a few established plantes. i lost two of three sections of lavender and the Sheila's Perfume rose is looking to be on the ropes. All of the plants are next to the foundation at the front of the house. I usually shovel a large pile of snow on all the foundation plantings to protect them from the cold and wind. This year, aside from a couple of large snows, we didn't have snow to pile up on the plants. what snow I was able to heap up, was soon melted from the warm of the house.

The rose I have left in place, as it is entirely possible it could recover (one live cane isn't a big foundation to build upon though). The lavender has been severely cut back, but also left in place in case it decides to come back from the roots (unlikely since these are "evergreen" plants).

I planted two containers of oregano, which is supposed to be hardy to zone 4. the two plants of oregano I planted last year didn't survive, but I am hopefull that planting early will help these plants. I also planted several Gay Feathers which I had started from seed several years ago. After languishing in small pots for a couple of years, I decided that I better take pity on them and get them someplace they can grow. Hopefully I haven't stunted their growth so much that they refuse to do anything.

After our hard work in the yard, we decided to go down to the range. We took the new Hi Point carbine and WS's .22 rifle. Also took the handguns for a little plinking. The Hi Point was everything we remembered from shooting one in Kansas. Low recoil and lots of fun. several other groups were at the range and it looked like they were having as much fun as we were.

Tomorrow WS has to work tomorrow, so I'm glad we had time to get a little stress relief and fun in!

Rain, Rain, Come to Play

Heard on the news yesterday that in 47 days, we have had lless than .5" of rain. Normally we would have a bit over 5". Add that to the non-snowy winter and we are just a bit low on the moisture content of the soil.

At work the other day, there was a bit of excitement as a passing train threw some sparks and set the brush on fire. The fire department responded and all was put out before it hit any of the business buildings on either side of the tracks. The fire was to the side, and in between our two buildings (which has two parking lots and a break of trees/grass between), almost to the edge of the parking lot. The first picture is taken from my building, looking toward the corner of the other building.

The last picture is taken from the tree/grass section between the buildings and toward the second building that we occupy. The fine firefighters of Nashua put it out in short order.

We are finally supposed to get some decent rain. Starting Saturday late afternoon, we should get a bit of rain, but then on Monday, we will probably get walloped. They are forecasting a Nor'easter, which may dump as much as 5" of rain in some spots. Hopefully the top soil gets a decent soaking from the first rains before the monsoon hits. If we can get the soil used to soaking up water, it will be able to handle a lot more than if the top layer is bone dry; then it will just shed the water and massive flooding will occur.

At least the phlox will finally have a reason to bloom - right now only a few plants have bothered when usually I have a whole carpet of phlox blooms in front of the fence. Some of the daffodils are blooming, but even they don't seem too enthusiastic. Maybe the next 3-4 days will change all that.

Recent Doings

Friday when I got home from work, Harry was there. What a nice surprise! He and Heather moved to Indiana several years ago, and we get to see them only rarely (when they get up here). He had come to see his girls, so figured he would drop in. We took him to dinner and had a great time catching up. We are hoping to go see them sometime this summer.

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I spent most of yesterday helping WS at work. He had a job he had to go to in MA in which he needed a safety watch. I got volunteered. Got a little reading done, but not much else for the day.

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WS has spent most of the last several weekends working on BIL's bike to get it ready for sale. He is finally done after putting in massive time cleaning, buffing, polishing and affecting minor repairs (new battery etc.). He just came in 10 minutes ago saying he was done for good. Soon we will be selling it, but I wanted to share a few photos first.

Glad he has a wood stove in the shed - it has snowed most of today (lightly and it all blew into the woods), so he was able to keep his hands warm enough while working with the polishes.

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We haven't had very good weather; I still haven't ridden the bike because of the cold, windy weather. Next week the mornings are supposed to be in the 20's, and we are expecting rain every day, so no riding then either. Hopefully we get a decent rain out of it - we really need it.

Trigger Finger

We just finished up a pretty much record breaking week in NH. Most days, the high temp records were broken, if not shattered. Great riding weather, Mondya thru Thursday, by anyone's definition (Friday it only got to about 70, so a bit cool for the shorts riding type).

Us, our bikes are still in storage. We are supposed to pick up mine today. Great - it will be 50, and possibly rainy. Then, next week will see lows in the 20's (19 for one morning) and highs in the 40's - not riding weather. However, that doesn't really matter - I wouldn't get to ride even if the temps were the same as this week. In fact, I most likely won't ride my bike home today - WS will be doing the honors.

I've been fighting a case of Trigger Finger, in my left hand middle finger since early January. It not only hurts, it has severely limited my range of motion, made it impossible for me to totally straighten OR bend my finger, and sometimes the pain keeps me up at night (expecially when it "locks" and I have to use the other hand to get the finger to open up). It finally got so bad that I went to see the doc on Tuesday, and saw a hand orthopedic yesterday. Got a shot of cortisone at the orhopedic's, which is usuually a successful treatment (and a shot, in the palm of the hand, is NOT, unpainful - and no, they didn't give a topical numbing agent).

Unfortunately, the shot hasn't seemed to make any differenced, except when my fingers were numb, and I couldn't move them at all yesterday afternoon. Unless it kicks in at some later date, I will be looking at surgery.

My whole left hand is shot, from the elbow on down. Maybe they can just give me a bionic arm and I'll be all set

Short Takes For March

After a record warm day, I put out the hummingbird feeder. While watching the news, they had a picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird at a feederin NH, so I decided that I better put mine out. I have never put it out this early; usually toward the end of April.

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Spent the day repotting house plants. Will have pictures next week.

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Had 3 evenings last week that we didn't start the woodstove. Also, didn't start it until evening last night, and may not start it tonight.

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Attended the town meeting yesterday from 9 AM until 2:30 PM. We approved a new ambulance, and the submitted town budget (after adding 1k for maintenence for the police cruiser to cover issues that arose a couple of weeks ago). The selectmen did a great job keeping the budget fairly flat, so we didn't find much to complain about. We did have a long debate on a couple of items added by petition; one of which passed, and one that didn't. All in all, a typical town meeting for Deering.

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It will be really nice this coming week, temperature wise. Unfortunately it is so muddy that there is no sense in us getting the bikes out of storage. Just have to wait it out for a while more.

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WS did bring BILs bike down from the storage unit out back. He thought the tire was flat the mud bogged it down so much. But, everything was fine, so he spent the afternoon washing it and starting cleaning up the rims. Once it is all cleaned up, we will be putting it up for sale.

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The laptop has suddenly (as of this typing) started having trouble with the space bar. So will close out this post, shut down and see if I can clean it out.

Hope everyone had as nice a weekend as we did!

Flowers for WS

I got lilies while at the grocery store. They smell so good. There is no way to be in a bad mood with lilies around - they just smell happy!

Posted from my Android phone.

Snow Storm Aftermath

Thursday morning I got up, headed upstairs to feed the dogs and was greeted by a burning electrical smell. Fortunately, it didn't take a genious to figure out where it was coming from as the refrigerator was making a nasty whining sound. I unplugged it, scooted it out from against the wall, and let it sit to cool off.

After feeding the dogs, letting them out, getting dressed, and letting the dogs in, I measured the snow I was about to shovel; 10". After shoveling for almost an hour and a half, I had the deck, path to the dog pen, path from the door to both vehicles, and path to the oil tank cleared. I also had cleared off both vehicles, and shoveled that snow off to the side also.

WS had worked late the evening before trying to get the snowblower put back together. He didn't have the new parts yet, but figured he could get it to work well enough to do the burms and and the driveway. He was just coming in as I went to bed, so didn't get a chance to ask him how it went (I didn't hear him start it), so I figured he couldn't get it together and working since he wasn't out snow blowing.

I figured I could get the Jeep to blow thru the berm at the end of the driveway (it is downhill after all), so no big deal. When I got into the house, there was WS cleaning all the doghair out from around the motor/compressor of the fridge. That was going to be my next project, but he beat me to it. So, I waited for him to finish up and plug it in. Blessedly, it started up without too much noise, and sounded like it would be okay. So, I didn't have to empty the fridge/freezer before going to work - great.

Thursday night I got home and WS was snow blowing. I measured the snow on the deck and found we had gotten another 6.5" of snow - and it was still snowing. I shoveled for an hour or so, re-clearing what I had cleared thaat morning (after starting laundry and stoking up the woodstove). There was another 1/2-3/4" of snow on the deck at that point.

Shortly after I had finished up laundry (folding dry stuff and hanging wet stuff), I heard WS pulling the snowblower into the shed. It was hard to miss as it was making horrible sounds. He got both berms taken car of and about 1/3 of the driveway cleared before it just wouldn't do any more work (he figures he bent the shaft - which is one of the parts he is waiting on).

Friday, WS came home after work and put the blade on the 4-wheeler, and plowed out the rest of the driveway - he was in the middle of it when I got home. I didn't bother shoveling the 2-3" of snow that we had gotten as the forcast was for sleet and rain, and I wanted the snow on the ground to soak it up. That way, paths wouldn't turn into an instant sheet of ice.

For those keeping track, we got close to 20" of snow between Wedneday and Friday. We actually got more snow overnight Friday, I know becuase I let the dogs out at 1:30am and they came back in white. Then, it started raining. We probably got a couple of inches of rain Saturday morning. Then about 3, the sun came out and stuff started melting. I'm guessing that it got in the 40's, warmer than it has been in quite a while.

I don't know whether Mother Nature is mocking us by making almost a useless task of moving the snow, or whether she is just trying to give us some exercise.

Bird Count Slow Down

The bird counts have not gone well. We've had little snow this winter, since the 25.5" we got in October. All of that melted, and we have had precious little snow since then. Last weekend, we had several inches of packed snow still left over the ground; the only open spots were where we had shoveled/plowed, and just over the septic tank. It got warm enough during the week,that even most of that has melted (we actually had mud in the pathways yesterday).

The Audubon birdcount of last weekend netted a whole 13 birds of 5 species. So far for the GBBC, I have 5 birds of 3 species. Okay, I will admit that I forgot about this weekend's bird count, so didn't watch Friday, and didn't start watching until late afternoon yesterday. But I'm guessing that really, that has almost no bearing on the count so far. The bird feeders are rarely visited. And it's not that I miss seeing lots of birds (I've never seen bunches at a time), but that I've missed the flurry of activiby at the feeders. In fact, even with the squirrels making forays onto the deck, I rarely have to fill the feeders (every 2-3 weeks). Even the Blue Jays don't come out for their bread crumbs and peanuts - they are left on the platform feeder for days.

Well, an easy winter on us, means an easier winter for the birds, deer and other wildlife, so I shouldn't complain. Iy just seems lonelier without the birds flitting around

Much Ado

We had a bit of excitement at the house last night. Karen was over and we had a late dinner. After dinner we started watching a show that we had taped last week. Shortly after that, I looked over at her, and she was leaning forward in her chair, looking very pae. I asked if she was alright, and she said she wasn't sure.

She started swaying, so I jumped up off the couch to hold her up and keep her from falling to the floor. A told WS that I needed him to help get her on the floor, but as he came over I reallized that she had totally blacked out and told WS to dial 9-1-1.

She was out for a minute or two, then came to enough to lay down on the floor. Once the Deering Rescue showed up, she was feeling a bit better, but still woozy. They checked her out and found nothing really wrong with her except her blood sugar was a bit on the low side. We gave her some juice and then told her in no-uncertain terms she was spending the night.

She has been under a lot of stress lately, so she figures between that, a couple of light drinks (she normally doesn't drink) and sitting next to the woodstove (pretty warm there), they all added up to too much for her to handle. She had bee thinking about leaving a couple of minutes before the episode occurred, so we were really happy she wasn't driving at the time.

She got up this morning feeling much better, and left a short time ago. Glad to see her recovered.

Thanks again to Deering Police and Rescue - about this time last year they were here for WS's asthma attack; no offence guys, but let's not make this a regular, yearly visit!

Festive Scenting

Wow, 22 days into the month and I haven't posted any pictures - I know because I had to make a new folder for 2012 pictures on my computer. So Let's get to it:

Earlier this month, I decided to take all the remnants of candles and create a new candle. In the batch was a complete green candle that I had sitting on the wood stove while the woodstove was going. That had the desired effect of releaseing the scent, but on a weekend long burn (during the week it is only at night), most of the wax melted and the wick dripped to the bottom of the wax.

Then there was a previously mixed candle (which mixture turned purple) in shich the wax in the middle melted, but not the sides. It had melted several inches down, so I chipped off the wax pieces from the sides and added that. There were also several scentless, white tea lights that I wanted to use up, so mixing them with scented wax seemed reasonable. I had bought wick material so all I needed to do was gather some patience and start melting.

I tried the microwave first, but didn't like how hot the glass jar I was using was getting with very little meltage of wax. So, I placed the glass container in a pan of water and heated it on the stove. Since I didn't want the candle to turn out brownish, from mixing several different colors, I melted each of the colors seperately (except when adding the white tea lights). After each color was poured into the new candle jar, I would place it outside to solidify while melting the next batch.

After way too long, I ended up with a decorative candle that will be used some day (we have lots of candles that are either new or in good shape):

Okay, so the color combination leaves a bit to be desired, but it is on the festive side, and who really looks at candles anyway? They are for imparting a nice scent (or getting rid of yucky scents), so it will do very well for my purposes.