Bogieblog

Picture Perfect Morning

The winds have been so calm the last week or so, the ponds and lakes have been like glass when I pass them in the morning on my way to work. I kept thinking that I should stop and take a picture, and I finally did, using my phone's camera.

 
Perkins Pond in Weare, NH

There Goes the Neighborhood

76-year-old Deering man was selling drugs with his guns, police say | New Hampshire NEWS03.

One of our "neighbors" - okay, he lives a couple of miles from us, but he is from the same town and almost everyone here has had some sort of dealings with Burt.

Town Meeting 2013 and Some Potential Fun

Town meeting was fairly typical - it started with snow. Alright, so it was only about 1/2 and inch worth, but it was snow. The budget and almost all the warrant articles passed except the proposed noise ordinance.

The police chief was updating ordinances, and noticed we didn't have a nois ordinance, and thought maybe we should. the townsfolk felt differently, especially since this is a community that is entiryly zoned rural. If you need to bale hay before 6 aM (or aft 10 - hey, it needs to be done. Also, fireworks after 10 would not have been legal - Really? What about New Years and 4th of July? Anyway, we rejected that - but the whold meeting was done before 12:30.

Then WS and I went to look at a sled for me. I had been borrowing a sled that was pull start only. The pull was so hard I could barely get the rope to move (literraly), so I couldn't start it. It was also a stubborn starter that sometimes took up to 10 pulls to start, so I started looking for a cheap sled with electric start. Found one for a couple of hundred dollars so we went to the seacoast yesterday afternoon for a look. It ended up in the back of the truck and made its way home with us.

It is a 1998 Polaris Indy Classic (about a 600) with electric start (I need to get it a new battery though) and reverse. I may not get to use it at all this year, although we are expecting more snow on Tuesday. Even if it's not used this year, there is no way I could have found that kind of price at the beginning of next sledding season, so it's all good.

Snow - We Has Snow

Up until February, we hadn't seen much snow. However, since then, we have gotten plenty. We got the Blizzard, with 31+ inches. Then we got another 10+ inches, Then we got another foot. Then, Thursday into Friday, when we were supposed to get 3-6", we got just under a foot (11.5"). And that doesn't count all the times we have gotten 2" here, 3" there. There has also been melting between the larger storms, but all in all, it has really added up around here. To whit:

Those pictures were taken yesterday morning. The snow has gotten so heavy, it actually broke part of the fence. I haven't gotten to that part of the yard, but I can tell that where a couple of shrubs meet, and a vine (autumn clematis) climbs them, the snow got too heavy and a section of fence got pushed away. The dogs can't get thru, but it irks me because I thought last fall that I should trim the clematis. But, I usually cut it back quite brutally in the spring every couple of years, so I let it go. Ha, teach me!

Snow Rider

Had to share this picture that a friend took from my FB page, did a minor touch-up, and re-posted to my timeline:

This picture was originally from our trip to Indiana.

Nemo is Coming, Nemo is Coming

Nor'Easter Nemo is on the approach with heavy winds and snow. Yep, just another winter storm to u, To the newsies, the world is ending for the east Coast. Got this pic from a FB friend that kind of sums it all up:

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy blew in, dumped a bunch of rain and trees, and blew back out. We lost power almost exactly at 4 PM, got it back about an hour later, had power for about 15 minutes, lost power, got it back, lost power for another several hours, but had it back by midnight. Since then, all has been good.

Here are a few videos I shot with my Android phone:

This is a video of the trees in the front yard. Keep in mind, these gusts are fairly mild at 30-40 mph:

 

Two videos of wind gusts of the trees in the back yard. this is before the storm proper got here (the worst part was after dark):

   

   

This is our lighting situation for a lot of the evening. I had just started the woodstove when the power came on (you'll see the clock on the stove, only because the power had just come back on for a couple of minutes when I decided to do the video). The video makes it seem a lot darker than it really was - once our eyes got used to the dimness anyway.

   

At least we had a romantic candlelight dinner for a change.

Trick or Treat

So there is this little hurricane named Sandy, heading our way from the south. Then there is a cold front that is heading our way from the west. And, Canadian arctic air is pushing its way down from the north. They should collide sometime Sunday thru Tuesday and give us a real treat of a storm the media is now dubbing Frankenstorm. Basically the collision of the storms will turn into one giant of a Nor'Easter. Oh, add into that the fact that it is a full moon, meaning naturally high tides, and the coast is in for some trouble.

If things work out wrong, then we could be headed for bettering the 2 feet of snowfall from the Nor'Easter that we got last Halloween Eve. The good news is that most of our trees have lost their leaves, although the oaks are still holding onto theirs. Furthere down south, they aren't that lucky so heavy snowfall will creat havoc, much as last year's storm did for us (our treees were full of leaves then).

Here's to hoping that Sandy doesn't want to play and heads out to sea!

Earthquake

I think we just had an earthquake. About 10 seconds of the house shaking, with a loud rumbling before, during and after. No big trucks going by - I looked out the window to see.

UPDATE 2 minutes later: SIL confirmed that they felt in in Francestown.

UPDATE 2: Reported it at the usgs.gov. TV is just reporting a 4.5 event centered at the NH/Maine border.

News Shot

The other afternoon, I was watching the local news at noon, when I noticed something odd. They were talking about the presidential candidates and they had this backdrop:

I don't know if you can tell but the shot on the left is crisp and clear. The shot on the right is very blurry like an action shot taken at a very slow shutter speed. There was another instance like that shortly after (I should have taken a pic of it too).

Hmm, now why would a news program pick an obviously horrible picture (one I would delete from my camera if I had taken the shot), out of the thousands of pictures they could use?