Bogieblog

Iditarod 2025

Note, this was originally posted yesterday morning (3/15/2025 and the 1st screen shot was real time - the only picture it would let me upload at the time. This morning, 3/16, I uploaded some pics that wouldn't upload yesterday and it changed the posting date to today. Weird, it has never done that before.

The 2025 Iditarod is nearing the end. The winner, and indeed, the top 5 finishers have reached the burled arches.

But there is still plenty of racing still in the works. Congrats to all teams that had the courage to even start the race.

This year's race had especially grueling conditions, and it was over 100 miles longer than usual. normally the race is just under 1,000 miles, and this year it is 1,128 miles. There are 2 "normal" routes; the southern route at 998 miles, and the northern route at 975 miles. This year, being an "odd" year, was supposed to be the southern route.

Because of poor conditions at some of the normal initial route, the route was reworked and actually doubles back on itself for a portion. The race usually starts at Willow, AK, but instead started 286 miles north, at Fairbanks. (race map shows all routes)

The race started with 33 teams, with 1/3 of those led by female mushers. The initial entries were for 40 teams (about the average) but 7 teams withdrew before the start of the race for various reasons.

A guy at my previous job ask me why women didn't compete well in the Iditarod - LOL.  Of course, the connotation was that they weren't as "good" as men. Apparently he never heard of Libbey Riddle or Susan Butcher (who won 4 times). Nor had he heard of the women who have finished second Dee Dee Jonrowe (twice - plus raced after just completing chemo for cancer) and Ally Zirkle (multiple times - and was legally blind) to name a couple. Numerous women have finished in the top 5 and top 10. (link to a 2019 article on the women of Iditarod). It is not unusual for women to comprise 1/3 of the top 5 and/or top 10 finishers (my memory says more often than not that is the case, but I'm not going to do the research to prove it).

And of course, it isn't just about the mushers, but the canine athletes as well. Things happen upon the trail, such as moose attacks, spills that affect not just the athletes but also equipment, illness (human or canine), bad luck (one team beats a storm system while those just an hour or two behind encounter gale force winds or blizzards), trail conditions (which can get better or worse) etc.

This year, 2 women were in the top 5 finishers, so Chris, wherever you are, just letting you know that yes, women are still very competitive in this grueling race.

Kitty Cuteness in Early March

Early this month, I was looking at Rainey's cute little nose and had to take a picture of it. Unfortunately, the picture does not quite do justice to how it appears in real life. In person, it is jet black and looks so soft - like it is velvet. It is a striking difference to her gray coat.

At the time, Spot was sitting on the hopper to the pellet stove, probably watching birds out the window. She likes her picture taken, but gets very "enthusiastic" and it is hard to catch her when she is still. I have several pictures of her reaching for the camera, then finally got one of her being still (although not facing the camera).

and Lila, she has had several firsts this month. From being pet while she wasn't under my office chair (3/2/25) to being on the cat tree to being on the cat tree and NOT jumping off when I noticed (3-5-25), to actually getting on the bed (futon) for the first time ever (3-13-25) - Rainey is in the foreground. I had noticed Lila intensely watching after the lights went out and Rainey and Spot were laying on me - learning from them that it was safe. And, she has joined me on the bed every evening since then, laying at my feet.

I marvel at how much Lila learns from Spot and Rainey, watching their behaviors, my reactions to those behaviors, and eventually trying new things. Her confidence in her place in the household is blooming, and it is heartening to watch.

Rainey and Lila are fairly chummy and will play tag. In the past few days, I've even seen them rubbing against each other. Rainey is the more reserved of the two sisters, so that surprises me. 

Spot, is mainly indifferent. I think she is a bit jealous as she prefers to be the center of attention and will glare at me if she is in the room when I am petting Lila. At the same time, Spot will also play a game of tag on occasion (like right now, as I am typing), or is happy when Lila bats a ball her way during play, so some of Spot's minor shows of distastes are just for show. I can't help but think of many years ago when New would swat at the dogs if they got close (or she walked by them), but when she thought no one was looking, rub up against them and cuddle briefly - kept every one of the dogs confused - LOL.

After the Late Winter Thaw

Sometime near the end of February or beginning of March we usually get a break and have a short thaw. This year we needed it as, even though we didn't have any huge snow totals from any one storm, we had consistent storms throughout February. That can be demonstrated thru my lack of solar collection from the rooftop panels.

Versus the 1st four days in March. And I can tell you, that some panels still had snow on them until March 5th. Two days were pretty heavily overcast also and I still generated within 5kwh what had been generated in the total of February with 83.4 kwh generated (Imagine a bar chart here - because TP won't upload the pic - it won't allow me to load anymore pics than the first one).

The local news said that it was also the coldest winter in 10 years, which my pellet usage will attest to. I ran the P43 for the main floor heat most of the month. I also raised the set temp of the basement stove up a couple of degrees to 70*. That was to help keep the under-house garage from going below freezing. I keep a temp sensor in the garage for just that purpose since FHW pipes run thru there. Indeed, there were about 5 days that several times each day for 60-90 minutes each time, I opened the connecting door to the garage to allow the big stove downstairs to heat it.

Even though we have had "thawing" (temps over freezing - with one day near 50) Monday thru Wednesday, I measured yesterday and I still have 10-11" of snowpack in the yard. I had to measure at the side of a path since everything is so compressed from the sleet/freezing rain/rain that followed nearly every storm that I couldn't even make a dent in it so measure anywhere else.

Friday we had crazy winds, even worse than last weekend. There were a lot of snapped trees that took out power poles and electrical lines. Some just blocked roads. I experienced a short power outage of about 5 seconds as a tree came down and blocked my road a couple of blocks south of me (I couldn't see it and just found out about it from the FB page I follow). Fortunately that direction is on the receiving end of the electric flow, so the power outage was very brief as the system shut down in that direction and re-stabilized on my end. 

Yesterday was also pretty windy, but not to the whistling, moaning and howling that was characteristic of all of Friday. Today the winds are to settle down to the teens mph, but temps won't rise above freezing until during the week.

 

I Hate Politics

Still waiting to see the people that became millionaires, while working for the government, to get fired instead of those who are lowest on the pay scales, you know, the working class. And firing those people, without actual assessments for "performance issues" is not cool either. I thought actually draining the swamp, as it was called, was the theme.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting rid of fraud, waste and abuse. There needs to be a thoughtful process to it and just getting rid of people willy nilly, is not the way to do it.Oh, and maybe reading the Inspector Generals' reports might be a good first step.

Hmm, I would term this next thing as abuse and fraud - or at the very least a conflict of interest - which so many people said they wanted to get rid of.

I have neither the time, nor the energy to list everything I disagree with on how this administration is handling a lot of things.

But let me say by looking at what has been going on in all directions, I don't believe that Trump made as an outrageous statement as it seemed (i.e. not a hyperbolic point as R leaders claimed at the time) when he said on the campaign trail, ""In four years, You don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good. You're not going to have to vote." (link - yeah, there is a 15 second commercial, then the video starts).

One last point - don't forget last summer he got the Supreme Court to rule that basically anything he does as an official act as President, cannot have consequences to him - there is total immunity.

Biggest Storm of Season (so far)

We got snow Saturday thru Sunday morning. We got icing thru a lot of the day Sunday, then it turned back to snow overnight. With all the sleet/freezing rain, I elected not to do any clean up until the storm was over. I had already arranged a PTO day for Monday, anticipating this scenario.

Early Monday morning the winds started to pick up. So measuring the depth of the snow/ice would have been useless. Some of the pathways that I keep clear had about 20" in them, but I'm sure that drifting had a lot to do with it. I'm guessing I got about a foot in actuality. Since the wind was supposed to really start honing around 10am, I got out early to clean up and finished up around 9am.

I had arranged for the berm from the road plows to be plowed by an individual. I'm glad I decided to do that since during clean up of the driveway, the last 5-7' were packed so tightly that it would have been way more work than I wanted to do. After the guy plowed out the berm Monday afternoon, I still had to tackle around the mailbox. That took me quite a while and a lot of oomph and strategizing how I would break it up enough to blow the mess out of the way.

Picture from the news Monday evening. Antrim is 2 miles down my road, and Sunapee is about 7 miles from me as the crow flies.

See that white strip just above Jaffrey? Yeah, I'm in that section and can attest that I have over 2' of snow pack (the ground hasn't been snow free for quite some time). And, most of the snows we have received have ended up with icing events so it got packed down pretty tightly.

We've gotten a break since that storm. We had been getting storms every 3 days or so, but nothing since Monday. However, there hasn't been any melting going on. Even my roof hasn't dumped or had much melting since prior to the storm BEFORE this last one.

I have never had a month so bad for solar production before; the following screen shot tells the whole story (the one, and only clear roof day was 2/7/2025). The solar production showing from yesterday, is from 2-3 panels on the west side that are mostly clear (there are 6 panels on that side).

To give you an idea of how bad this is, my solar production for February from previous years

My lowest solar production month ever was November 2022, at 114 kwh, which is when the panels were installed. In that case, production did not start until the middle of the month (11/16/22), when they finally hooked up the new meter and gave me the okay to flip the switch. The next worst months were January 2023 & 2024 where total production was 116kwh each.

I'm hoping the roof will clear with the warmer weather we are supposed to have the next couple of days, but we'll see.

Progress Report with Lila 2/22/2025

Since late January, Lila (easier and faster to type than Delilah - and I go between both names) has had pretty much free reign of the house, with my shutting the gate only for about 15 minutes while she ate her wet food downstairs morning and evening (to keep the other two cats from disturbing her). She was still hiding in the basement during the day, then coming upstairs at night. On the evening of 2/19/25, I closed the gate so she couldn’t go back downstairs (2 litter boxes are now placed in the front bedroom). This act wasn't about Lila, it was about my needing to open the basement door to the garage to let the pellet stove warm it up so I didn't risk frozen FHW pipes out there.

The morning of 2/20/25 she was confused and wouldn’t eat her wet food upstairs. She was very vocal trying to get me to understand she wanted me to open the gate shortly after breakfast so she could go downstairs. She probably thought I was a very stupid human as I ignored her. She then decided the safe place was under the printer stand in the office. While I was working in the office that morning, she started rubbing against my legs. After a while, I reached down and she allowed me to pet her along her tail and back for the first time. She allowed that as long as she was under my legs until she decided to retire for the day under the printer stand.

The trend has continued since then, including trying to get me to open the gate in the morning, but on 2/21/25, she started eating her wet food (she always had access to kibble 24/7). Rainey has been respectful of her food, as long as Lila is sitting there eating. Lila has also popped her head up on the couch a couple of times while I am there at night. She jumped up once on the far corner, but decided that wasn’t for her at that time (Rainey was laying on my legs – don’t know if that has anything to do with her decision).

She and Rainey get a good game of tag going a couple of times a day. Spot just ignores her most of the time. I've only heard a couple of soft hisses - where someone got too rambunctious during play. However, those hisses were soft, so just a warning, not a "I'm really mad and you better watch out" type thing. None of the rambunctiousness between Lila and Rainey gets nearly to the level that Spot and Rainey will get into occasionally (where Spot becomes over-domineering to her sister - those two are not "bonded" and will have their little tiffs). It's really kind of funny that Lila has chosen Rainey, who is very reserved, to be who she flirts and plays with. I think it helps Rainey since Lila is more cat-centric and not pushy or domineering, just wanting to be friendly.

Picture from evening of 2/16/2025 - before making the basement a cat-free zone.

Potentially Biggest Storm of the Season

Here in NH, we are hunkered down for what can potentially be the biggest storm of the season. That isn't saying much as my area is expected to get 8-14" of snow and ice.  It is snowing slowly right now, and I have 3" so far (measured by yardstick) at 3:30am. Heavier bands of snow are supposed to hit before or shortly after daybreak. My approximate are is circled in red (this pic took 4 trys - haven't had that issue for a couple of posts):

But, during the day it is supposed to to turn to sleet/freezing rain as warm air pushes up from the south. That is the concerning part. Then afterwards, toward night time, it is supposed to be turning back to snow.

Normally, I would get out with the snowblower in the middle of the storm and then finish up at the end. But, with the mess that is supposed to fall during the day, I don't dare do that - my driveway and paths are already messed up enough. Friday, I had proactively told my boss that I would be taking Monday off. First, to move the snow and ice to more appropriate places. Second, because my area is expecting 40-50mph winds on Monday. Depending on the amount of ice, that could mean power outages too.

 

(imagine a screen shot here of the expected winds - I kept having various errors when I attempted to upload so gave up)

Fortunately, I am not in the "higher probability" area of widespread power outages, however, I am not that far away. So far they are showing further south in the Monadnock region - about 17-20 miles away. So, if everything shifts just a tinge northward, that would probably mean bad news for my area (square in the middle of the northern Monadnocks / Lake Sunapee regions).

(imagine a screen shot here of the expected icing - I kept having various errors when I attempted to upload so gave up)

Time will tell and I've charged all my backup batteries in case they are needed. This is NOT expected to be as bad as the ice storms in '08, so we can be thankful for that.

everyone stay warm, dry and safe out there!

 

Because I don't really have anything of content to write about, besides NH is in an active weather pattern that is bringing snow every couple of days with enough to actually use the snow blower, here are some pic of Delilah on the main floor of the house. She is fascinated with Ziva and some evenings spends inordinate amount of time looking at him. She doesn't try to jump up, but has done a stretch a couple of times (the stand is too high for her to be able to reach). Interestingly, she doesn't get on top of the battery backup to the stove (the black and gray unit behind Lila in the last 3 pics).

The first 3 pics were taken on 1/31/25 and the last one on 2/04/25

At night she also spends a lot of time just watching me sleep - or at least every time I wake up, she seems to be on the pellet stove pad keeping warm and watching me. During the day, she ghosts back downstairs and stays hidden. In the last couple of days I have plugged up her main hiding spot, under a pallet of pellets, so now I'm trying to figure out where she goes as an alternate. 

Unfortunately, she is a smart kitty, and figured out a long time ago the sound of the cams moving means "something". So, most times she moves slowly enough that they don't sense the motion to the sides. No videos are captured until she comes into the main view of the cams, so I only see her out by the food or going up the stairs. I get way more pics of Rainey and Spot running around down there exploring :D

More Freedom

Since getting back from my second trip to Kansas in a month's time, Lila's progress has stalled. It seemed to pull back some in various little ways. She wasn't really interested in eating while I was downstairs (which used to be our quiet time together) and at the same time, she wasn't interested in testing her boundaries with me by walking back and forth around me. In fact, she would disappear and end up being on/around the stairs where I couldn't see her in person.

She did still come up to the top of the stairs and watch what was going on, but her presents was a bit on the coy side. Although understandable that she would have a set back from the pet sitter (again, for the 2nd time in a month), I felt something else was going on. After cogitating about it for a bit, I came to a realization.

SHE has been the one that has been asked to be brave and take leaps of faith along this whole process. And to this point, she has done well. But I needed to shake things up because it seems the situation was more her testing me at this point, and I was not progressing to her satisfaction (yes, a bit of anthropomorphism).

So, I had to take a leap of faith of my own.

Earlier this week I opened the gate when I was ready to retire for the night. This would give her time to do a little exploring while I wasn't watching and the house was as quiet as it gets. No, I would have no idea where she was. Yes there was a chance that she, Spot and Rainey would tangle (however, the two sisters are pretty blase' about her now so I figured that was unlikely)

That seemed to go well. In fact I could hear her playing with a toilet paper roll over by the bird cage for a while. She also returned to the top of the stairs when it was time for breakfast the next morning. I did close the gate after she had retired for the morning (she still goes and hides from about 6:30 am until 2-3 pm), just to keep the sisters from going downstairs to often. The next day I left the gate open longer in the morning, and before she retired, Lila came and visited me in the office while I was working (I start at 6am). Since then, I have kept the gate open pretty much all the time.

If she becomes overwhelmed or is nervous, the top of the stairs is still her favorite place. Even with the gate open she deems it as a safe place. If Rainey becomes overly pushy, Lila will scamper down the stairs, which satisfies the grumpy one. I did shut the gate while I was gone for Jury Duty instruction yesterday since I wouldn't be there to keep tabs (and Lila was safely tucked away down there for the day at that point). Imagine my surprise when I got home and Spot was waiting for me to open the gate that she was trapped behind. Reviewing the basement cams, Spot was very active down there and on the stairs throughout the day - probably trying to figure out why I would do that to her - LOL.

So, my leap of faith has gone well. Although Lila is still ghosty, she appears to be happier and is becoming more confident. She will spend time laying under the futon while I am there. She is exploring, but not getting into trouble and the two sisters don't seem to mind overly much - all without the tension that was evident when I was caring for Big Boy.

So, with her expanded range and confidence, Lila's name has been adjusted. For some reason, "Lila" never just rolled off the tongue for me and it seemed a bit, well, incomplete. However, Delilah seems to be more appropriate and natural.

Snow Angel in Pensacola

Because I need some humor