Bogieblog

They Say NH Doesn't Get Tornados

And by "they", I don't mean the weather guessers. I'm talking about the general USA population that believes that NH doesn't get tornadoes. We certainly don't get the amount of tornadoes as a lot of other areas. And I would hazard a guess that we see more "straight line" events than tornadoes, but we do get a couple a year. Fortunately this one was a weak one yesterday evening when we had severe weather going thru. The video was taken in Charlestown NH (about 38 miles from me - by road).

Disclaimer - the Weather Service has yet to confirm it was a tornado, but by the looks, I'm calling it one.

Shade Garden Blooms

A few more things are blooming:

Forget-me-Nots were blooming on Mother's Day and I sent Cop Car the virtual flowers. I really like the way there are several different colors of flwoers

Yesterday the Flowering Almonds were looking nice (these were in the original garden section of the shade garden when I moved here).

Since last Sunday, Solomon's Seals have popped up over the Forget-me-Nots and are set to bloom

Now it is time to complain about the weather. It was a cool and gloomy spring. I ran the main floor pellet stove as late as this past Tuesday morning (with the mornings being high 20's to around freezing)). It has been long-sleeve weather with the highs being in the 40's and 50's. Wednesday and Thursday afternoon it got into the 60's so that was 2 days of short-sleeve weather.

Then Friday it was up to 88 and yesterday was 94 - straight to tank top weather and the AC on. And the mornings didn't cool off too much being in the high 60's, so opening the windows and putting in the fans don't cool the house down much from the 74* that the AC is set at. I think I got it down to 71 yesterday morning and After 1.5 hours, this morning I have gotten it down to 73* (still have a couple of hours to go before the sun rises).

It is supposed to be cooler today and I need to do the first mowing of both yards so I'm hoping the humidity level is low.

 

Mother's Day 2022

Cop Car, I wish you a very happy Mother's Day!

Roadside Garden Explosion

The daffodils and narcissus have taken the cool, cloudy, rainy weather to heart and really come into their own in the roadside garden. As peop;e drive down the street, their attention is probably drawn by the bright colors.

The creeping phlox by the driveway have made a surprise blush. Usually they are a bit later

And the daffs in the backyard, at the treeline are putting on their own sporadic show. For some reason they bloom by ones and twos instead of all at once. I can't complain since I didn't plant any of them. The white ones are a simpler form but they are amazing spreaders. They started as one clump a couple of years ago, and now there are 5 distinct clumps, in a line stretching 25 feet.

I'm thinking that squirrels or chipmunks transplanted some bulbs. They aren't supposed to bother daffodils, but I can tell you a couple of years ago they removed every dang bulb from the new raised garden by where the willow used to be. I planted them around the Rose of Sharons. I could tell they had been dug up when it happened, and not a single bulb remained. That is the only garden without any bulbs despite my best efforts. I'll have to try planting again next fall.

Great Spring Day

Yesterday afternoon was the first day of short-sleeve weather. It was 62*, sunny with few clouds, and the wind wasn't at 40 mph. Sure, we had a fairly stiff breeze, but wasn't too bad so after a bunch of running around, I got out in the yard and did some cleaning up late afternoon. First I took a bunch of winter fall limbs to the dump. They have recently instituted a policy of nothing over 3", so I had to hold a couple back, but I was able to get rid of most of them.

I cleaned up all the perennial stalks and dead day lily leaves out of the driveway garden. No pics for that - just take my word that it looks much better. Then I started cleaning out the roadside garden.

I couldn't clean that end as well as I would have liked as it has baby lupines growing as well as the daffodils and hyacinths that I didn't want to tear up with the leaf rake. But I did get all the stalks out from the peonies. Dang, those stalks are so stringy and tough that I'll bet the strands could be used to weave baskets.

The far end cleaned up better since there were no bulbs coming up. I don't know whether those daffodils got eaten by chipmunks/squirrels, they died, or are just late.

I bagged up all the leaves and all the stalks are in the 4-wheel cart, so are ready to take to the dump next weekend. Here are hyacinths and daffodils from the shrub garden.

I haven't cleaned up that area yet and still need to clean up the raised bed at the other side of the house as well as the shade garden. But my first priorities for today will be to get rid of some invasive roses that have jumped the drainage ditch from the former swamp. The only good thing about them is they green up before most other stuff, so are easier to find and deal with in the spring. I also need to cut up what I can of the large limb that came down in the neighbor's back yard. Need to get that done before mowing season begins.

Today is supposed to be a bit warmer than yesterday with just a light breeze, so should be lovely to be out in the yard.

How Many Cataracts Can One Have?

I had a bi-annual eye testing session last Tuesday. It had been every 4 months, but got changed last fall as my eyes seemed to have stabilized. About 6-8 weeks ago I noticed that my right eye was suddenly not seeing as well - whether that was because it got better or got worse, was the question.

Well, first, my right eye has joined my left eye in having 2 cataracts. That's right, I now have a total of 4, whereas previously I had 3. Each eye has a regular cataract, as well as an anterior cataract.

Second, my right eye has developed an area that it does not see as well, according the the Visual Field test. The left eye has been like that for years, but it coincides with the anterior cataract, and has stayed stable. My right eye visual issue doesn't seem to be related to the anterior cataract.

Going from the looks of the optic nerve, and that the pressure in that eye has not increased, the doc does not believe that it has to do with developing glaucoma. She is hoping it is from developing dry eye (of which I have no symptoms). So, she has put me on a regiment of eye drops and an eye gel at night. I am supposed to go back for another VF test in 2-3 weeks to see if that helps (or at least the issue goes away). They didn't have any opening in that time frame  when I went to make an appointment. And the gal wouldn't book an available appointment for 4 weeks out,  so now I wait for a call telling me that there has been a cancellation.

A Fresh Coat

Somewhere around 2016/2017 I painted the yellow portions of the exterior of the house. Specifically, I only painted the bottom half of the house. The soffits/eaves of the house are yellow, but I don't do heights so I left them.

This year not only are the eaves/soffits showing a lot of the previous green color, but the bottom half of the east and south sides of the house were starting to crack and peel again. Don't ask me why the south side didn't do the same, but maybe I did better prep work on it.

About 2 months ago I started contacting painting companies to request a quote. Some said they could put me on a waiting list for 2023 (specifically a local guy), others didn't respond or said it was too far. I finally started looking at handyman ads that specifically mentioned exterior painting.

And finally I got Keith to come out, take a look and give me a quote, which I accepted. He had the color matched with California Paints, which is a high durability paint especially recommended for older homes and those with extreme weather conditions. He and his helper were supposed to start the prep work (scraping, sanding, filling, caulking and priming) 4/12 but with weather he didn't get to start until 4/14. Since then, we've had lots of high wind days and rain. So they started painting the soffits/eaves this past Wednesday. Then Thursday and Friday was was not only windy, but was too cold. Yesterday they came in and finished the painting. While they were at it, they painted the brown portion of the front of the house so that it would match the garage trim (which I had color matched as best I could last year when the new frame was replaced, but it was still a touch different). I am pleased with the results.

He will be back at the beginning of the week to do another project (weather permitting), and will touch up any places that need it (I've only found 1 place so far). He will also put the eagle back up over the garage door. While that was down I painted it a Metallic Dark Bronze - previously it had been the same brown as the top portion of the house.

I'm hoping he will give me a quote for repair/paint of the foundation. In which case the paint would be more of a concrete gray instead of that bluish cast (which I did not realize it was when I did that several years ago).

Spring Cleaning Redux - at the Neighbor's

Friday was a fine day to be outside so I took advantage and cleaned up roses from the neighbor's yard:

What it looked like to start. Well, that isn't true, I had already cut and removed four canes that had grown up in the center of the lilacs at the corner and were 10-15' long (I was by no means done cutting around those lilacs when I thought to take pictures). Those suckers throw out lots of side branches/vines and pulling them out of trees is an exercise in patience, cutting in just the right spots, and pulling them out at the right angle.

The above picture doesn't show how much there truly is because I suck at giving perspectives. You couldn't see the vines that were growing on top of the roof. Here it is after I had cleared all the canes/branches/whips/vines out of the 20' to the center windows to the left of the door (I had cleared out to the door late last summer). It took about 3 hours. All that brown beside the evergreen is the part of that bush that has died back from being totally crushed ans shaded by the roses. That is the southeast corner of the house and it is in full sun until mid afternoon, so those bushes should never be light starved.

This looks like a stupid picture - but the vines were so thick here that I had no idea there was a hose reel and spigot here. Previous to the roses taking over, the evergreen bushes to either side had kept them covered. The rose vines got so thick they were killing all the branches to those evergreens too - they should come back now that they can get some light.

The mound of stuff I cleared out of there..

Oh, and in the back yard, a huge tree limb had come down over the winter. I was surprised I could actually drag it over to htat spot, but it was well and truly dead and pretty dry.

This is where the limb started from, in the darker green patch in the center of the picture. YOu can still see some of the smaller stuff that broke off on the periphery of that patch. I didn't think about pictures until after I had cleaned up.

One day I will have to go out and cut up that limb, but Friday was not the day. Oh, and joy, the town has just stopped taking any wood that is over 5" in diameter (or any pallets) so I'll have to just throw the leavings into the tree belt.

 

 

 

First Flower for Spring 2022

Friday this daffodil wasn't in existence. Yesterday it appeared.

And it has a companion that should open today.

Harbinger of spring!

Quest for Solar Update

The quest for solar is going slowly. Not from lack of effort on my part, but there have been challenges.

• Googling for NH solar installers bring about a large amount of hits. Many of those companies are defunct, or don't install solar panels as their main business (in fact some of them only mention it in passing and don't show any pictures of installs along with pictures of their other work.
• Some companies that come up on the search aren't local
• Few of those companies are within 35 miles of me. Being in the triangle of doom, where I live 30+ miles from any cities is detrimental for almost any project I try to hire out.
• My average use for electricity is just under $100/month. Many companies don't even want to talk to you unless it is over that threshold.

I contacted two companies on 3/27/2022, let's call them SE and GS.

SE has not been around for very long (in NH, about a year as far as I can determine). They got a hold of me via text right away to set up an appointment for a telephone interview. I set up the appointment for 11:00 am the next day. I waited, and waited, but no phone call. When I contacted the company via email, the guy said there was an IT glitch so he didn't get the appointment on his calendar. We did have the interview later that afternoon. Another guy came out a couple of days later for a site visit. We had a good talk and he left me a proposal - in which there were several errors. There have been other issues when I have asked for a revised proposal to account for my latest electric bill - higher than last year because of use of the mini split for heat. On 4/2/22 (the day my new bill came out) I sent precise directions for using the new number, adding 30% usage as an assumption for this month and next, and adding a couple of panels the the westerly side of the house. The new proposal only added panels to the westerly side of the house, but did account for the increased usage. When I questioned the numbers, he told me that the important number was the solar percentage (production at 105% of usage). Um, no, the most important numbers are the ones I want/need used because that final number means squat otherwise. Additionally, when you start acting like a car salesman (look at the monthly payment, not the total price you would be paying), that just turs me off right there.

GS took a week to get a hold of me (actually 9 days, but I make allowances for weekends). They are so busy that the site visit is not scheduled until 4/29/2022. However, their initial estimate is less than SE's original proposal (they both came up with the same amount of panels - and the same brand/model). Additionally, GS has been around for quite a while, and has a great reputation. Since then, I sent them my newest electricity bill and the same direction to assume an increase of 30% for the next two months - I'll have to see how they handle that.

On 3/29/2022 I got a hold of a third company, RE. They are based up north, but have been around for a while. Three days later Anna responded via email. I responded that day, and then she responded again 3 days later. In the final correspondence she basically told me that they weren't really interested so I thanked her for her time and dropped it.

Of course this is the year that everyone is looking more closely at solar. The electric prices have gone up 100% for some people since last summer (mine did not go up that much, but it was still a fairly steep rise) and propane/oil prices have shot up since this time last year. Then, this is also the last year for very generous federal tax credits, so people are naturally looking at offsetting some of their cost.

The site visit and acceptance of contract are just the beginning. A engineering assessment must be conducted to ensure the roof can handle the load (this is part of the contract price). I would assume a 4-6 week wait for that. If all goes well with the engineering assessment, it takes about 10 weeks to get the proper permits/approvals from the state, town and utility. Then of course, I'm sure it would take several weeks before the installer can schedule the work.

So it is very likely that the install would not take place until fall at the earliest. That is fine, not like it was going to start paying me back in a short amount of time. At the earliest, it would be a 12-15 year ROI (assuming electricity prices stay where they are today). However, my sights are not set on short term results, or even dong anything but breaking even, but on more idealistic goals that I have held for a long time - as far back to the previous house.