Bogieblog

Greening Up

Yesterday afternoon, WS and I took a tour of the open grounds (as opposed to the woods out back), to see how all the plants and trees had fared thru the winter. We started off in the front iris bed (the one against the front of the house) where all seems to be doing well and greening up. There is a rogue tulip pushing up foliage there, I am not exactly sure if I planted it there or not, but it seems happy, so there it will stay.

Then we went to the bank along the driveway. The forsythia are starting to bud, which means the ground has finally thawed out a bit (it is always in shade and has been frozen into June before). The lilies by the well are just starting to show some green, but the peonies have not even attempted to end their winter nap.

The new flower garden, that I put in at the corner of the driveway and street laste year, seems to be doing well. There are bulbs pushing up and some of the perennials are sending out experimental green shoots. This too, is an area that is beset by a lot of shade, so it is slower to get going than other places. I need to get out and clean up the dead stalks and leaves this weekend (provided it doesn't rain the entire time)

Next we visited the area below the fence. The lilies are growing great guns there and have obviously been busy splitting off young lilies. They are even starting to invade the yard inside the fence (fine by me, but amazing since that is where the dogs "go" most of the time).

The flower boxes in the railroad tie retaining walls are for the most part greening up. There are a couple of areas that I am concerned about, but I will have to give them time. I transplanted several plants there last fall, so they may just be still recovering from that.

Taste for Crap

Your Taste in Music:

Hair Bands: High Influence

Progressive Rock: High Influence

Heavy Metal: Medium Influence

80's Alternative: Low Influence

80's Pop: Low Influence

80's Rock: Low Influence

90's Rock: Low Influence

Adult Alternative: Low Influence

Alternative Rock: Low Influence

Classic Rock: Low Influence

Ska: Low Influence

How's Your Taste in Music?

Yeah, Ska is definitely low influence; I've never heard of it!

Thanks Billy for introducing the new word of the day!

Weapons Test

Air Strike You preferred a weapon with 58% power over speed and 83% range over melee.

You use Air Strikes. Fighting? Fighting is for idiots! All you have to do is make a quick walkie-talkie call and have the ground ahead of you carpeted with explosive charges. Your enemies will be searching frantically for refuge as you chuckle from afar.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 69% on power You scored higher than 99% on range

Link: The What's Your Signature Weapon Test written by inurashii on OkCupid Free Online Dating

Found thru Jay.

Must Read

Broad at Bat always has good posts (as do most other bloggers that I read), but this one made me laugh out loud!

Finally!

After spending 1/2 an hour in line Thursday night, I got my registration stamped. I took the truck in after work yesterday for another try at inspection. There I had to wait another hour before they could get it in (then another 1/2 hour for the inspection itself). Finally, a new sticker was put on my windshield and I am good to go.

This is the 1st year that NH is requiring OBC analysis and I was told to make sure to keep the paper with the results in my glove compartment. I have to be able to prove that the truck has had the diagnostics run if I am ever stopped.

Okay, that's just dandy - but last time I was stopped, I couldn't even find the registration because the glove compartment was such a mess of papers. I actually gave the trooper the previous year's registration to look at while I went thru the stack of papers 3 times before I found the current registration.

I think I'll keep the OBC paper somewhere else (as I do the registration now).

Failed Inspection

How the heck does a vehicle that is only 10 months old, with not quite 21,000 miles on it not pass inspection?

Anyone want to guess?

Anyone?

Well, I'll tell you:

Of Moose, Rain and Cold-Frames

As I was going thru the town police logs in the local gossip paper, I noticed an incident on April 8 at 5:20 in the morning; a car hit a moose on Rt.149. If it hadn't occurred on a Friday that I had off, it could have been me. Although they don't tell us what part of 149 it was on, I'm betting it's the portion that I travel to work. 5:20 is definitely within the time-frame that I am traveling the Deering part of 149. lucky for me, I was at home that day. Not so lucky for the other guy.

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We had several weeks without rain (since the flooding 3 weeks ago) and it has been dry enough that NH has had several wild fires a day for the last week or so. I think that the fire danger is over for now; we have gotten about 2 1/2 inches of rain since Friday night. It has been, for the most part, a slow soaker, so the rain hasn't just run off. However, now we are under a flood watch until tomorrow afternoon. It's either feast or famine this spring!

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Yesterday, we put up a temporary cold-frame for the tomatoes. We got several bales of straw for the "walls" and used the door from the old greenhouse for the top. We saved several of the panels from the greenhouse, when we tore it down, and are hoping to build a more permanent cold-frame later in the year. But for now, the tomatoes seem to be happy just not to be crowded into the lights and the cool, cloudy weather is perfect for adjusting them to the (relative) outdoors. Now I just have to hope that mice don't find it the perfect refuge from weather and cats - with a meal or two in the bargain!

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The sun is trying to peek thru the clouds, and the rain has stopped for the time being. I believe I hear the birds outside demanding to be fed. So this is the end of this weekend's update.

Pointed Differences

A couple weeks ago I wrote about walking the dogs, for the first time this year, and how I gradually get them back to behaving the way I want to on a leash. I mentioned that all bets were off with their behavior if the situation was changed in any manner.

Today while I was vacuuming, I recognized a behavior that works in one situation, but not another (for me anyway). When I am vacuuming, the dogs are very concious of where I am, and where I want them to be. While I am vacuuming the living room, I will motion them out and point them to where I want them (down the hall). They go there without any fuss or confusion.

When I have finished with the livingroom and kitchen, I will point them to the livingroom, so I can do the rest of the upstairs. Okay, got that? I point and they go where I point to.

Excuses, Excuses

Usually I do most of my posting on the weekend, but a couple things have happened that kept me from it.

First, this was supposed to be my Friday off. So naturally, I would have posted and caught up on reading those blogs that I don't get to see during the week. However, we had calibration scheduled at work (there is only a skeleton crew there on the off-Fridays and the disruption to production is a lot less), so I had to go in. I spent about 7 hours there, which was about 4 hours less than I expected (not complaining!).

Then, Friday night we went over to Karen's to see how she had set up her apartment - we hadn't been there since we helped her move the end of December. We took her out to dinner and ended up not getting home until late. We went to bed about midnight, so I didn't feel like staying up after I fed the dogs and birds for the morning (in fact, I didn't even check my e-mail until the afternoon).

Last night, we went over to Teri's and were there until about 11. Once again, we were up until almost midnight. This morning, after feeding our crew, I had pet-sitting duties, so I had to stay up.

So, I will post this for now, go catch up on all the blogs I haven't read since last Sunday (and those that I haven't read since Friday morning), then go back to bed for a while. I will probably post more this afternoon since it is a gray, rainy day and I won't be working in the yard.

I think between the last 2 nights that we have severely ruined our sleep schedule!

I Will Be Clad

I won't have to go naked to my niece's wedding after all! I spent several hours, a couple weekends ago, going thru the mall, Target, and Walmart in Concord without finding anything to wear. Oh sure, there were lots of clothes, but anything that I would be caught dead in (and there were precious few of that sort) had sold out of my size .

So tonight, after work, I decided to work my way down 101A (from Nashua to Milford) and hit every store that had clothing until I found something to wear. I hit K-mart (the new Sears), Dress Barn, Marshall's, another Target and some other store that I don't remember the name of. Then I saw JL Plum, which sells catalog clothing at discount prices.

There, I found a skirt I could live with (although I had to go with the rasberry as they had no blue), and a light pink blouse that has 3/4 lenght sleeves (which unfortunately I can't find a picture of). Total cost was less than the advertised price of the skirt alone. I still have shoes that should be okay to wear with the ensemble.

Can't beat that with a stick!