Bogieblog

Traveling Home

The trip back from St. Louis was a little more eventful than the trip out. I still didn't have any trouble making it thru security, which was rather odd.

After sitting at the gate for a while, I looked up and saw that my 1:30 flight had been pushed back to 2:19. With an hour layover in Detroit, I would be pushing my luck to make the connection. I called and left a message for WS that I may or may not make my connection (I assume he was out riding with Jimmy as his rain gear is hung up to dry). The attendants at the gate gave those of us with tight schedules the numbers/times of the next flights, and tentatively scheduled us for those flights, so we would be prepared if we missed our connections.

The plane finally made it to the gate, disgorged its passengers and a full complement of passengers boarded. At this point, I was thinking that it may just be possible to catch my flight, if I hustled and the gate wasn't too far from where I got off.

We started backing away from the gate when we stopped moving and the captain cut the engines. He came on the intercom and announced that one of our lights had lost its lens cap and we would have to wait for a mechanic and parts to replace it. At this point I called WS and left a message that I would definitely not be making my connection and not to wait up for me.

Eventually we got the lens cap replaced and were on our way. The rest went pretty much as I had assumed - the plane from St. Louis landed about the time the plane for Manchester was taking off. I had about 3 hours to kill so I found some food and settled in for the long haul.

I did manage to walk the entire length of Concourse A as they first had my plane leaving from Gate A72 (I came in on gate 10 or something). When I got about 1/4 of the way there, they changed it to Gate A74. By the time I was half way there, they had changed to gate A11. I kept going to see what my eating options were and ended up eating somewhere around gate A64 (after I had walked all the way to Gate A74, just for the exercise). Concourse A is a mile long, so I got in about a 2 mile hike while I was waiting (after all the food I ate while in St. Louis, I really should have hiked it a couple more times).

I caught the later flight to Manchester, which was uneventful. I got home about 12:30 this morning. Currently I am in damage control mode - I've unpacked and have laundry going, will soon vacuum and perform other domestic duties that didn't get done while I was gone and WS was putting in massive hours on the weekdays and Saturday (I had ordered Jimmy to take WS for a ride on Sunday so I already knew none of that stuff would get done).

Then I will go check out the gardens. WS kept a running tally of the rain we recieved while I was gone - just under 3.5". With the rain we got last Friday thru Wednesday, we've goten over 6" of rain. From the kitchen window it looks like the vegetable garden really enjoyed it. It will take a closer inspection to see if the slugs are having a party in there. Maybe, if I got lucky, the Japanese Beetles all drowned. WEll, I can always dream about it anyway.

I'll talk to y'all next weekend - be good!

Access Gained

Had a good trip - didn't even have trouble with getting thru security! Others of the family didn't have such good luck.

As you can tell, the motel has internet access and I figured out how to hook into it (gotta admit, for all the bad rap, Vista made it very easy).

Doesn't mean I'll actually post, or even if I do, that I'll post anything but crap - but there you have it.

The Replacements

We have finally gotten a decent amount of rain. Since Friday night, we have gotten almost 3" of rain. True, 1.75" of it was all at the same time, but we have gotten several 1/4-1/2" showers.

I replaced the broken Prairie Fire Crabapple with a native fringetree (chionanthus virginicus) that had been languishing in a pot. Since WS dug up the crabapple instead of using a chainsaw, I plopped the poor thing up near the woods, covered the roots with soil and mulch, and will see what happens. If it lives, great - if not, at least I gave it a shot.

I also planted a Hugin Chokeberry (which had also been in a pot) in the planter beside the patio, where I had pulled out a Mango Tango Potentilla. The potentilla had never flowered well after being planted, and with its not leafing out until mid June, that area looked sad most of the year. Hopefully the chokeberry provide spring flowers and fragrance, summer foliage (as a backdrop to the hydrangea beside it) and brightly colored fall foliage.

I may or may not post this weekend - I'll be out of town but plan on taking the laptop with me. Of course I may only use it for checking email, so there are no promises.

I'll leave you with a picture of some butterfly weed, which is obviously named correctly:

  Some sort of Fritillary butterfly maybe?

I'm leaving the house at 4AM tomorrow morning and will be back late on Sunday. If I don't post before then, I'll try for Monday morning.

Be good kids and play nicely together.

All Washed Up

The washing machine has been making grinding sounds the last couple of weeks. The washer has (mainly) worked well since it was fixed (okay, re-fixed), so I decided I would let it die a graceful death.

Tuesday, after loading the towels up, the washer started like normal. I went down a while later and didn't hear it running, so checked it out; it was shut off while still in the fill position. Thinking that I had stopped it and failed to re-start it, I turned it back on.

A while later I went down, it had turned itself off. After fiddling with it a while, I decided to try to let it run thru the cycle with the water that was in it; it would hum for a bit (no rotation of the drum), then turn off, I tried the spin cycle - nothing but humming, then turn off. I tried unplugging it so the computer could re-set. I tried a couple of different settings (that has worked in the past) - the same results. I did get it to siphon the water out, so I took the soapy, soaking wet towels out and hung them on the line (only took 2 days to dry).

Since WS is working massive overtime (plus Saturdays), I have pet-sitting and other things taking up my time, I couldn't even make it to a store to order a washer. No problem, I'll order off of the Internet. After a bit of research on ratings for different front-loaders , I had my selections narrowed down to 2 different washers: an LG and a Whirlpool. Naturally my first pick wasn't in stock, anywhere - wouldn't even let me order it. So my second pick, Whirlpool Duet 4.0 (with 14 settings), was ordered and delivery scheduled for Saturday. my confirmation email said that they would call Friday night between 6 and 9 to give me the delivery time.

Outdoor Living

Being busy with pet sitting, minor crises and family business, posting has been at the bottom of my list.

Too, with the Japanese Beetle infestation, there are no flowers to take pictures of. However, there was a Double Delight rose flower that seemed immune to the first wave of JB's, so I clipped it to put in a vase. As I was carrying it to the house, this popped out:

  I believe it is a crab spider, also known as a goldenrod spider. It could certainly be the same spider that I took pictures of several days earlier, just in its white form.

  This gal (I assume female as it was larger than the link shows for males was unintimidated and looked like she was ready to defend her flower from all comers.

July - Just as Dry as June

We've had 1/4" of rain in the last 2 weeks. Meanwhile, Weare, Francestown and Manchester have had rain every day (usually gully washers). I have been watering the vegetables, potted plants, and select garden areas. I have not watered several areas at all (below the fence, or along the lower edge of the driveway - where the ES Hydrangea is).

I have not planted anything but lavender and penstemmons that I started from seed in the spring (planted in areas that I water anyway). All the potted plants, that I am supposed to be planting in the gardens, have to wait until we get moisture that actually penetrates the soil.

Enough of this though.

Because it is still too early for vegetables from the garden, you get to see more flower pics:

I'll start with this one first. It is rather strange because I took it thru my binoculars (the same ones Cop Car gave me oh, forever ago). I was trying to focus on the robin's nest in the crotch of the tree, but the camera insisted on focusing on the tree leaves to the left. If anyone has suggestions on how to get it to focus where I want it, please feel free to chime in. This was taken from the deck, and the tree is directly behind the clothesline

Pictures from the Garden Part 2

This is a continuation of this post:

Pictures from the Garden

A lot of stuff has bloomed since I last posted pictures of the gardens, so let's get right down to it:

  Double Delight

  Zephirine Drouhin

Hampton Beach Sand Art

So after we got on the bikes and headed away from Weir's Beach, we headed towards the coast (and the "real" beach). Hampton was our destination to see the sand sculpters on display from some sort of competition.

There really isn't much more to say about it - so I'll just show the pictures:

Bike Weekend 2008

Two weekends ago was the end of Bike Week, and the weekend that we go up to Weirs Beach to see the bikes. We left the house at 8 aM, stopped for breakfast with Jimmy, then we rode to Weirs. We got there early enough that we didn't have to sit in traffic - not a big deal for Jimmy's bike since he has a radiator, but a relief to WS whose bike doesn't.

  (Looking toward the Boulevard from the bridge at one end of town)

As usual there were several colorful characters

  (This guy rode up with a parrot on his shoulder just before we left)

and a lot of nifty-looking bikes. Some bikes are only for show (and a quick run up and down the boulevard), and others are obviously ridden a lot.

  (Ok, this is really a trike, but it was nifty!)

In addition to bikes, there are vendors of more kinds of bike stuff (and non bike stuff) than one can imagine. We went thu a lot of the vendor stalls in search of specific items; riding glasses, gloves, neck bandana and T-shirts.

I scored a pair of Transition Lens padded glasses and a set of regular padded sunglasses. The Transition lenses are for when I leave in the morning for work; I leave in the dark and get to work in the sunshine. I had just been wearing clears, but that meant punishment for my eyes going directly east on 101A (trying to tell if the lights were green or red) and looking into the sun at the cornere of 122 (trying to tell if traffic was coming before I turned on). The Transition Lenses are great for that time of day or when it it is cloudy (I've proved out both). During sunny afternoons, I wear the regular sunglasses, since there is no need for them to change.

I was looking for gel-gloves, but couldn't find any in my size. I did find a leather neck bandana (like the one at this site), so I no longer have to use a winter muffler around my neck. Everyone else in the gorup (Jimmy, Pam, WS and me) found most of what they were looking for before we decided we had had enough of the heat and crowds