Bogieblog

Jamaican Sledding

The Iditarod starts in 5 days. Going over the musher list, which is full of familiar names as well as a good dose of rookies in the 71 team entry, the entry from Jamaica 9#8) is striking.

How does a person from Jamaica get interested in dog sledding, and how do they get started in the sport (read his short bio here)? Alright, theyve thought of everything;, Danny has a website with a page dedicated to that very questions I've asked.

Gotta keep an eye on this rookie!

Snow Pictures 2-27-10

All these pics were taken this morning:

   Going up our road
  Off the view in Deering (Rt 149)
  The dam at Bridge Street in Hillsboro
  The dam at Bridge Street in Hillsboro
  Off the view in Deering (Rt 149)

It was very pretty this morning! Since then, it warmed up and most of the trees have dropped their loads of snow.
 

Snow, Snow, Snow

WS and I spent a lot of today cleaning up from the snow - 6" of which has fallen since last night. WS not only snow blowed, he cleaned off the roofs to the house and the sheds. I cleaned up the deck and the front porch twice; once to clean off the offerings of last night/this morning, and then after WS cleaned off the roof (that in itself took my 45 minutes to clean up). I also had a job cleaning the path to the oil tank / electric meter since it hadn't been cleaned up at all this week.

After getting the majority of the work done, the sun came out and warming began.

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Speaking of electricity, about 1/2 of those that were in the dark after the winds Thursday night are back on the grid.

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I forgot to include, while posting about my trip home last night, that once i got on the highway in Nashua, I passed some utility trucks from Connecticut. I waved to the guys in them as thanks for coming up to help us out. Don't know if they saw the wave, or if they knew what it was for, but I hope other people also show their appreciation (for our regular line crews too!).

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I also forgot to include, while posting about the high winds, downed trees/electric lines and closed roads, that this is the second worst storm for electrical outages in NH history. The worst storm was the ice storm of December 2008.

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It just started snowing again, seems that we aren't done with this system yet.

Hampton Beach Block Burned

Seems like it's a good thing that we actually got down to Hampton Beach last summer to take in the sights. An entire block burned down the night of the snow/rain/wind storm.

Amy Kane has pictures and reports on her blog from the morning after.

GBBC Results

If you counted birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count, get the results in by March 1.

To see results by state (or Canadian territory), go visit this page. It looks like the gold finch was the most numerous bird reported for NH, with chickadees being close behind. Juncos, blue jays and mourning doves sere the next numerous.

Looks like I was the only checklist from Hillsboro (they go by zip code, and ours shows up that way). Hopefully others are just late getting their sightings in.

Census Work

Tuesday when I got home from work, there was a message on the answering machind from a Census representative. They want me to train as an alternative as they tend to have a high turn over of people. There is a training session next week in my neck of the woods (relatively - it's only 26 miles away; closer than any job I've held).

I'll be taking vacation days from work so I can attend the training that start on Tuesday and ends on Friday. Fortunately my calender was empty and my boss didn't quibble about the short notice (plus, I'll probably do some work from home on a database they want me to build).

After the training, we'll see if there is an immediate opening or if they call me at some later date.

As a side issue that is related, I've gotten a letter telling us to watch the mail for the census form, but haven't gotten it yet. A coworker said yesterday that he had already returned the form. Maybe they are mailed out by zip code or state or something - he lives in Mass. so perhas they start earlier. Just kind of strange when he told me.

Snow and More Snow

After rain all day Thursday, WS tackled the burm on the downhill side of the driveway with a metal shovel. He spent hours out there just getting that cleared out. Yesterday, after work, he snow blowed the rest of the driveway; the snow was drier than it had been as we only got a bit of snow early Friday morning.

Last night I shoveled the couple of inches of snow we got just before I got home (ver wet so I couldn't just sweep it off), and this morning it looks to be another 3" fell last nigh. It just started snowing again, but doesn't look like it is too serious about piling up. It is supposed to snow on and off for the next several days too.

I think WS is going to get to go snowmobiling this weekend!

Compilation Needed

In the last several years, NH has had several events that have caused widespread road and bridge closures. Floods (2 major ones), the epic ice storm of December 2008, and last night, a huge wind event after heavy snow and rain. The last two events took out a massive amount of power lines too - some of which also resulted in road closures.

One would think by now, that one of the powers that be for this state, would have figured out how to compile all that information so that people can find it quickly and easily. well, that would not be the case. In every instance, I have had to trust to luck and hit-or-miss (mostly miss) as how to navigate my 40 mile route to work. This morning, I had to go 20 miles out of my way. It would have been less, but I didn't know the road was closed until I got there and had to turn around.

I am not quite correct asserting that no one compiles the information; our local news station recieves reports of the road closures. And they even post a fraction, a very tiny fraction on their website. They save the whole list for showing on TV. Unfortunately, I am at work, and don't have access to a TV. Even if I did, I don't have 20 minutes to watch all the roads and building closures go by (and God forbid I blink at the wrong time and miss the road or townI am watching for).

You would think that the DOT would keep this information. Well maybe, but they are keeping it secret. One of the local papers states that the DOT chief said a 100 local roads were closed this morning, and later that 34 state roads were closed. The DOT keeps an interactive map of road closures and looking at all of Southern NH, it shows around 24 roads impacted by something and roughly half of those are planned / on-going construction. This morning it showed even less than that (and none of it was road closures that I ran into), so it certainly isn't much help.

The radio would be good, except the only local talk radio that I can get was off the air this morning because of the power outages. All the other stations tell you to go to the local TV station's website.

Getting home tonight may be an adventure (I've spent 100 miles and several hours to get home before), hopefully, though, it will be boring and routine.

UPDATE (2/27): It took me a while to get home last night. Found that the road was closed in Hollis before Silver Lake, so 25 minutes after I left work, I was just 1/2 mile away from where I started from (from backtracking). I ended up taking the highway to Manchester then getting home from there.

Heavy Snow Day

Pictures from today's 5-10" then turning to rain - it forgot to turn to rain, so was at 15" when I got home. That 15" was very heavy, so heavy that I couldn't lift the lids off the trash cans on the deck until I removed snow. Naturally, right after I started shoveling, it turned to rain. I spent 2 hours shoveling, and only did the front walk, the deck and deck stairs, and the stairs to the pen (WS did the path between the deck stairs and the stairs to the pen). WS is still out there now fighting with the snowblower trying to clear the driveway (and the 4.5' burm left by the street plows).

 



  Taken on top of the cat house. The tape is leaned back while I am trying to take the picture; when straight up and down, it was just at the 15" mark.

It was funny because as I was leaving work, I told MBG (gal at the desk next to mine) that I wasn't looking forward to shoveling.

"Do you really think you have any snow?" she asked.

"I shovelled 5" of it at 3:45 this morning," I replied [I had shoveled to the vehicles and a path to the stairs on the deck, and the deck stairs]

"Yeah, but after all the rain, I mean, we don't have any left out there now"

I tried to explain how we are colder, so it may not have turned to rain. Plus, the 5" that I shoveled was twice what was at work when I got there at 5:45 this morning.

I actually took the pictures to show her; I just decided to share with others too.

I called WS when I got home to let him know that I had just gotten into the driveway but that was it - just so he didn't try to wheel right in when he got home. I told him the amount of snow and apparently someone was with him at work, who didn't believe that we had that much snow (at WS's work, the snow had turned to rain also, and most of it had melted). so, I sent pics to his work too.

People just don't believe that, curtesy of the ridge that we live on, we get much more snow than areas around us, so we have to resort to things like this! I have a feeling that a bunch of people in the Monadnock region, that live on a ridge, have the same problem.

UPDATE: After 2.5 hours, WS gave up. The snow is so wet it won't blow. He got enough of the driveway cleared that both vehicles are in it, but that is it. Neithre vehicle is at the top, and the downhill side is completely closed off (the burm is there to stay too). The burm was so hard packed that WS had to stop twice to fix the belt on the snowblowerr. We may be stuck with this situation until the thaw comes.
 

Recent Pictures

This picture is just for Buff - because I can't resist torturing her by upping the cabin fever even more:

  The batch of seed from Totally tomatoes came in yesterday. Holy Canoly - I didn't realize I had ordered that many peppers!

  And here, to soften the blow from the torture, is a calming pet picture.

Remember folks, only a couple more months before seed starting can commense (hush, you guys down south).