Bogieblog

Cat Physics

Those of us in association with cats know that cats are excellent demonstration sof physics, although some laws of cats physics apply ONLY to cats.

Law of Cat Inertia
A cat at rest will tend to remain at rest, unless acted upon by some outside force – such as the opening of cat food, or a nearby scurrying mouse.

Law of Cat Motion
A cat will move in a straight line, unless there is a really good reason to change direction.

Law of Cat Magnetism
All dark clothing attracts cat hair in direct proportion to the darkness of the fabric and lightness of the cat.

Law of Cat Thermodynamics
Heat flows from a warmer to a cooler body, except in the case of a cat, in which case all heat flows to the cat.

Law of Cat Stretching
A cat will stretch to a distance proportional to the length of the nap just taken.

Law of Cat Sleeping
All cats must sleep with people whenever possible, in a position as uncomfortable for the people involved, and as comfortable as possible for the cat.

Law of Cat Elongation
A cat can make her body long enough to reach just about any counter top that has anything remotely interesting on it.

Law of Cat Obstruction
A cat must lay on the floor in such a position to obstruct the maximum amount of human foot traffic.

Law of Cat Acceleration
A cat will accelerate at a constant rate, until he gets good and ready to stop.

Law of Dinner Table Attendance
Cats must attend all meals when anything good is served.

Law of Rug Configuration
No rug may remain in its naturally flat state for very long.

Law of Obedience Resistance
A cat’s resistance varies in proportion to a human’s desire for her to do something.

First Law of Energy Conservation
Cats know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and will, therefore, use as little energy as possible.

Second Law of Energy Conservation
Cats also know that energy can only be stored by a lot of napping.

Law of Refrigerator Observation
If a cat watches a refrigerator long enough, someone will come along and take out something good to eat.

Law of Electric Blanket Attraction
Turn on an electric blanket and a cat will jump into bed at the speed of light.

Law of Random Comfort Seeking
A cat will always seek, and usually take over, the most comfortable spot in any given room.

Law of Bag/Box Occupancy
All bags and boxes in a given room must contain a cat within the earliest possible nanosecond.

Law of Cat Embarrassment
A cat’s irritation rises in direct proportion to her embarrassment times the amount of human laughter.

Law of Milk Consumption
A cat will drink his weight in milk, squared, just to show you he can.

Law of Furniture Replacement
A cat’s desire to scratch furniture is directly proportional to the cost of the furniture.

Law of Cat Landing
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid- section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.

Law of Fluid Displacement
A cat immersed in milk will displace her own volume, minus the amount of milk consumed.

Law of Cat Disinterest
A cat’s interest level will vary in inverse proportion to the amount of effort a human expends in trying to interest him.

Law of Pill Rejection
Any pill given to a cat has the potential energy to reach escape velocity.

Law of Cat Composition
A cat is composed of Matter + Anti-Matter + It Doesn’t Matter

Stolen from Mostly Cajun

Randomosity

Yesterday I planted more green beens to replace some that didn't germinate as well as to have a different picking time from what is already growing. While doing so, I looked over to see what WS was doing and had to run and get the camera for this shot:

   WS (left) and the neighbor were hard at work looking at and discussing the tractor. Not that anything was actually being done** mind you, but there was a lot of posturing going on. Notice that Prince has finally lost interest and is going to go watch the doings on the street.

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I took a picture of the chicks - it's a lousy picture as the camera decided I wanted to focus on the nest, but you can distinctly see the 3 gaping mouths:

 

I am unsure what happened to the 4th egg - either it never hatched or the chick was not healthy; the egg just disappeared. 

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The Delphinium by the fence is starting to bloom so I'm expecting Japanese Beetles to arrive any day now. Hopefully, the mole has at least mitigated the population of grubs somewhat so that the beetles won't be as bad this year. after noticing the delphinium by the fence, I went to look for my blue/purple delphinium by the stairs, and don'e see anything. I don't know if they have a lifespan, but it seemed healthy last year. Maybe it didn't like the mild winter?

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That's pretty much it for today, return next week for another riveting edition of the bogie household doings.
 

** WS had gone to work Saturday morning and done some field measuring for a job, so I'm not really ragging on him about not getting anything done!

Mold in the Attic - Redux

Three years ago the insurance company had a mold remediation company come out and clean up our attic (at the same time they did the basement from the burst boiler). Mold remediation, for anyone who doesn't know, inolves painting everything in the attic with a fungicide, then painting over it.

That obviously only slowed things down and we now have mold in the attic once again. Naturally, the insurance company only pays for remediation once, so we are on our own for this one - and it will be much more expensive as we have decided to do it right, not go thru this every couple of years.

We are going to end up taking off the whole roof and replacing it all; the rafters, plywood and roofing. We believe that a lot of the problem is the ice damn buildup we get every winter. We have a non-too-steep roof so the snow doesn't slide off and WS has to shovel it when he can.

To eliminate the shoveling and ice dams we are going to go with a metal roof. We are in the process of getting bids and soon we will be refinancing the house so that we can get the work done. Unfortunately this also means we will have to extend the life of the mortgage; we had only 8 years left to pay and now we are going to be going up to 15 years. The siding is also in bad shape, and if we decide to do both at the same time, we will have to extend to 20 years (the cost of both is about 3/4 of what we originally paid for the house). Howver, both roof and siding should outlive both of us, but it is kind of disheartening to think that we may be paying a mortgage until we are really close to our 70's.

Blecchh!

That Was FAST

Yesterday I looked in the nest after Mamma Bird had flown off and saw this:

   Yep, that is a chick.

A little while later, I was going by and looked in and there were 3 chicks!

Notice that the eggshells disappeared as the chicks appeared. Mamma Bird must have carried off the remnants of the shells as I can't find them on, under, or around the porch.

This afternoon, I looked in and there are 4 chicks, although you can't tell it in this picture:

 

Last nightI had brushed the dogs and left a bunch of hair on the lawn. I seriously thought that Mamma Bird must have gathered some to cover up the chicks while she was away foraging. Then I got a better look and saw that the "hair" is their down.

Boy howdy do things happen fast! 

ADDENDUM: I actually never saw 4 chicks, I just assumed there were 4 in the nest because the last egg was gone. NOw (that there are only 3 chicks in the nest, I'm not sure if my wording was correct.

Bike Week 2010

Yesterday WS, Jimmy, Gabe and I made it out to Weirs Beach to take in the sights and sounds of the yearly bike week that is part of the Loudon Classic. As a rarity, it was sunny and warm, as was most of the week, which belies the unofficial nickname of Rainconia that the event has earned over the last several years.

We got to the boulevard before 10 AM, earlier than we usually do, and for only the second time since we started going there (15 years or so), we couldn't find any parking spaces. So, we headed for one of the pay lots to leave the bikes. The first two pictures are from the very end of the boulevard - where the bikers exit when they leave:

 

 

There were a lot of bikes there with cool patterns, awesome paint jobs and murals, strange configurations and just plain everyday bikes, but the one that stood out to me was this one:
 

Look closely at the dash in the picture above, then at the saddlebags in the picture below:

  Apparently it is a K-9 Cruiser. There was room for 4 small dogs (one on each hard bag, one on the tank and one on the luggage rack (see picture below)

 

I've seen large dogs and small dogs as passengers, but I have never seen as many dogs on a bike as this pupmobile carries. Too bad I didn't get to see the assemblage as it got there!

We spent under two hours at the event then decided it was time to hit the road and get some air flowing. We tried to stay away from the main bike week areas and wandered thru some back roads, finally ending up at home about 6 PM.

Today we have to crack the whip and get some yard work done, but yesterday was a great day for just cruiding around doing nothing.

As an aside, Monday is Ride to Work Day. I certainly will participate as the weather should be splendid!

Porch Flowers

Last weekend I was taking a look at one of the planters on the railing to the porch:

 

I was concerned because it appeared as if there were dying plants in it. I had just planted some annuals in the planters a couple of weeks earlier, and it had rained plenty, so I was trying to figure out what the problem was.

Sell, I figured it out and here is the culprit:

Here is a better look at the miscreant:

  A junco

And this is why:

There are 4 eggs in there.

She didn't actually kill any of the plants in the planter, she brought up dead grass and twigs from the yard. AFter seeing the nest, WS and I realized that we had seen her gathering nesting material in the front yard and interupted her nest building a couple of times.

Why she chose our porch railing as a nesting site I have no idea. She startles out of the nest every time we enter or exit the door. WS and I were sitting on the patio one evening and I watched her fly off to the gate of the fence. She sat there until the male flew over and gave her something to eat. She gulped it down and then went back to the nest.

It should be interesting when the eggs hatc

Bridge Tale

I just hate seeing these signs - they are just a waste of taxpayer money:

 

The sign especially rankles me on projects like this bridge in Hillsborough, do you see why?

 

Maybe you see in this picture what bothers me about the reconditioning of this bridge:?

Deductions

The Weekend Pundit posts about government looking at killing the mortgage interest deduction on personal taxes. Personally, I don't have a problem with this per se.

We haven't been able to deduct our interest for 20 years. Only the first 2 years did we get deductions, since then we have had absolutely no deductions; nada, zilch, zippo (oh, except that $90 credit we got for installing new doors last year - woohoo, we are on easy street now). We have never, ever, taken into account tax implications when buying something (or at least not positive implications). And if you talk to money experts, I'll bet they tell you that you shouldn't count on the deduction as part of what will pay for your home.

As I recall, way back when, we used to also get to deduct interest on credit cards. When that was taken away, there was much gnashing of teeth and wailing that it would kill the credit card industry. Hmm, seems the credit card industry has done okay (not from us, since we pay off every month).

As far as I am concerned, the tax code should be simplified, streamlined and leaned out - and deductions should be done away with (okay, I can see deductions for the amount of people in the family - but that is it).

However, this does seem to be just a ploy on how to raise taxes without technically raising taxes (after all, they just ended a deduction) - that is what I do have a problem with.

Weekend Off = Yardwork

My census work finished yesterday (although I am hoping to get in on the next phase, which starts up about mid-July), so I actually have a weekend off for a change. In that case, I get to go out and do some more of this:

 

I got the peppers mulched with newspaper and straw (from the dogs' house - their winter "blanket"), but the tomatoes, peas and green beens still need to be done. Of course it is supposed to be cool and rain all weekend, so I'm not sure if I'll actually get out there.

Since I had Friday off from my regular job, and got to do Census work during the day, I got a chance in the early evening to pick some flowers for the living room:

   A bunch of vases with flowers: peony, penstemmon, mock orange, Olympic Fire mountain laurel, Double Delight, Scentimental, Vanguard (only apricot rugosa) and Armide rose. If you biggify the picture, you can also see the sprigs of lavender behind the Armide rose.
  This Armide bud looks like it should open up to a pink rose
  But this is what it opens up to look like.

   Better view of the larger vase which features a peony with mock orange and penstemmon flowers as a background.
 
There were a lot more roses that flowered this week, but we had heavy downpoors several time from Sunday until Thursday that blew them all. Too bad, because some of them were once bloomers that I haven't really gotten to see yet (we either get really hot weather or heavy rain - either way they blow by to fast for me to get to see).

Along with mulching the vegies, I need to weed both them and the flower beds. Grass is trying to take over some of the beds adjacent to the fenced in area, and the dang dandilions and clover are always willing to try to take over the universe, so I'll keep busy if the weather holds for a while.

I also need to plant this Strawberry Swirl Dianthus:

 

This thing doesn't know that it is only supposed to be good for zone 6. I have had it survive 3-4 winters in a small hanging basket that I don't bother mulching over with straw for the winter. Every year I hang it up next to the bird feeders on the deck, and every year it comes back. Guess it has proven that it wants to be a part of the landscape!

Fond Farewell and Good Luck

Bruce is hanging up his Blogger's hat and getting ready for a new adventure; running for State Representative. He's been a daily read for a couple of years, I cheered him on when he moved from MA to NH, and I will miss him. However, he has bigger fish to fry so good luck to him and all his future endeavors!