Bogieblog

First Picture

Here is the first picture taken of me riding my 2011 Street Glide at this location. As far as I know, it is the only picture thus far taken at Weir's Beach in Laconia, NH 6/18/15. Too bad it was a bit cloudy so the color doesn't show well - I lightened it up some and you can see a bit on the tank, front fender, and the lower.

Happy Father's Day 2015

Happy Father's Day to my dad, Cop Car's HH. Hope you have great weather and take time to do things you want to do, not things that have to be done!

Relaxation Time During Bike Week

Last week was bike week here in NH so I took a couple of days of to do some riding. Thursday morning I left the house before 8, road to NHMS and got my HOG event pin (only HOG members can get it), then off to Weir's beach to cruise the boulevard and get my picture taken. Didn't even stop - just hopped on Rt. 3 and headed north.

 

I was staying the night in North Conway, NH, so headed there first, identified where my hotel was, then road a couple of the notches (Pinkham and Crawford). Here are miscellaneous pictures of my trip up.

 

That evening, I met up with a friend and his riding companions, who came down from Canada. I use the term "friend" loosely as I only know him thru Facebook. Originally he thought they were staying in Woodstock, so the plan was to meet them Friday morning for breakfast. However, on Wednesday, I found he had been mistaken and their motel was just a couple of blocks from mine. Here is the crew - FB friend is across the table from me.

Their group was made up of great people, and we met again for breakfast the next morning. Then we went our separate ways; they were headed to Weir's Beach, I was headed for more notch riding (Dixville and Franconia) before riding for home.

 

More miscellaneous pictures of my eventual trip home.

I wish I had gotten some pictures of 13 MIle Woods, but that was a narrow, twisty road and I needed all my concentration so didn't pull out the camera. I also didn't realize that I was passing right by Shrine of Our Lady of Grace in Colebrook - a place for blessing of the bikes until last year. I should have stopped and taken pictures, it is a beautiful place that I've been to a couple of time for bike blessing (the last in 1996 or 97).

Had a great time, met some great people and put about 550 miles on the bike. Not much considering that I rode for about 7 hours each day (by coincidence, arrived at my destination both days right at 4 pm - left both times just before 8 - take away gas and rest stops to get 7 hours). However, until I jumped on the highway at Plymouth to head home, most roads were fairly low speed limits.

No Mow Zone

The side yard next to the next door swamp stays pretty wet at all times of year. It is a bear to mow, but I have to keep it clear as there is poison ivy just on the other side of the fence. It is also pretty shady, except for a couple hours in late afternoon.

I have decided that will be a no-mow zone. In other words, shrubs and perennials need to be installed and any bare spots mulched to help keep the poison ivy from encroaching. I am taking the no-mow zone from the existing shade garden (where the crabapple is) to the fence. The first order of business was to remove the sod that consisted of a mix of grass, catmint and moss. This is the strip that I dug out last Sunday.

 

The first row I planted was (l-R) Bleeding heart, hydrangea, coral bells and another hydrangea. The lilies next to the fence were already there from the previous owners.

The second row is tall phlox, peony, primrose, dwarf goats beard and Japanese iris. Note the big root between the coral bells and the pink hydrangea.

Yesterday, I started another row and ran into a massive amount of roots - most from a stump. So, I spent 3 hours pulling up sod and digging out roots. I need to get all the larger roots out; if I ever try to pop the stump, the roots will have to be removed anyway. Better now than having to tear up plants I'm putting in now.

I did get turtleheads (front left of top picture) and a couple more primrose planted, but I'm still working on getting the roots out from the rest of the section I uncovered yesterday. This will definitely be a long process.

Disappearing Rock

Now that I have a cart to move dirt, I can really hurt myself make some progress on yard work. I was taking so much time transferring buckets of dirt (it doesn't take long to get 50 pounds of dirt, especially when it is moist), that even simple jobs looked like I was getting nowhere.

The first job using the cart was to dig out the big rock that was against stump #3. I was not only digging the rock out, but also lowering that part of the soil level in general as it overtopped the stone retaining wall. At the same time, I had to be careful of the Japanese Knotweed so I could bag that, and all the roots I could find to take to the dump. I had saved empty mulch bags and filed 4 of those with the weed and roods, with any dirt I thought was contaminated (fill is a misnomer - I put in 30-40 pounds of dirt/weed/roots).

With the rock finally uncovered, I could see that it wasn't going anywhere without more muscle than I have - or at least the help of machinery.

Needing to cover that area with plastic (to keep any missed weed roots from growing back), I had to do something with the rock as it topped the retaining wall by quite a bit. No problem, I dug a huge hole next to the retaining wall (storing the dirt in the cart), and spent about 30 minutes with a pry bar and several pieces of wood getting it to slide into the hole (was hoping I could roll it - but that wasn't happening).

 

So the big rock now buttresses the retaining wall and the level of the dirt along the retaining wall has been lowered.

Putting it Together

After removing stump #3, and starting to define the flower garden in front of the house - and moving dirt slowly by carrying/dragging buckets of dirt to the side yard last week - I decided there had to be a better way.

Actually, I had been thinking about getting a wheel barrow previously, but the price for two-wheeled barrows is really quite high (even on CL), and a single wheel barrow would be tough to move and navigate in my uphill and extremely bumpy yard. But knowing the amount of dirt I would have to remove, sealed the deal - I had to look in earnest.

Somehow I stumbled upon the notion of a dumping yard cart, I believe it was an ad from a BBS, and the research began. I looked at the reviews of the featured item and did not believe it would serve my purpose. However, I did some research and found what I believed would be the best value for my money at TSC. Happily there is TSC a couple of miles down the road from work, and I went to check it out at lunch time.

The cart I was looking at touted a handling capacity of 600 pounds as well as the ability to convert the handle from a hand pull to a towing hitch (not usefull for me presently, but could be handy in the long term). However, they also showed a 1,000# cart on the website. When I got to the store, I was in for a surprise - a 1500# capacity that was on clearance for the same price as the next size down.

After checking out the feel of the bed, to see how sturdy it seemed, I had the largest one loaded into my car. That night I began assembling it in the basement (it was raining, had been raining since Sunday, and wasn't supposed to quit until Thursday morning). I got a box of parts (no surprise) and an instruction manual.

 

The instruction manual and container of hardware were pleasant surprises. Despite being made in China, apparently the writer of the manual not only had a great command of the English language, the writer also did a great job of indicating the hows of assembling. Additionally, the assembly illustrations were clear (except one), there was a chart of hardware shown in ACTUAL size; one complaint that I usually have is if the hardware is mixed up, I can't tell what bolt is a specific size until I sort everything and compare to the other sizes. The hardware was in a package that kept everything separate and labeled both on the front and back of the package. Someone really thought this out for users that are not a natural born tinkerer!

 

The manual said I should be able to put it together in 20 minutes. The reviews, although positive, warned of more like 1-2 hours. I put it together in 1 hour and 10 minutes, so felt good that I at least was amongst the average.

I put the cart to good use yesterday and am very happy with it.