Bogieblog

Warm Weather

We usually have a thfebruary thaw, but this past week was just gorgeous! Many days were in the 50's or 60's and all of our larger cities experienced record breaking warmth Wednesday thru Friday. Despite all the warm weather, I still have a good snow pack although the iced up paths are now clear and have gotten wider. These pictures were taken yesterday morning.

Last night we had rain, and coupled with temps in the 40's there was more meltage. However, a cold front went thru last night, behind the rain, so we'll see what future systems do for the white stuf.

A Place to Hang My Hat

I have been planning on creating an area where I could keep the coats/jackets sweaters appropriate for the season so they aren't all hanging on a chair in the office, or in the office closet. I also wanted an area to hold my commonly used shoes, and where I could sit to put them on instead of the couch or living room chair where I had the coffee table in the way.

Last month I did a lot of internet trolling and found a bench I liked with the bonus that it had baskets to hold my hats, scarves and gloves. These were held in the magazine rack of an end table  that had been left in the house when I bought it. This is the bench I bought. It came as a kit and I put it together (picture doesn't show baskets installed below the sitting area).

I moved the drop-leaf table beside Birdie's cage and on which I had fed Fuzzy his canned food; Rita can't make the jump so I had been feeding her on the floor anyway, so I moved all the cat feeding stations to floor level. I have used the bench for several weeks in that spot to make sure it was where I wanted it. I  Last week I decided to put up the coat rack that Cop Car and her HH had given the Ex and me long ago.

I really like the way the set up looks and it is very handy and much more convenient..

10 Days and 2 Nor'easters Later

Three weeks ago, although there was snow on the ground, there was only 5-6" of hard packed and frozen snow. That has changed a bit as since just before Valentine's weekend we have had 2 Nor'easters and several snow storms.  These pictures were taken Valentine's day after I had cleaned up after a storm.

The day before Valentine's Day, I constructed a snow break for the back porch as the snow hadn't dumped off the roof, and we were expecting another 12-18" that night into Monday. When large amounts of snow dump it literally keeps me from being able to open the back door, so I wanted to mitigate that. The snow break as built using a couple of rail planter boxes as the base, two 2x4's, two 2x2's and a couple of pieces of plywood. Total $ spent = $0

This picture was taken the next day after a mall snow storm. The little bit of snow under the snow break was wind-driven and was taken after the small slideage shown in the following picture. I was well please on the results even after the Nor'easter the next day.

 

The snow dumped on the ramp was just a small slidage of a couple of sectionsthe morning of the 14th. A big dump will leave 6-12" (or more) of hard packed snow most of the way across the ramp.

Today we had a nice sunny day and it got up to 53*. I was out in a t-shirt shoveling, breaking up ice and moving berms.

I shoveled the berm away from the ramp.

 

Cleared off most of the snow from the top of the pellet pile. I used the snow shovel to scrape off the snow. I could have gotten the roof rake out to clear off the middle, but decided this was good enough for now.

I cleared the roof dumpage berm as well as I could from in front of the Propane tanks. Tomorrow I will see if I can get more out of there as they should be delivering next week.

I had to shovel out along the path on the other side of the house as apparently the roof dump had been pushed by the wind and completely filled in the area I had snow blown. I also shoveled a lot of snow drifts gathered at the sides of some of the paths that had been cleared.

While out there, I looked up in the willow tree to see if it had limbs hanging off. No limbs, but I was amazed that the gale-force winds we had sustained for a couple of days hadn't taken this down

That is a large nest. I don't know if it is a squirrel nest (I have a group of 3 sibling squirrels that run around here, as well as another lone squirrel that sneaks in when possible) or a bird's nest.

I probably got sunburned, but it was great getting out in the sunny, pleasant weather.