Yesterday they came and got the bike for winter storage. I have not gotten to ride for at least 5 weeks (I know because I started the bik after the first 3 weeks of inactivity to charge the batter, then again last weekend). It was a balmy 10* when he showed up although it did warm up to 30* by afternoon - twice as warm as it ever got Wednesday or Thursday (and still 15* below the average high)
She is no longer crowded by the snow blower and will have a warm place to stay with like minded machines. Her battery will stay charged. And she will be pampered with general maintenance and a detail.
Picture of garage with everything in it taken on 10/27/18 - does not show the water stains from the snow melting off the snow blower - the bike will be happy to get out of that mess too :)
My Thanksgiving cactus bloomer right on time (who knew that there are Christmas, easter and Thanksgiving cactus?)
I don't do anything special with this plant and it bloomed 3-4 times this year. It is in the living room bay window and I water it about every two weeks. Looking online, you are supposed to keep them moist - ha, this one should ever be so lucky. Actually, if I keep it moist it starts looking a bit shabby, so I let it dry out on a regular basis. It also gets full sun - although with our rainy and snowy fall, there has been little sun, so it has experienced a lot of unintentional darkness. And, the bay window is cool during the winter since I keep the drapes closed to conserve heat - but none of that explains it blooming at other times of the year. Oh well, I enjoy the blooms and that is all that counts.
I had to take a lot of pictures before I could get the ones posted above. Some of the other pictures:
Sunday evening I started hearing a whining sound from the main floor stove, and shortly after smelled a smoky smell. Not a wood type of smoke but mor a hint of electrical. I shut down the stove which of course means I had to put up with about 15 minutes more of the sound/smell, until the fans were actually off. While it was shutting down, I determined it was the distribution fan motor that was making the racket.
The distribution fan is much easier to replace Than the exhaust blower, sot that was the good news. More good news is that it didn't happen in Jan-Feb. The bad news being it had to give me difficulty at 5pm on a Sunday and by mid week we were to be in the single digits and windy (the wind sucks the heat right out of the house worse than just cold). I cranked up the basement stove (P61a) to the HE77 settings and found all the register fans that I had used back in 2014 before I had put a main floor stove in and kept the main floor livable. Side note - another testament to why I don't get rid of things - I had actually thought about giving them away when I was installing the flooring system in the basement a couple of months ago. Since I had to move those shelves, I had run into those fans and thought hard about whether to keep them or not.
Before I turned up the P61a, I got the boiler gas tube chamber all cleaned out and started the pilot light in case I needed to use it. I set the boiler thermostat for 64* and also set up the ThermGuard to force the boiler to light and circulate water in the FHW pipes 3 times per day. Next I got onto the firewood hoarders forum that I frequent and started asking questions. I was steered to a replacement fan assembly that was half the cost of an OEM assembly. I ordered that, paid the extra $8 for delivery by Tuesday and called it a day.
I had looked at how the fan assembly was to be removed - only two bolts and a couple of wires - cool. Tuesday the replacement came in and I set to removing the old fan. After a couple of hours of trying this and that, and a lot of swearing, I found that one bolt, the one set in an area that even my hand couldn't fit into, would not budge. I tried a long handle screwdriver (the bolt was about 10" into the cavity), and I tried a socket, using two extensions and nothing. The easily reached bolt would come out, but not the other one. So, Wednesday after work I stopped at a BBS and obtained their last 10" socke extension. That did the trick and I got the old fan removed. The new fan, after much manipulation was installed and the wires spliced in. Pocs: Old motor out, new motor installed
ARGH - now nothing but lights worked and a slight humming sound. Even in test mode, where both exhaust and distribution motors should come on regardless if there is a leak, nothing happened. So back to the forum where many people had suggestions that did not seem to apply to my case. I finally checked the wiring and even though it was all tight, one looked a bit "off". I redid the splice and voila, in test mode the distribution motor came on. BUT, the exhaust motor did not. Back to the forum where a kind soul described how to turn the motor by hand - and to get it "unstuck" - MAGIC!
So the P43 was up and running in time for the cold snap. I have someone coming in a couple of weeks to replace the distribution blower as that one can be tricky. That blower is still good, but caution says to replace it now because I don't want it to "stick" for good in the middle of January. If the fan blade doesn't have to be cut off (as regularly happens), then I can keep it as a backup.
We received our first "real" snow, as in get out the snowblower type of storm, Thursday night into Friday morning. Looks like I won't be using these for a while.
On November 2 I was driving home and stopped to take pictures of the swamp fog at Perkins Pond In Weare. Pictures presented in order taken. Weird how the two that are almost the same vista show different lighting even though taken with the same phone, from the same place (my truck), within a minute of each other.
And just for fun, because I rarely retouch photos except for cropping, I decided to let the computer correct the colors.
On 11/3, shortly after noon I snapped a couple more pictures of the October Glory Maple.
Good thing I got those pictures as a couple of hours later both it and the burning bush were bare of leaves from strong winds.
The next day I snapped these photos of the yard - how it has looked pretty much since September (besides the leaves)
The side of the yard by the swamp is also under water. I didn't bother taking pictures as there are so many leaves on top, it isn't obvious in pictures. Sunday afternoon I scooped all the leaves out of the culvert between my yard and the trailer to help the pond there drain. The culvert wasn't clgged and was running well, but I figured that being proactive wasn't a bad thing.
Previously, on Sunday morning, I had been driving to Concord to attend a HOG meetig and turned around to take these pictures.
It is not unusual for the High Tide to flood during the spring when the Contoocook River runs high from rains and snow melt. But it rarely floods during the fall. On my way back home, going over the bridge on Rt 149, I saw the river was nearly as high as I'd ever seen it and close to lapping over the stone wall that some apartments are built on. Those apartments are in an old mill building that was designed to let flood water thru, so there was no danger there, but was startling to see.
NH is still very fortunate that we aren't in drought and dealing with fires, nor is there much true, life-altering flooding, and my basement has stayed dry, so all is good. The biggest danger is we've had high winds for the last couple of days, which can take trees down because of soil saturation not allowing the tree roots to hold itself in place.
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