Bogieblog

Making the Concord, NH Patch Website

An article was posted about the HOG Chapter's donation to the Kennek Foundation that we did a month or so ago.

Download Article about Loudon Fire Department

Feline Update

The Destructo Duo went in for their yearly check up two weeks ago. It was a month early as I needed to get Rita in for a weight check so she was a tag along. She was in for her annual checkup last month and had lost weight (at 7.6 lbs) so we wanted to monitor it - all is good, she gained 1/2 pound and is back to 8.1 pounds. I figured out the youngsters were cleaning out her food as she is a grazer, so made sure that there was a surplus of kibble to be had.

Back to the youngsters. At about 14 months old, they both got their 3 year rabies booster along with FLVEPHCTDS (or whatever those letter are ). Spot is 7.5 pounds and healthy. Rainey, formerly Runt (because she was the runt of the litter), is now my biggest cat at a whopping 8.6 pounds . Yes, she is the one that will clean out Rita's canned food, and eat her kibble regardless of how much is in the "kittens" bowls. Although not lithe, she is by no means a fatty. She is visibly taller, and a bit wider than Spot. I didn't realize she is at least as tall as Rita and probably as long. Like they say, dark clothes make you look smaller - which must translate to fur color too.

Anyway, everyone is healthy and happy, and that is all I want.

Last weekend was very hot (for around here - mid 90's), so two things happened ahead of time:

1. I pulled out the portable A/C that I had bought off CL last year (when I got the kittens since they were to be caged upstairs so they couldn't get to the cool basement), and got that set up in the living room. That is a 10k BTU A/C and will keep the LR, kitchen and office "cool" (aka, 80*) as long as the bedrooms and bathroom are closed off.
2. I bought a 6k window A/C for the office - that happily also blows into the bathroom. Yes, it is red-necky in that I used rigid foam insulation left overs to cover the window to keep sunlight from streaming in.

If I leave the bedrooms open, both A/C's can keep everythig about 78-80. If I close them off, the temps can stay at 76 or lower. I only use the A/C's in the afternoon when the sun gets really southwest (oh how I miss that willow that shaded that side of the house)

The cats all have their preferred place of resting when I am cooling off the house. Rainey likes the bedroom which is a midrange temp.

Spot lays in the bathroom garden window - which is hot since it is in direct sun and I have a heavy towel blocking off the heat generated during the summer.

And Rita is laying right in front of the stream of air from the office A/C (the airflow stream is at an angle from the window to the doorway).

And then the other day, on a non-A/C day, I caught the three of them on the (messy) bed. Unusual for the three of them to be so close. You can tell by the looks on their faces that they were a little disgruntled at having their naps interrupted.

Almost Like Winning the Lottery

When I was looking at cars, I knew that if things went reasonably well ( i.e.no major set backs), that I would either pay off the car in a short time, or pay off the truck loan (bought the truck April 2018 and still owed about as much as the budget I had in mind for a car).

When I bought the Focus, part of the deal for getting such a low price, was getting a $1,000 discount for using Ford Cred*t to finance. You had to keep the loan at least 3 months, then could refinance (which I'll bet a lot of people don't think to later). See, that financial option runs about twice the rate of what other options cost. With my excellent credit, the lowest rate I could get was 6.7%!!!! Almost any bank or credit union would give me 3.9% at the time. My truck loan, even though used rates are higher than new rates, is at 3.3% - so I knew I would be paying off the car first.

Anyway, I took their finance option each payment that I made was well over what was required. I paid the car off in June, paying them a total of right around $250 in interest - so in all, I got a $750 discount. I got the title within a week of the final payment and then about 10 days ago I got a piece of mail from them. Hu? What could they want?

Apparently I overpaid by $1.03. Almost enough for a cup of coffee :)

Too Hot to do Anything

We are in a heat wave with the days getting in the mid 90's and last night it was still 80* at midnight (74 was low this morning). I'm just happy the humidity has been less than 80%. So I'll just post flowers and foliage pictures taken this week.

Day lilies taken 7/16

More Day lilies taken 7/19

I love this one - it really stood out with the eye popping yellow center and deep red petals outlined by the windmill cage

Ruby Stella D'Oro

Echinaceas (Coneflowers) - first is Double Scoop Mandarin, then Sombrero Granada Gold, then a NOT Double Scoop Mandarin (as I thought it was supposed to be)

Brand new foliage on the Lace Leaf Maple I planted in the new roadside garden

Not quite as new foliage - but still new since I planted it

Yucca stalks - first picture the stalk is 8-9' tall

Gay Feather

Nine Bark foliage from the driveway garden. Don't know the name. Early in the season I think it is Coppertina or Centerglow (I bought bare roots of them both back in 2015, potted them up to overwinter since I wouldn't get them planted, and immediately forgot which were which). But with the uniformly deep color it exhibits in the heat, I think more a Diablo (which I did not get)

Roadside Garden Progress

I have not yet finished up the roadside garden, but it is getting closer.

Here are the plants I put in on 6/30/19

There are 4 peonies (Filix Crousse and Madame Emile Debatene), a Laceleaf Japanes Maple, and two Beleza Dark Pink Gaura's (the blooming plants). The Gauras won't make it thru the winter, but since they are in front they will be easy to replace.

A Buzz Hot Raspberry Butterfly Bush at the other end

And in this shot from the side, you can see the Autumn Fire Sedum that is to the far right.

On 7/3/19, I got a couple of tall Phlox (Niki) from a nursery in Wilton to add. I also side dressed everything with compost (not mine, it was bagged).

And on 7/9/19 I got some mulch put around the plants that are there (no additions since the phlox)

Okay, I just remembered that I hadn't taken a picture of the new Buzz Midnight Butterfly bush that I put in on 7/3/19, so now you see it in the mulch (the one on the right).

I still need plants for the area between but that will take some time to find what I want (I don't know what I want, but will know when I see it/them). I do know I want a small shrub that will balance out with the color of the Laceleaf Maple so that is on my search list. And then of course a couple of smaller perennials to go around it.

And yeah, the inside "wall" will eventually be covered by mulch but for now I am loving the convenience of being able to step there to lean over to install the plants/soil/mulch. I thought I was just using up broken wall blocks while hopefully foiling grass and weeds from the lawn. But it was a small stroke of genius since they are lower than the wall, but higher than the native ground so just the right height for taking that step to lean in.

Computer Woes 2019

A couple of weeks ago my graphics card to my desktop went out. I managed to salvage it by removing it and blowing out the fan. I had no idea that it had a fan! I blew out the other two fans every 6 months or so, but the graphics card orientation prevented me from seeing that it had a fan also. I had bought the computer in 2012 as a refurb - I'm guessing with the 1 TB HD and the mid-range graphics card that someone configured it as a gaming PC and returned it for whatever reason. Anyway, it was basically brand new without a scratch on it. I knew that the graphics card fix was probably only temporary so I started looking at new computers. Sorry to say that most of them are downgrades from the 2012 computer. I also looked at refurbs, but those are hit-or-miss and nothing good was around.

Well, last weekend it came to a head when the graphics card went out for good. I went to Concord and got another card, but insatllation did not help so I'm guessing the overheated card took out part of the mother board. NOw, this is an issue because without my desktop, there is no wifi, so no internet even from my laptop (very slow laptop might I add), and only cell tower for the cell phones. ARGH! Back to BB in Concord hoping to find a computer at least as good as what the old one was.

Well, for well over a grand, I could get a gaming machine, but no, I don't need that much "stuff". So I settled for a HP Pavilion 595 that was on sale (hey look, the price went back up so I had decent timing with that!). I could have gotten something cheaper that probably would have been fine, but I just couldn't bring myself to downgrade the processor that much (2012 computer had i7 and most selling today are i5 or even i3) and I wanted the 16 GB memory (most today have 4 or 8).

The graphics is integrated on the 595, so that is a downgrade, as is the power supply at only 180w (old computer had 300w) and the card reader is only good for 3 types (versus 7). But, those downgrades aren't as important as I didn't use them to their full potential anyway.

Download 2019 HP Pavilion Specs downloaded 7-12-19 - landscape A copy of the specs I downloaded from HP

After picking out the computer, they had to load everything, as well as transfer all my files from the old hard drive, so I didn't get to pick it up until about noon on Sunday. Then when I got home I had to get with Comcast to hook it into their system. Oh, and I had bought a new router a month ago (old one was from 2010 and no longer supported by cable company), just never gotten it hooked in, so we did that at the same time.

Then I spent a boatload of time downloading programs and getting email set up. In fact, last night I finally got the separate email program set up for the blog email. I'm sure I'll find more stuff that I need to download, and of course all my internet bookmarks were gone, so I'm slowly getting those that I use the most back and set up with remembering passwords.

Too bad I hadn't already gotten the router hooked in with Comcast so I could truly tell how much internet speed was a result of that versus the new computer (that, although virtually the same specs, would be faster by virtue of not having a boatload of junk files to sort thru).