Bogieblog

Cats and Sheetrock

Yesterday after doing some laundry, I draped a towel over the cats pen to dry. This towel is normally folded up and set up on one side of the pen for the Rainey to lay on while the stove is running. Later, I noticed Rainey had pulled the towel for better padding made herself comfortable. You can tell in the pictures that I disturbed her sleep :)

Looking at the last picture, you can see a bit of drywall work that I have finally started to cover the full length hole between the living room and the stairway. I had a partial piece of sheet rock leaned up against the lower portion to keep the cats from using it as well as to keep the cold air from the A/C going to the lower portion of the house. That piece of sheet rock was not used as it was a different thickness from the rest of the wall. A couple of months ago I tore out the arch in the doorway.Then  someone came in to add the outlet you can see as well as to upgrade the outlet in the stairs (from 2 wire to 3 wire). The green piece is leftover from another project. I still have one piece of sheet rock to go in the stairs - the very top piece that I can't reach to screw in. Plus, cover up the studs that can still be seen, but I'm leaving those openings. Wish I could have kept the opening on the left to make it more balanced, but an electrical wire goes from the basement to the attic thru that section at a diagonal, so that was not to be.

Goodness knows how long it will take me to finish this up as it only took 6-7 years just to get this far :)

Week of 5/23/21

Mother Nature is going all over the map for May, we are either 15-20 below the average temp, or 15-20 above the average temp. I've had at least 4 days at, or above, 90* already (maybe 5). There were also lot of days in the upper 80's, and after the cold front blew thru Thursday evening, this weekend we have been down in the 40's. Right as I was getting ready to put the pellet stove to rest with a full hopper I am looking at the possibility of putting another bag of pellets in there to keep the house warm until Tuesday morning, when the temps will skyrocket again. I'll have to reinstall the portable A/C; it exhausts thru the window next to the stove so I had to remover it Friday morning. Fortunately the portable A/C's are much easier to install/remove than window units, so it's no big deal.

Last Sunday I got the vegies planted. I had to lay down another course of stone (actually changed it from a square to a long rectangle) in order to install the 3rd planter so that each of the tomatoes will be able to use the fence for support. The red rings are around tomato plants and the wire is around pepper plants. To the left of the peppers are basil plants I got from the local TSC.

Monday I took off about 1/3 of the day and cleaned up the roadside garden. I pulled back all the old mulch, added manure and humus, then spread new cedar mulch.

In the last couple of days, some iris that Cop Car gave me bloomed in the driveway garden

The Black is Black iris I planted a few weeks ago bloomed. It has a very light sent with overtones of citrus. I cut that stalk after it blew over from the cold front coming in and it is now in the living room.

The two azaleas above the new garden bloomed also. I planted those back in 2017. Gibraltar (top) has 6 rounded petals and the Mandarin Lights (bottom) has a classic star shape with 5 points.

Interestingly, even though when I planted them they were visually different colors of orange, they really are that close in color now. Picture from the day they were planted (Gibralter on the left).

One of the Rose of Sharons I planted last fall has started to leaf out, the second has not. That is interesting as they are planted within 5 feet of each other, so I'm unsure what the deal is. I did a scratch test, and the un-leafed one still shows green, so I'm hoping between watering and the 1.25" of rain we received yesterday will do the trick. Both RoS's came from an FHC'er from down in MA - he was digging out volunteers and I asked if I could have a couple.

This weekend has been wet and cold. Originally it was supposed to just be cool with occasional showers. I'm not complaining about the precipitation we have received thus far, and hope that we get the inch or more they are forecasting for today. However, it does put a crimp in my plans of finishing laying of stones for the expansion of the garden above the azaleas.

Interesting Observation from Yesterday

I was at Wally Word in Concord about noon Saturday. They didn't have a mask required sign, so I went without. I only saw 4 other people without masks. This has been the norm for the last year.

Later I went to the local Shaw's. They do have a mask requirement, so I wore one. I would venture a guess that fully half the patrons didn't have a mask on. One guy did, but it was on his neck. First time I've seen this amount of disregard for store signage happen in Hillsboro.

I wonder if that is large town dynamics (Concord) versus small town (Hillsboro) or something else at play since the Governor lifted the mandate. This isn't a debate on if masks should or shouldn't still be required, just an observation of what I saw.

Pictures from Week of 5/16/21

The first couple of weeks in May our temps were running 15-20 below normal and the pellet stove was keeping the house warm. For the last 10 days or so it's been very hot here for this time of year - running 15-20 over the normal temp. The last two days have been in the 90's and prior to that it was the mid to high 80's. I set up the portable A/C in the living room Thursday morning before starting work - a reaction to it getting up to 80* in the house the night before. With the morning only getting down to the high 60's, that A/C has been running pretty much full time.

But, the flowers are loving the temps. Unless otherwise indicated, pictures taken yesterday.

Pincushion flowers that I planted a couple of weeks ago. The ones I planted last year are just starting to put out some greenery.

Azalea behind the mailbox. Weird how the bottom portion is blooming while the buds on the top haven't even started to open yet.

Crown Jewel Iris - one of the new ones I planted a couple of weeks ago

Flowering almond - taken 5/16. This was already here when I moved in. Behind it is the red Rhodie that is pictured later. In this pic, it hasn't even started to bloom yet.

The last pic of the crabapple tree. Taken on 5/16 - the next day all the blooms had dropped.

Red Rhodie flower. I had to mess with this picture to get it close to the correct color. 

The red Rhodie bush is sparse, but it is always like that. I did not have to mess with the picture

I didn't post these pics of the cats. On 5/9, I was reading on the couch and all three cats snuggled up to me. Rita is the white cat, Rainey on the left and Spot on the right.

The next day, 5/10, I don't remember what I was doing, but Rainey woke up from sleeping on the hammock to investigate what was interrupting her snooze

 

Encore to Mother's Day

As requested by Cop Car, pics of the crabapple in full bloom, which happened the day after Mother's Day:

And this apple, or crabapple was blooming in the swamp. Funny, I don't ever remember seeing it before.

Yesterday, form the perspective of the garden by the swamp. Still a lot of color but fading.

And, to Cop Car's comment that most people place their potted flowers on their front porch, as opposed to their back porch. Well, my front porch isn't really visible from the road because of the huge rhodies, plus, there are so many other things to look at, why bother?

I mowed yesterday and these mystery flowers got to remain. I know I didn't plant them as they are just downhill from the shade garden (thus the landscape timber above it). As an aside, it was 80* when I started mowing, pretty hot for this time of year in the Northeast. But the humidity was only 18%, so that helped me feel cooler.

After mowing yesterday, I planted some Dianthus (pinks) that I got from the garden center in Henniker. Both have a really nice scent; the White with splashes of pink have the classic carnation scent and the Lilac dianthus are just slightly sweeter. I'll have to take a picture when that area is more shaded as my phone just couldn't focus on the white so you can't really see the splashes of color.

It is shaping up to be a really colorful spring!

Just a Bit Early

In March I ordered tomato and pepper starts. I thought the company was supposed to deliver toward the end of May. Well, apparently I was mistaken they were delivered on May 3. They were well packaged and in good shape when I received them. After watering them, I put them out in the garage since the youngsters were trying to eat them approximately 5 seconds after I opened the encasements.

Since I can't plant them (well I could, but it would be inadvisable) until the end of the month, yesterday I potted them up on the back porch, then it was back to the garage for them.

Oh yeah, late last Sunday I bought some annuals for the porch railing and planted them in planters yesterday as well.

Flowers for Mother's Day

Virtual flowers for Cop Car on this Mother's Day.

The crabapple looks to be doing really well this year - it isn't even blooming yet, those are just the buds.
This is the only picture that wasn't taken yesterday afternoon

The phlox over by the swamp took a couple of extra days to bloom. The specs of red are English primrose and to the far right are lupine foliage from seeds a couple of years ago

English Primrose

Rosalie Figge iris. The only reason it is blooming is I bought it a couple of weeks ago with buds on it to plant in the newest garden (post of planting).

The daffs are doing well in their 2nd year

Tahiti

Un-named from a mixture

 

Blue Jacket Hyacinths. Unfortunately they don't make scratch-n-sniff monitors or I could send the beautiful scent to you. The redish foliage is one of the peonies

I'm happy that the catbird pair are back and have once again claimed the rhodie as their home.

Mother Nature sure timed all those beautiful blooms right.

River is Low

Even after gettting 1.25" of rain last week, we are still in moderate drought. That is not surprising as, according to the local news, we were only ahead of average April moisture by 1/2" (and that was in Concord, where they got more rain than I did).

Being at about a 10" deficit to start the year out, that extra extra 1/2" is just a drop in the bucket. The accumulation in the rain gauge is from all week, in which we had three days of rain.

 

Friday I had to go up to Manchester and I saw the river had finally risen:

This is sad as usually the spring rise brings a hugely rushing river with those rocks in the river are easily covered and out of sight. There is a reason the foundation wall of that apartment building is so tall - it needs it for the spring flow. Picture from spring 2014, taken while I was walking Prince, that shows pretty much the normal spring flow (a bad year will see the water even higher).