Bogieblog

Big Boy Goes Home

Friday night, as I was going to bed, my front doorbell rang. This is unusual because, I don't have random visitors (and I always know when they are coming because they are either working on something for me or picking up stuff I'm getting rid of), and it was so late (for me - seriously, it was probably before 8pm).

I opened the door and there was a couple standing there. They lady started asking if I had an orange cat and holding up her phone with a picture. After asking when their cat disappeared, and finding it was in the time frame, I let them in the house to see Big Boy.

Turns out they moved in a couple blocks away last year shortly befor I started seeing Big Boy sporadically. We don't know what happened that he chose my house as a safe place late December and early January. Nor do we know why he did not find his way home when I started letting him out in the last couple of weeks, but the rest is history. But, they did give me enough details on his quirks (him climbing chainlink fences, acting like a dog with some of his actions etc) that I was comfortable he was their lost cat.

So, Big Boy (whose original name is Bill), went home with them. They will be keeping him in for a couple of weeks. They lived on a farm previously so he was used to being outside most of the time, so that should be interesting for them with the nicer weather.

So, Bill is now back with the family he has been part of for 10 years.

More Garden Pics for April

On 4/23/24, I started cleaning out the old stalks in the roadside and southside gardens. The forsythia was in full bloom

The little red tips are the peony starts in the roadside garden (obviously before I laid mulch)

Daffs in the roadside garden

Garden Clean Up

Yesterday I did some more work in the gardens. I cleaned up the stalks from the driveway garden. Doesn't have any blooms yet, but it sure looks nicer than it did

I had actually cleaned up all the peony/iris/day lily stalks and stuff the other day in the roadside garden. Didn't take a full picture, but this is one picture I did take that gives an idea as to how it looked

grabbed nineteen 3cu/ft bags of natural cedar mulch yesterday (I had 1.5 bags left from last year). Before and after of the roadside garden (took 5 bags of mulch)

I had also cleaned up the south garden the other day. Before and after 8 bags of mulch were laid

The rest of the bags of mulch went into the shrub garden on the north side (yes, I need to do some work on the landscape timbers that border it)

I'm always amazed at how much nicer everything looks with fresh mulch

 

Picture Dump for April 2024

Sunrise from 4/14/24 (before the storm)

Forsythia starting to bloom 4/19/24

Daffodil from 4/21/24

Spot enjoying some rare sunshine

Rainey enjoying sunshine - doesn't look comfy to me

Big Boy behind me on office chair while I was working. I later stood up and the second picture shows how much of the chair I get (he had turned around from the first picture. He also did move that front paw a bit when I moved). Good thing the chair is oversized, LOL

 

Big Boy Out on the Prowl

Since bringing Big Boy inside in January, he has evinced no interest in going outside. If he was looking out the back door and I approached, he would promptly get up and move to the other side of the kitchen.

Until earlier last week that is. He went outside Monday or Tuesday for a little while. Then again yesterday.

He doesn't go far, mainly within the fenced in area. However, I did find he will seem to panic and frantically climb the chain link fence if both gates are closed (I watched him on the first day). So when he is out, I open one of the gates and he is more inclined to stay on or under the porch. I am unsure of why he panics as he never had an issue with being gated in the bedroom. But it could be something to do with him being injured by sort of animal just before I was able to bring him in (I did not report on that, but I had to take him to the vet for the facial injury). Perhaps he got trapped in an area when he was injured and he has flashbacks so needs to get someplace there are avenues of escape.

I am happy to let him out if he wants, or he can be an indoor cat only - totally his choice since he is street/outdoor savvy.

March 2024 Solar Report

In comparing solar production from March 2023 to March 2024, they look pretty much the same at 0.7kwh more produced in 2024 than in 2023..

But, in looking at it more closely, you can tell it was cloudier during March of 2024 than in 2023. I know that doesn't seem to jive, until you see that there were 3 days in 2023 with absolutely no production and two days with nearly no production (all from snow cover / power outage). taking the monthly production and dividing by 28 (days with at least some production), the daily average is 20.025 kwh / day

2024 only had 1 day with absolutely no production due to snow cover. Taking the monthly production and dividing by 30 days (days with some production), the daily average is 18.713 kwh/day.

Extrapolating further, if each of those non-production days had produced the average for that month, March 2023 would have produced a total of 620.775 kwh and March 2024 would have produced 580.103 kwh - a difference of 40.672 kwh.

I realize all that is meaningless in the long run, but does tell me that I wasn't crazy for thinking it was a cloudier March than usual.

Eclipse 2024

Monday, April 8, NH was in the path of the total eclipse. Unfortunately, my area is not in the path of totality, but I was at 95-96% range. A gajillion people from both NH and other parts of the USA headed up to the northern part of the state to view this celestial event, but I was not one of them. (source for graphic below)

Fortunately, the event was scheduled to occur shortly before 3:30pm, and the skies were for the most part clear (for a change - sun has been hard to come by since last year). I logged off work a little early and sat in front of the shed to view the event - using appropriate solar glasses of course.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to study how to get my phone or camera to capture the eclipse. After taking a couple of pics that just showed a big red/yellow disk, I decided to just give up and watch the show.

Even at the relatively little light we experienced at the greatest coverage of the sun, it was still quite bright out. Shadows were still crisp and no wildlife showed signs of calling it a night. Part of that may be because it was literally still lighter than the heavily overcast skies we have experienced regularly.

My solar array did show a cool progression. The moon started sliding over the sun at about 2:30, and had completely passed the sun about 4:30. Production is recorded in 15 minute intervals:

 

Compared to an overcast day, on 4/10/2024, which at times gave the same low input of 0.3kwh as the fullest part of the eclipse my area experienced.

All-in-all, cool to see.

Almost Back to Normal

Yesterday, shortly before 5pm, I thought to look at the rhodies and they are nearly back to normal (See April 2024 Nor'Easter for pictures of them being crushed by snow)

A few Funnies for April

A forecast prior to the Nor'Easter that hit late Wednesday

Did you see the funny part? At first glance it may not jump out. Hint: Look at the writing that is in the purple area.

And, in a 7 day timeframe (counting back from the event that will happen tomorrow)

 

April 2024 Nor'Easter

Wednesday, there was an awesome sunrise which foretold the weather to come (you know the old saying) - predictions from different sources were saying I was in the range of between 12 and 22" of snow.

When the storm first moved in, it was too warm to really support snow, so after a bit of rain, it turned to sleet for several hours. Pic taken about 7pm on 4/03/2024

Then it turned to snow, then sleet, then snow, then sleet then snow - all of which made for a very dense, wet snow pack of almost 8" by Thursday morning.

By 10am, the crabapple tree was not happy and this branch is the lowest I've ever seen it.

At 1pm I went out to feed the birds (again), I noticed how cool the snow patterns on the fence looked - and from straight on, how the fence was basically a privacy fence (you should be able to see a boulder and tree trunks behind it))

Fortunately by 3pm, the crabapple's branch had been able to shed enough snow that it had lifted itself up.

After work I attempted to snow blow. I was able to get the driveway done (I'd had someone come and blow out the berm from the road plow), but it was very slow going. I tried to create a path thru the yard, but going up even a slight incline was a no go and the wheels just dug into the ground. I did shovel off the ramp to the shed, around the fence gates, and the path from the north gate to the back porch stairs. While I was working on the driveway, I happened to notice the Rhodies weren't happy campers either - I have never seen them look like this, they are 5-6' tall instead of their normal 12'+

For comparison, here is a picture of a pretty good snow from December 2022

Overnight we got several more inches for a grand total of around 16" (pic taken 4/05/2024 about 3am

Oh, and yesterday morning the roof shed the snow in a big way. I heard a massive rumble as a huge amount came down at once. The weight of the snow made the pile vault about 5' before dropping. In the picture, the pile on the left is usually where the dumpage drops (slowly, not all at once - the ground was bare before the Nor'easter hit) and the pile on the right is from the huge dumpage.

The good news is I never completely lost power, although the UPS's I have on the pellet stoves and my modem/router got a good workout from the flickers. There were several times that there were multiple flickers in a row (on/off/on/off/on/off/on) and they performed admirably. I never lost connectivity to the server while I was working.

20% of the state was not so lucky and lost power from falling trees and or poles taking down lines. I heard that at one point, Antrim (a town abutting my town) was 50% out. A friend who lives in Henniker (another abutting town) said she finally got power back Friday afternoon. Many in NH won't get power back until today or tomorrow.