Bogieblog

Instant Winter

Last week at this time I had absolutely no snow. There had been a couple of flurries at my house, but not measurable and blew awya or melted.

Last Monday morning that all changed. 7" of snow on the rail (I measured after taking the picture)

About 9" of snow by the time I got done snow blowing

There was a break Monday afternoon, and then the second storm hit. I got another 7-8" (guessing because I didn't measure). I didn't bother with pictures, because , well, it was just more white stuff. I was lucky, Antrim (a town abutting part of Hillsboro) got 27" and Rindge (not too far from me) got 36" between the two storms. Sure, we've seen those totals before, but really, it would have been nice to get some lighter storms first to get our shoveling and snow blowing muscles in practice.

I brought my work computer home that weekend so I worked from home both Monday and Tuesday - why deal with slick roads and less than competent drivers when you don't need to?

I've had several mornings that were 11 so far, yesterday being one of those. This morning it is 1, I mean 0* - it just went down some more.

It is supposed to warm up thru Tuesday, when we are supposed to get sleet and rain, so we'll see how much snow is left after that.

Saturday 11/23/19 Doings

Yesterday morning  I looked out the kitchen window and had to go out onto the ramp and take a picture of this contrail. The sunrise lit it up nicely. Unfortunately, I am not a great picture taker, or picture manipulator, so the colors are washed out since the phone was compensating for the low light.

Later I got both snow blowers started because4 they hadn't been run for a month, did some running around in town, then moved some pellets into the basement from the garage.

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Fall Foliage 2019

Thursday I took Rita to the vet for some issues (she is okay, or at least we can't find anything wrong and she is rebounding). The drive to Peterborough is along a nicely scenic Rt 202, despite the heavy overcast, so on the way back I stopped a couple of times to take pictures.

My first stop was just a couple miles from the vet at a Peterborough dam on the Contoocook river

This Russian Olive is at the place I parked to get the dam pictures. Yes, it is an invasive non-native species, but has very pretty berries.

These next 2 pictures were in Greenfield and you can tell I stopped in the breakdown lane.

These next 3 were in Bennington along the Contoocook River. There is a "boat launch" just large enough for canoes and kayaks, so I stopped there to take pictures of an island in the river

And the far bank was looking pretty nice too. Too bad I just had my phone and not my camera as I couldn't zoom enough to really get the impact.

This is ome autumn dressed fungus at home :)

Sunrise in Goffstown

This year we have regularly gotten fantastic sunrises and Thursday I stopped to get some pictures.

Rocking it

Last weekend I had torn the rock wall beside the tent garage apart to aid in clearing out vines and detritus (including glass, cans and black top :0). I got the rock wall put back together - which is a lot harder than tearing it apart. The last time I messed around with large rocks, I was a lot younger and in better shape overall, so getting the rocks uphill was a challenge.

Here is a cropped picture of the original rock wall (from 2016) so you can see only the rock placement

Looks a little better organized now - definitely not a professional job, but I'm happy with it.

Then I started laying landscape rocks to hold a garden bed in front - where the poison ivy was smothered. Over the last couple of years I have gleaned free landscape rocks from CL,  but I didn't have quite enough to finish these 2 courses (past the telephone pole). Actually, I had enough for the top course, but not the bottom - fortunately the local Aubuchons had some perfect matches so I wasn't worried about it. However,

I wanted 3 rows of landscape rocks and Aubuchons did not have very many of those matches, so I was unable to put a matching white band on top. So I went to Concord to grab another color so it looks intentional that I put in different colors (as opposed to being, well, cheap).

Then I decided, 4 bands would be better and I loved the "palomino" color of the new rocks (my choices were palomino or and orangish bay) so here is what it ended up being

Now the white looks weird to me. I'm hoping that grass will soon cover it enough that it looks okay. Or, I can stain the fronts later. Or, I can take out the 4th row. I like the presence that the 4th row gives as a focal point (3 rows kind of get lost with the large rock wall behind). However, that could change whenever I get some shrubs in there so it is still fluid now.

And, last night as I got ready to come in, I found that my first iris has bloomed

Phone camera didn't quite get the focus right, but it was the end of the day and the skies have been hazy from the Canadian wildfires. Here is a picture at 7 pm on Friday that shows the effects of the smoke - way before sunset.

No more work on the yard today as I have a HOG chapter meeting later this morning, then I have to get to mowing.

NH Ice Runway

For Cop Car - a cool little place to put a plane down

 

A Bit of Ice

I had forgotten that I had stopped to take pictures of Grimes Field, here in my town, on my way to a meeting last Saturday. Then I read Ruth's comment on a previous post where she commented, "Yah, we tried to take the dogs to the park yesterday, but the entire area was ice under snow." I'll bet the dog owners that use the park for exercising their dogs could feel her pain:

It was just plain luck that I went by that field as it is a way to get around backed up traffic on the main road. Not any faster, in fact many times will still get stuck behind the vehicles you were trying to avoid at the light, so I rarely use that road.

Weird Snow Season

This year the weather pattern has not been quite what one usually expects. It seems as if every time we get snow, either right behind it, or shortly after we get a massive rain and a day of mid 40 to mid 50 temps. That works great for keeping the snow drifts down but that water has nowhere to go. And then right after the rains, we get single digits that freezes everything in place. So, as it was most of last summer, the house is surrounded by water - or frozen streams and ponds in this case.

It is hard to tell, but the pipe on the other side of the fence is still frozen so the melt water doesn't make it to the drain by the street. There is a small catch basin back there that has overflowed. So the water has spread all the way up to the raised beds. and pallets

Although it doesn't look it in this picture, the area by the swamp is an ice arena. It goes all the way from the new maple tree on the left (trunk is wrapped in a blue label), up the slope to the stalks from day lilies and all the way to the corner of the fence. The ice has to be a good 6-8" thick (or more).

The garage has flooded a couple of times, but no worse than spring time. However, I do have to remember to install the diversion pipe for the sump pump before the rain hits, but remove it before it gets frozen into place.

Each year the challenge is different and at least we haven't been getting some of the nastier weather that has hit the Midwest, so I'll survive.

Swamp Fog

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.

Last of the Fall Color

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.