Bogieblog

Happy Birthday to Me 2025

My birthday was earlier this month. I don't celebrate but appreciate the cards and phone calls I receive. This year a purchase I made happened to coincide, sort of, so I'm calling it a BD present to myself.

Last summer I started looking at battery operated mowers. I have a bunch of Ryobi 40v tools that perform their jobs well, so a mower would fit in. It would also be easier at times, to use a battery operated mower for areas of the yard when the entire thing doesn't need to be done. I also have a couple of neighbors that use battery operated mowers of different brands, and the reduced noise is nice. Oh, and I can use solar to charge the batteries, so less gas to keep on hand.

On April 6, Home Depot had a small sale on a model that has everything I wanted. Well, it had batteries and a charger too, neither of which I need, but they weren't selling just the tool. I had a 10% off coupon. And, I was eyeing the threatened tariffs that had me thinking if I was going to do it, now was the time. Oh, and delivery was free.

Last Tuesday, April 8, the mower was delivered to my place. Thursday night I got it out of the box, did what little "assembly" needed done (lift the handle into place, remove batteries from boxes) threw two batteries in, and started it up. Well, it seems to work. I just won't have any grass to cut until at least mid May, maybe the end of May.

I'll still be keeping the trusty gas powered mower to take care of select areas in the yard such as the drainage are between my place and the trailer. That area rarely dries out but has fast growing grass, and it has some rocks that I hit on occasion, so it is best I use the beat up model not my new one for that area.

Stunning Foliage

The trees to the north and east of the house are nearly bare (thank goodness - I've mowed leaves 4-8 times plus done some leaf blowing into the tree line 2-3 times already). I took care of all the leaves on Tuesday, and Wednesday you couldn't tell it. Oh well, it is almost over.

Anyway, the trees on the southerly side of the house are the stars now. All of these are close to the drainage ditch, so did not suffer from the last 3 months of dryness we've had.

October Glory Maple with burning bush beside it. Interestingly, the maple should be more red, but this year it decided to be different. The second pic is a close up of the maple's leaves.

October Glory Maple in the foreground with a couple of wild maples behind and to the side.

This maple was shining gold in the sunlight

The Lace Leaf Japanese maple is burgundy color during summer, but it was on fire in the sunlight

Interestingly, the Thanksgiving Cactus threw an early white bloom. There are no other buds and when this starts blooming in a month or so, the flowers will be salmon colored. This cactus started throwing one white bloom just a couple of years ago, but I don't recall it ever having done that out of sync with the rest of the blooms.

That was all during the week, then I went to Concord this weekend and between the Dick's Sporting Goods and Petsmart there were a row of stunning maples. Pictures are straight from my phone with no manipulation (and I don't use filters). The closer up one, I was nearly under the tree. Taken at 9:35am, so the sun was still fairly low in the sky, but strong.

The season is almost over and then we'll be wishing for snow to relieve the brown of dead lawns and bare trees.

Was it Only a Couple of Weeks Ago?

On June 23, 2024 NH experienced its first tornado of the season which I posted about.

Storms came barreling thru Tuesday evening (7/16/24). The leading edge was super windy at 50-70 mph, depending on which part of the edge you were on. I experienced deep, rumbling thunder, frequent crackling lightning and heavy rains for about 15 minutes and then it settled down to a gentle rain for a few more minutes - which added up to about 3/4" by my rain gauge (much needed rain BTW, it has been very dry in my area).  About 20 minutes later the sun could be seen on the western horizon.

Yesterday, the National Weather Service has confirmed that there was an F1 tornado produced by the storm that was on the ground for just under two miles in Lyme, NH. This is the second tornado of the year - and our average is 1 or 2 so we have hit our quota. Although some areas (including mine) were under a tornado watch and the possibility of straight line winds, no tornado warning ever issued. I'm not knocking the NSW - it is super challenging to "see" rotation especially in hilly terrain, where echos may not be accurate and some places are "blind" to the radar.

There were also a couple of confirmed micorbursts/straight line wind events, with wind speeds of 90 mph in a couple of different areas of the state confirmed. Between the all the events (tornado/wind), around 7 houses are uninhabitable, several more severely damaged, and lots of trees down and thousands experienced power outages.

Some people were mocking the severe weather watches on social media saying that "again" the news stations were hyping up the weather for ratings. I would rather be prepared / aware of potential issues as to have them blindside everyone (which then they would be calling for heads to roll).

First Tornado of the Year

Yesterday evening I was in the tornado warning area. Rotation was indicated on radar and then it was confirmed visually (short video). No, it wasn't much by Tornado Alley standards, but still exciting since we don't get that type of activity here very often. The rotation did stay for quite some time, starting in Swanzey, going over 2 towns that abut mine and thru Manchester.

Had the kitties in the cat pen for about an hour in case I needed to wheel them into the hallway (a much safer place than the basement since I don't have a containment system for them down there.

The lower cell is the one that produced rotation. The upper cell went thru my town but wasn't bad.

Friend of mine in New Boston was in her basement with her dog as that system went right over them. She and her horses are fine.

And interestingly, my FB memories yesterday popped up that in 2015, on June 23, my area was under a tornado warning - so apparently that is a bad weather date :)

Mother's Day 2024

Hoping Cop Car has a Fantastic Mother's Day!

2023 Christmas Presents

Cop Car and HH send Christmas gifts that are always the right color and size. This year, part of that gift includes the following:

Occasionally thru the summer I had been seeing an orange cat where I throw bird seed in the southeast corner of the yard. In December, he was a daily visitor that seemed to camp out under the fir shrub behind the chain link fencing and eating from under the bird feeders. He was also drinking out of the bird bath in the sitting area. I put out feelers on the town FB page if it was anyone's cat. (I had done so back in June also). There were no hits although plenty of people in the neighborhood have seen the cat. A person that used to live in a property behind me said she thought it used to live in the barn behind her house. Another neighbor thought it might be one of the cats from my previous elderly neighbor - he had lost one of his orange cats before leaving for the nursing home (the other cat he found a home for).

So, I started putting out small amounts of cat food and a water dish. He was skittish for the first week, then would show up when I set out the food.

Eventually he would follow me where ever I set the food and I eventually got him up on the back porch. I set out a cardboard box with a pillow and he would spend the nights in it.

 

So, naturally, I got him a cat house. I received that on 1-4-24 and set it up that night. Since the house was a bit bigger than I thought it would be (my mistake, they showed inside dimensions, not outside dimension), I went and got a nice cozy bed that would help keep his body heat in even better than the insulation that came with the house.

At that point I was able to touch and pet him. I put out more feelers on pet finders and rescue group FB pages. Still no hits. This cat has short hair and not much of an undercoat, so I started thinking about bringing him in the house. The issue that I ran up against was keeping Spot and Rainy away from the orange cat (for both health and drama reasons). I couldn't close him in a room as that would take away heating ability from both the pellet stove and mini split. So I got a 61" tall cat gate, which has worked wonderfully.

Naturally I got him his own litter box for that room. Big Boy, which is what I have started calling him (and he recognizes now), likes to hang out in the bay window.

There has been no drama as of yet, which has surprised me. The first 24 hours, more or less, Rainy and Spot were weirded out because they could smell he was in the house. They kind of made the basement their home base for that time (coming up only to eat). Since then they slowly returned to their usual habits. The weird thing is that none of the cats (either the youngsters or Big Boy) have camped out by the gate - which is what I had expected to happen. That means they haven't been "introduced".  But that is fine for now as I still need to take Big Boy to the vet for checkup/shots (and probably neutering) as well as a chip check.

How's that Forcast Working Out for You?

I find this somewhat funny. I'm not a climate change denier. I just happen to think that climate changes all the time all by itself. There are a lot of factors involved, including those outside of Earth's atmosphere - and most of those factors we don't even understand on an individual scope. I don't doubt that mankind affects the climate to a degree, but to what degree and how we would go about reversing it (or if it is worth it in socio/economic sense) is a different animal.

So anyway, this post isn't to debate climate change (and I won't, so please don't bother commenting if you just want to argue your position). This post is about how difficult it is to actually predict what is going to happen in the near term (relatively speaking). The other day the local weather guy was telling us how NH has had a fairly cool summer. One point in case is that we haven't had a day over 90 yet this August, which is unusual (sorry, you have to watch a short ad to see the video).

We have had a very wet, dark summer. that has kept the solar gain to a minimum (ask my solar array - the peak performance was in May, before this weather pattern got stuck in place). Anyway, I happened to run into this forecast put out by NOAA (thru NPR) in May

 

They completely missed the mark for New England (or at least northern New England - IDK about the southern portion). They may have expected the jet stream to act one way, and it acted differently. They may have been going off of ocean temperatures at the time - IIRC, the coastal waters off NH were way warmer than normal in May (average is in high 40's and I think it was in the high 50's at the time).

Although production from my solar arrays has not been as good as expected after seeing May's numbers, I am happy that NOAAs prediction for this area was off. I haven't run the mini split much, which offsets the reduction in energy production. I am still exporting plenty of power - except this past Friday, I actually used more than I made because I had to use the clothes drier a couple of times.

Tax Software Bloopers

I have used H&R Block tax software for years as a convenience. Sure, I usually don't need it per se because it usually boils down to how much did you make, how much did you pay in taxes, and what is the difference? But filling out forms can be so frustrating just to find out that you wasted your time.So for ~$30 I can let the software sort it out.

So I started completing the entries. About 1/2 way thru, I was flummoxed. Why? Because the software made me go the the RMD section (required minimum distribution from retirement plans). At the start of the section it clearly states that   if I am over 72, I have to take RMD. Um, I still have over a decade before I hit that age, and the software "knows" that (because it has my birthday - and yes it is correct), so why is it making me go thru answering the questions? I mean really, at the end it actually said something like, congratulations, you do not have any penalties for not taking an RMD.

Wishing My Dad

A very Happy Father's Day.

Mother's Day 2022

Cop Car, I wish you a very happy Mother's Day!