Author Archives: bilborg

Before leaves and firewood…

Just FYI, I took another 9 truck loads of leaves to the city composting heap on Friday. This was the big batch. In another week I’ll clear leaves one more time, and call it a Fall for those purposes.

But before the leaves and the firewood, it was September when the boat saw it’s last few outings for the year, and the final fish was caught. As Fall approached, the acorns were falling like mad. Felt like it was going to fill the boat… I exaggerate, of course:

Three weekends in a row, I cleaned out acorns from the boat before going out for a few hours. The second to last fishing weekend, on September 22, I caught this bass, 18″ long, 3#10:

The following weekend, I went fishing one last time, to little effect. Then we took the boat out of the water and put it into storage until Spring. Meantime the leaves started falling, and I started getting sunrises like this, right around the time I was starting work each morning:

That’s all for now, I’m trying to relax before the upcoming work week.

First Frost

Today was the first proper frost of Fall 2024. We had some spotty frosted areas on Monday, but this mornings temperature out on the deck was 28°F, and all the grass and fields were frosted white. This also means that all of the leaves on our trees, and the trees across the road that have been waiting for the “drop” signal, should do so in the next few days.

Two weeks ago I took two loads of leaves to the city compost site. On Sunday, I took a further six truck beds full – picture is the accumulated pile from Sunday before I started hauling off:

Late last month, we got our annual two cords of firewood dropped in the back of the house. It took me 5 hours over a couple of days to get it all stacked into the lower garage:

Nothing else to report right now. Back soon.

Summertime Blues

But only around this site.

In real life, earthquakes aside (USGS event link), it’s been a pretty full dance card kind of summer. Work continues apace. Marcia and I get out fishing when we can. Georgia Aileen and I get out for a daily 2.5 – 3.0 mile walk: our current pace is around four miles an hour, which is a pretty brisk walk. The front yard continues to delight, with flowers of some sort or another in nearly continuous bloom.

We got our money out of the mower that came with the house, and not one cent more. That old mower, a Cub Cadet GT 2544, would take me 3.5 hours to mow the whole yard at the best of times. Biggest part of the problem there was the high center of gravity and relatively narrow wheelbase – that made picking my angles for up and down the slopes in our yard an interesting proposition.

So last month we shelled out for a new Cub Cadet ZTS1 50 mower. Now I can mow the whole yard in about an hour and a quarter. Woo! And … Hoo! Compared to paying for a bi-weekly lawn service, my ROI should be about 3 years. That’s a win, too.

Back again, sooner or later.

Almost 26 Years

Tomorrow is our 26th anniversary, Marcia and I. It’s been joyous, occasionally challenging, and all wonderful. Yay, us!

Catching up

Georgia has been standing in the water a lot – this is her normal routine at the 3/4 mark on our daily walk.

Spring has been springing – lots of stuff has been coming into bloom. The lilies are coming up, the roses are pending, the lilac smells wonderful…

Time to go fishing – We put the boat in the water a couple of weeks ago, and have made it out fishing a couple of times already. On Sunday last, we both caught some bass…

And that’s the highlights of the last few weeks. It’s been busy.

Quick Takes

• Georgia Aileen, the american bully rescue mutt, is whuffling and twitching on her bed here in my office/foyer. It’s a good life, I think, being the dog that owns Marcia and I.

• I pre-ordered Robin Sloan’s next book, Moonstruck, this evening. I *think* I have everything he’s written, and I enjoy the hell out of his premises, his characters, and his writing style.

• Looking back in email searching for something else, I came across something I wrote to Jerry Pournelle back in December 2011:

• There was a .signature quote from another email I glanced at:

My favorite yoga pose is the one where I stand upright, watching the class through the window while eating a cheeseburger. — @shazzz_lee

• Finally, I broke the shorts streak this week – it was cold and raining today, so back on with the jeans for walking the dog … but she still went and walked into the reservoir when we got to that point in the journey. Yay, dogs.

More Catch-up

So … we were in California last week. Sadly not for fun, but to lay my mother to rest. She passed in late February after a short battle with leukemia. It wasn’t expected, because the meds were moving her blood work in the right direction, but in the end, we think her heart gave out. She was wonderful, caring, sharp as a tack, and interested in just about everything. I’m missing her terribly. While it was lovely to see all the family, everyone in town to console each other, I wish it had been for just about any other reason.

There. That’s enough of that for here.

Shorts Week

So, still in the 30’s and occasional high 20’s (F) overnights, but I’ve set the jeans aside – it’s shorts weather every day now, including the dog walks (as long as it’s mid 40’s and up when we start the walk – I warm up quickly at our pace). At about the 3/4 point on the walk, we get to the reservoir, and Georgia walks right in:

And spring is springing – the first crocuses are pitching up their flowers. Then first the yellow, then the white daffodils started opening. Spring flower season in our front yard is fun.

That’s all I’ve got for y’all today. Back again soon, I hope.

A Boston Song (aka Long Time)…

I got a wellness check email from the estimable Rick Hellewell recently, which brought to mind just how long it’s been since I was here. Let’s just say, it’s not you, it’s me.

As I noted in my reply, I’ve been hideously busy with work, which I can’t really discuss publicly. And some family stuff has been going on and distracting, which I won’t discuss publicly. So the things that have consumed most of my mental energy don’t currently have a place here. I haven’t had time for much in the way of interesting fun things to share, so this just dropped off the radar for me for a while.

Maybe I’ll just post with some more regularity, but on trivial outtakes for a while, to try to get back in the groove. Wish me luck.

From early last month – Georgia and her cousin Raven hanging out in a patch of sunshine in our dining room:

From earlier this month – Georgia watching television, as dogs will:

From today, a couple of views of yesterday’s snowstorm output:

The snow was supposed to be 20″ plus of fluffy stuff, but about 8-10 inches in, it switched over to sleet/ice/rain for a couple of hours, creating a thick, crunch layer. Then we had a bit more snow before the event ended overnight. Not super fun to clear. Good thing my snow blower works and is substantial.

Snow days

Snow days don’t really matter much unless the storm takes out the power and the internet, these days. What snow days do is make everything prettier … and slightly more difficult. Everything is an exercise in dressing appropriately for the task and the wind and the temperature.

Last Sunday night, it started snowing right around sundown. We were due for 4.5 inches or so ending mid-Monday morning. Instead we finished up with around 6 inches early in the afternoon, then another inch or so that night. Here’s my Monday morning (12/4/2023) view from my office window:

The snow was heavy enough that I used the machine instead of shoveling, late morning on Monday. I did, however, shovel out some walking and bio-break spots for the dog on the front yard. Through the week, Georgia and I did make it out each day on abbreviated walks, only a mile and a half or so, I had to break out my snow and ice cleats, it gets treacherous pretty quickly:

The other treacherous bit was the bitingly low temps for this early in the season. Overnights dropped hard into the single digits: 9°, 8°, 5°, 4° – that was Monday through Thursday night lows. Since then it’s warmed a little bit, but not much – we got all the way up to freezing yesterday. Today we got up to the mid-30’s, and Georgia went walking out on one of the smaller, shallower frozen ponds on our walk today.

Be well.

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s t-shirt weather outside, midday today. We hope you have a lovely holiday. But here’s what it looked like yesterday morning…

Might as well get used to posting black & white pictures for the next few months…