Category Archives: Beware of Leopard

Busy Times

We’ve had family visiting in the past few weeks. First Marcia’s brother and his wife, then Marcia’s niece and her family (hubby and three kids). It was hectic, and fun. We went to the local Common Ground Fair (pricy, crowded … meh). We went for lobster on the coast (or, in my case, bacon-wrapped scallops), and we did some fishing. Then with the second group: cook outs, a family party, and fishing. A reasonably good time was apparently had by all, including us. Georgia, the rescue mutt, did pretty well with all the hustle and bustle, too.

Fishing

The fishing this year was good. Not great, but we’re getting better at it with practice as one might expect. We’re better at finding the fish, and tricking them into biting. Now if only we had time for more time on the water.

This last weekend was the last fishing weekend of our year. Saturday was a rain-out, in every sense of the term. My back porch rain gauge measured 3.5″ over about 16 hours. Yeah. So Sunday early I headed over to the lake to empty the bilge on our yacht. Oddly, 3.5″ of standing water in the bottom of the boad. So after emptying the bilge, as I was already there, I got out on the water and spent a few hours fishing. Caught a couple of fish just like bass, only smaller (less than 1#), had a good one on the line but it jumped and thrashed and threw the bait/hook off. Sigh. The fishing is done.

On Monday (Indigenous Peoples / Columbus Day = a Federal holiday that my work observes), after coffee and dog walks, Marcia and I wrangled the boat up to the Monmouth public ramp, loaded it onto the trailer, and drove to the house. There I did some maintenance, including replacing the windscreen that got shattered by a drop shot weight earlier in the year. (Yes, by me!)

Then I drove the boat up to Waterville, where it’ll get serviced, have a couple of glitches fixed, and they’ll store it indoors for us for the winter.

Speaking of Winter

Yeah, winter is coming. I expect our first evening in the 30’s (F) one night this week. The pellet stove is coming on for a few hours over night now. And the leaves are robustly expressing their opinion of the situation:

Meantime, it’s also the time of year when I regularly get lovely sunrises at a time when I’m awake and can appreciate them. Through most of the summer, sunrise is just too early. But now it’s just at the start of my day.

Lovely, innit? Yep, just a reminder that’s the view out of my home office window (aka the foyer of our home).

See y’all again soon…

Moist Spring

It’s been gray and raining far more often than not these last few weeks. Nothing ever really dries out. Not me, not the dog. We got the boat out of storage on a Saturday in early May … immediately followed by 3.6 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. Everything flooded. Bits of docks were floating away. It was two or three weeks before things stabilized and we could put our boat in the water. We’ve been out a few times, caught a few small bass and a monster of a great northern pike that I got to the boat, but it came off the lure before I could land it.

Last week I finally got about 36 hours without much rain, and re-mowed the front yard – the property was looking abandoned, which isn’t a good look. Now the lawn is flat, the tulips and daffodils have come and gone, but the rhododendrons are stunning this year.

Now if only it would warm up and dry up. So of course the forecast for Tuesday through Friday is rain. And other than a couple of warm days, we’ve left the pellet stove plugged in and it’s been running itself from middle of the night to mid-morning nearly every day (about a bag of pellets every 3-4 days) – not a warm start to the late-spring / early-summer season, either.

Still, the rains have keep the smoke and particulates that afflicted much of New England (and other aread) from affecting us at all. So, upside, there.

Have a good Summer. I’ll try to get better about posting from time to time.

Weather or Not…

Nearly three weeks ago, the (perhaps) last snow of the season came and went. (I’ve doomed us, now.) Friday last, it was in the high 70’s (F) hereabouts, shorts and tshirt while walking the dog. This week, we’ve been back down in the mid-thirties overnight most night, and might approach freezing again a few times.

That said, I’ve arrange for us to pick up the boat from winter storage at the end of the month (I’ve doomed us, again). The weather doesn’t look auspicious for early May fishing yet, but if the boat isn’t out, there’s no hope at all.

Weird Dog

I’ve said it before, but Georgia is weird. She certainly watches television, which none of our other dogs have. While she often does respond actively to pets and wildlife onscreen, she’s also often content to just watch whatever’s on. In this case, the Great British Bake Off (err, “Baking Show”, sorry Pillsbury)…

So much weird.

Joys of a Slower Lifestyle

On the upside, no commute at all: dog out, brew coffee, sit, work. And when we do get out, there’s not much in the way of traffic this time of year. Summer is the time for tourists and road work, so very quiet just now. And cold. A few weeks back it was -21°out. This upcoming Saturday, it’ll be minus something again, we’re assured. But we’re keeping up the heating routine.

For President’s Day weekend, I split and stacked firewood, did some off hours work, got the weekly shopping in, did some off hours work, cleaned house, did some off-hours work, and stripped, then relined all of our fishing rods in preparation for the coming season. But it’s not all fun and games…

I do get the dog out for a mile or two (usually two) every day, and we end up going up to our local reservoir. In the non-frozen months, it’s Georgia’s mid-trip water bowl. But this time of year, she wanders about on it…

Not much else to report. Work, chores, staying warm, board games. WInter in Maine.

Mornings

We’re in the midst of the season where mornings aren’t very … welcoming. Some days, I’d rather just stay in bed until Spring. For example, in the days to come, we’re due for highs in the low single digits (F), and lows in the negative teens. That’s proper cold. When it does warm just a bit, it actually just screws things up further – the other day, two days after 15″ of snow…

… We had a further 3″ of snow over night … but then it warmed up enough to deliver a bit of rain, then a bit of ice, then a bit of rain, then back down to snow. That left me with a driveway covered with 3″ of something the consistency of a slushie. The snow thrower (and we have a pretty good one) wasn’t very happy – I had to stop and clear the throat and impellers a couple of times.

The payoff is that, often as not, I’m greeted with a spectacular sunrise out my home office window, just about the time I’m starting work each weekday. Like last Tuesday morning, with the sunrise colors echoed in the snow fields…

Some things just don’t suck.

Keeping Warm

The other thing to do in the winter is to keep warm. Every three or four weeks, I head down to the lower garage, crank up some tunes, and start turning the firewood we bought into sizes manageable for Marcia and the Jøtul stove she uses to keep her sewing area in the basement warm.

This time of year, it’s about 35°F in the lower garage. I fire up the little propane heater I have, point the fan at me, and start splitting wood. Doesn’t take long before I’m down to a t-shirt, and the space is up to, oooh… 38°F or so.

It takes about an hour and a half to split enough wood for the rack I built her, and stock it in.

Depending on how many days she’s downstairs… well, it lasts as long as it lasts. To be fair, I have about a six week supply also already split and stacked under the basement stairs (out of view to the right of the rack pictured above), so that if needed, there’s wood available should I be busy or ill or whatever… but my preference is to stay ahead of the game.

Be well, care for each other, and stay warm!

Disappointment

On Monday, this was supposed to be ~12″ of snow:

But instead we got a bit over an inch of mixed sleet and ice. Tuesday is trash/recycle day, so I chopped a path to the street (and cleared the boardwalk to the front door), and got the important bits out by the road. Later in the day, after Mr. Feeble Sun got a chance to lukewarm the surface, I cleared the rest of the driveway, making it safe for anyone visiting (and safe for our garage doors should someone have been unable to stop their vehicle on an icy driveway).

Tomorrow (Friday), we’re suppose to get ~7″ of snow? Any bets?

Winter Days

Winter days are … often busier than summer days around here. But before we get to that level of fun, Marcia wanted our rescue dog Georgia in her winter coat, as most days around here struggle to get up to 0°centigrade. Georgia did fine in the coat, and then went to find Wolverine to put paid to the winter coat:

As I noted above, winter days are busy. Yesterday, I took off “work” early… so I could spend some quality afternoon time turning big pieces of fire wood into smaller pieces of firewood. The basement wood stove is a Jøtul 118, which is deep, with a small front firebox door. Therefore, larger cross section pieces of wood are hard to deal with. Sadly, than means that about 70% of the 2 cords we had delivered last year need further splitting. It takes me about an hour and a half to split and stack enough wood for Marcia to use for 3-4 weeks in that stove:

Today, to ensure that I kept up the manual labor, we had the first serious snow of the season. The weather app says that we had 13+ inches between yesterday and today. Much of the early snow was wet and heavy:

I cleared the first round with the snow thrower, then did two more passes during the day with a shovel, clearing 2-3 inches per pass:

Plus, I use the snow thrower to clear some dog outing tracks in the front yard, just to give her a place for me to bring her out on leash to do her business:

That’s about all there is. Up early tomorrow for patching Linux boxen at work, then the big chore for tomorrow: cleaning the upstairs Harman pellet stove. Ciao!

Woodshop

I’m continuing to slowly put the woodshop together, cleaning up stuff and building infrastructure and storage. The first “big” project was to build a new workbench, replacing the one I left behind in Maryland. This one incorporates the vise that Marcia got me for Christmas a good many years ago. The work surface is just about a quarter inch lower than the table saw, so it works well as a drop zone for longer outfeed work. Stainless steel bolts set at the bottom of the six legs are the leveling feet.

The next thing I built was a pegboard wall for accessible tool storage. In the basement in Maryland, I had lots of walls to work with. Not so much in this space. I built a 2001: A Space Odyssey inspired pegboard, 8′ x 4′, on locking wheels with a storage trough at the base on each side. It’s 2′ wide at the base, just enough to slide in between the two storage shelving racks. I was pretty happy with it, but added some features today: a handle for maneuvering it, a paper towel holder, and a pencil holder.

Dog

Geogia Aileen, our american bully mix rescue mutt, continues to get me out and about every day. Yesterday was cold, rainy, and miserable. Today, the lack of rain made it just cold, which is a lot less miserable, frankly. By the time I’m halfway through our walk, I’m shedding layers in hopes of not breaking into a sweat. Sweating on cold walk is a bad thing. Sometimes Georgia gets to be off leash for a while, and play by herself or with friends (once we’re well away from the road). As it was Sunday, she didn’t have to wear her bright orange hunter alert vest.

Health

Marcia and I continue to be reasonably healthy. A couple of months ago, I got my third covid booster shot (Pfizer bivalent) and my seasonal flu shot. A couple of weeks ago, I got the first of two shingles shots. And this last week, I got one of the once-every-ten-year procedures done, as one of those unpleasant but sane precautionary activities. No bad news, but they want me on a five year repeat schedule going forward.

Weather

It started to get cold, and the ponds around us started icing up. Then it got warmer again, and we got a bunch of rain, and the ice is all gone again. And while we got a dusting of snow a couple of weeks ago, that’s long gone and there’s no more in the short- or mid-term forecasts. Sigh. I like snow.

Keeping Up

Such as it is. It’s a busy time of year. The last of the outdoor maintenance is getting done. Leaves are all up and composted … well, they were, then a new batch blew in from across the street, argh! Friday I took off a few hours early to get some maintenance done on the propane-powered home generator, an 11KW Generac. I did all the normal maintenance stuff, and ended up having to reset the controller to make everything work right again (remove battery connections, unplug controller, plug controller back in, restore battery connections, then redo all the setup wizard steps). Not hard, just a bit of drudge work at 37°F.

Abandoning Twitter

I can’t bring myself to the point where I continue to provide content of any type on Twitter, supporting the new ownership of that firm. I’ve had accounts on CounterSocial (@bilborg) and Mastodon (@[email protected]) for a good long while, and I’ve managed to find most of the folks that I care about keeping up with over on those services. I’ve dropped my following count down to 2 folks while I try to figure out how else to keep up with them.

That’s all I’ve got queued up right now. WInding down after a pretty busy weekend. I’ve been making progress in the woodshop setup, more on that soon.