Other-Planetary-Ish

The Bite of Snow

All that's left to be seen of the porch railing.

Well, that was a very strange storm.  After all the hype, it was sort of a fizzle.  We did get about 15 inches, and the winds picked up today.  It's gusting so violently tonight that the snow is swirling hard enough to sound like animals scratching to get in the house.  We've also experienced a strange phenomenon.  We have so much condensation forming at the end of the duct work for the bathroom vent that it is leaking in to my kitchen ceiling.  That's a first!  I think all shall be fine once the temperature moderates a bit and/or the wind calms.

Snow carried by the wind.

Today's pictures were taken at sunset from my mom's den window.  Mother Nature being weird.

Back When

Our new normal?  Under all that is a wishing fountain and part of a store.

It was a bit easier...no make that a lot easier...on the nerves to not know when a major event was about to happen.  Sure, nowadays it is safer to be prepared.  But this next storm thing is spooky.  We've got CNN and at least three other networks in town because "we are supposed to be one of the worst hit areas".  I don't want the notoriety, thank you.  I don't want to go to bed wondering what things will look like tomorrow morning.  I know all will eventually be fine and get back to normal, but in the meanwhile we have a No Drive/No Park order from 5 a.m. tomorrow morning until 5 p.m. Monday night.  This is mostly so that they can plow and do the massive clean up without having to work around nosy people.  A $250 fine, I hear, if you decide that you are too special to have to abide by the rules.

Maybe I could just go to bed tonight and sleep until, oh, Monday noontime?

A major thank you to our DPW, the National Guard, and everyone else who will HAVE to be out in it.

Friday the 13th Is a Great Day

Why?  Because it wasn't snowing.

At all.

Do you think that one of these days I'll not have any new snow photos to post here?  Some of you have seen these on that other site.  If you have seen them, you are excused from looking at them again.  If you haven't, and can stand yet more snow pics, carry on below.

Italian Ice?  No thanks, cold enough.

I don't think that he had the following images in mind.

Darn cold.

They keep piling the snow just above the beach.

The loader on top of the pile keeps moving the snow to the beach. Over and over, day after day.

Me on the back garden (haha) walk, after the third major dig out in 2 weeks.

Why Me?

Has it been about two weeks since THE Blizzard of 2015?  I think so.  As if getting 31 inches of snow within 36 hours isn't punishment enough, we had a surprise just to get us in the correct ihatelife mindset.  You see, the morning before the BIG blizzard, at approximately 6:15, the smoke alarms went off at our house.  Up I jumped, made sure R was awake, headed toward A's room but met her in the hallway.  Down the stairs with those two following, checking for actual smoke or fire as I went.  Opened Mom's door and she was out of bed.  A quick check of her end of the house, then headed down cellar.  All was fine.  I shut off the breaker that powers the electric aspect of the alarms.  Of course they keep on screeching.  We determined that it was the detector in Mom's den causing the problem.  The most difficult detector to get to. It's about 14 feet up on a cathedral ceiling.  Why not.  Hauled myself down to the cellar, once again, to retrieve the BIG ladder.  Up through the bulkhead into the dark and cold and on to the deck.  Mom stood in her den, inside where it was nice and warm (albeit very noisy) and stared at me as I motioned for her to unlock and open the door.  She stared some more...and more.  Just before I was going to slam the very heavy ladder to the deck, she decided that I might be wanting her to open the door.  Finally!

Set the ladder up after moving the sofa so that it would fit.  R suffers the least (maybe) from vertigo than the rest of us...or at least he inherited the 'climb the big ladder' since he's the only man in the house.  After unhooking the detector and removing the battery........silence.

After 7 a.m. I left a phone message for our electrician.  He came later in the morning, replaced the battery with a new one, tested the unit and went up the ladder to hook it all up again.  He chatted for a few minutes while I went to the cellar to flip the breaker back on.  Silence....YAY!  He packed up and headed out.  I don't think he could of made it far past the end of our street when...

The alarm went off again.  R went back up the ladder (he has no idea how much I appreciate that he will do it) and took the detector down, removed battery, then silence.  I called the electrician on his cell phone and told him what happened.  We agreed that we could leave the rest of the system activated and after THE blizzard he would come back to troubleshoot.

THE blizzard was followed by the SECOND snow storm.  I decided to wait for better weather to tackle the smoke detector problem. 

Now we are expecting a MAJOR snow event.  At 6 a.m. this morning we were rudely awakened by the smoke detectors going off - again.  So the now usual routine was followed with me checking on everyone and checking all areas of the house and cellar before flipping the breaker.  R discovered that the alarm in our bedroom was the culprit and he took it down and took the battery out...silence.

At about 8 a.m. we headed for the local hardware store to by enough new batteries for all the detectors.  $30 worth.  We got home and after breakfast and a few other things, installed new batteries in all detectors...silence.  Great!  That was at 11 a.m.

1 p.m. all the alarms went off.  I was out shoveling, widening the drive in anticipation of needing more room for more snow to come.  I could hear the screeching outside.  By the time I got to the door (and was greeted by Mom), R had pulled down the bedroom alarm and deactivated...silence.

I left a message for our electrician that after the weekend and after this next MAJOR snow event, we needed him at the house.  Sounds like the 10 year life detectors that he had installed 1.5 years ago may have spent more than 8 years on a shelf at the suppliers - or something.

Meanwhile, just in case another decides to screech, I have bought 3 battery only detectors, one for each level of the house.  If another combo electric and battery one fails, we'll disconnect them all and go the battery only route until the electrician can get here.

Really.  Isn't over 45 inches of snow with up to another 20 inches anticipated enough to deal with?  Why do the smoke detectors have to compete for attention?

More for the Anti Facebook Crowd

Photos of storm number two.

Yesterday they brought the big snow blower to widen the road.

This morning looked like Tuesday morning, just less room for snow.

By mid day they had brought in the big equipment to get a bit ahead of things...helped for about 15 minutes then you couldn't tell it had been around.

Guess I'll be digging out the oil fill, bulkhead, and deck again.

Tonight we got our own snow pile.  That's supposed to be Dodd's Lane on the other side of it.

Even the articulated loader has a difficult time trying to pile it higher and higher.

Cold is Relative

In an effort to keep writing something on this blog, I make changes to the look, edit my blog list, add some photos, and now I've changed my Recent Reads. 

The book is a fascinating read.  My kind of thing.  Subtitled The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk, it is history without being, you know, so many names and dates with no story.  Anyway...the story is of a 1913-14 scientific exploration well into the Arctic.  The sailing vessel is trapped in the ice and 'goes with the floe' eventually to be crushed and sink.  The men, woman, and two small children escape the crushed and sinking ship to have to survive the winter on the ice and later on a small island before any hope of rescue can arrive.  Chilling (haha) account that makes our horrible weather seem mild in comparison.

So Facebook Isn't Your Thing

That's okay, I understand.  I tend to do more quick posting with Facebook and many of my photos end up over there.  Over there...as if it is truly a place.  Anyway, I thought some of you might like to see what has caused me physical agony over the past few days.
We had a blizzard last Tuesday.  Approximately 30 inches of snow, wind gusts to 65 mph.  I've been shoveling and shoveling and digging and digging.  We had another couple inches last night and on Monday we are supposed to get another load of the white stuff.  Probably somewhere over another foot of it.

The view as I headed for morning coffee.

Read my lips....t.i.m.e.t.o.m.o.v.e.s.o.u.t.h.  We used to talk about putting a space heater on the bow of our boat and heading south, not stopping until someone asked, "What's that thing on the bow?"  Well, we did eventually move to Florida and.....
I loved it
Someday.....In the meanwhile here are some photos of the snowy northeast.

The back fence and the back of my truck got rather drifted in.

Pretty curl of snow off the truck and fence.  Should be little snow surfers!

Back drive almost dug out.

The snow pile from plowing (near the end of our back drive).

Back garden path shoveled to the deck and bulkhead (workshop) and most importantly to the oil fill.

Fun with sun?  I found the bulkhead under a four foot drift.

Some people in town had more energy left than me and built a snow shark.

And now..may Monday's forecast change to sunshine and warm temps!
HAH

Well, I Have Been Saying This...

This was clipped from some newspaper stuffing around a set of keys received this week.  I'm not the type that goes for believing this stuff, but...
Mostly it seems to be the drivers.  It is hardly safe to be out on the roads any more.  They cut right in front of you, run stop signs, and drive down the middle of the road.  Just last week I took my turn stopping at a stop sign and watched in amazement as the truck in front of me made a U-turn at Five Corners...yikes!  Oh, and that drive down the middle of the road thing?  I had just made a left turn, pulling out of our street on to the main road...which happens to be Main Street...heading toward town when the pick-up truck coming up the hill veered in to the middle of the street.  I had to serve to the shoulder to avoid being hit.  He wasn't even texting.  He was looking right at me, like he was aiming for me or something.

And then there are the incompetents.  Evidently a homeowner needed to hook up to the town sewer system.  His contractor decided that it was okay to damage private property while doing the work.  The property belongs to a non-profit where I am the vice president.  I happened upon the mess while going for a Sunday walk.  A truck parked illegally on the property, stone walls damaged, tire ruts in mud when there used to be field growth, and dumped soil and tree branches.  To top it off, it's not only private property, but it is conservation land.  The contractor had also split a utility pole and that had to be replaced!  Met with the guy and hopefully, eventually, all will be well.  He tried to tell me that they had done us a favor.  What?

It snowed today.  I think it is pretty but I hate it.  Anyway, we got all the walks and drives shoveled - three times.  Pain in the...pain in everything.  We have back door neighbors and the foot of their driveway kind of crosses over our property and my driveway.  I shoveled my drive.  Then neighbor lady came out to shovel hers.  She left a little ridge of snow between the two.  Huh?  Why?  I had just cleared half the area.  Wouldn't it be easiest to just finish her half?  Why leave a 30 foot dividing ridge that was about 6 inches, give or take, wide?  I've only been nice to these people, never caused any trouble.  I wave when I pass them on the street, say hi when out walking.  She tries to avoid speaking to me.  She used to be real friendly.  What have I done?

See her?  My drive looks white as I finished before she started and it was still snowing.  My drive is between that long ridge of snow to her right and the stick marking the edge of my parking spot.  Why would anyone leave that ridge of snow?  The next time I went out to shovel, I shoveled the ridge away.  She hasn't shoveled since.  Must be angry that I cleared the ridge. 

In other wonderful news.  I just heard that we are to expect a blizzard on Tuesday.  OH JOY.
Maybe I'll take some pretty pictures.

Words of a Picture

Some time back I wrote a post about a picture that I came across while looking through some stuff my Dad had stashed away.  I just checked to find that the post is dated from April of 2008.  Most of you will remember reading it...hah. Those of you who don't can refresh your memory about the post here.

Most of you will also remember that a couple years ago I went through the mess of settling both my cousin's and aunt's estates.  During that process 'R' and I traveled to South Carolina to sort through lots of their stuff and make arrangements for the clearing out, repair and sale of their home.  I sent a box, that contained a lot of photos, back home to myself.

In that box was this photo:

Remember?  If not, go back to that link I gave you.

Same photograph is in the photograph.
It gets better.
We have the statue that belonged to my grandparents.  The one that the original photograph was propped up against to be photographed.

So......today I finally did this:

A Last Glimpse of Christmas

Part of a very pretty Christmas window display.

Thank you, Sandcastles, for brightening my evening!

Drifting Away...

so far from the appearance that I had hoped for in changing things here.  I guess I've got some work to do this weekend to fix the mess I've made.

Needing to Warm Up

Well, so much for the gloom and doom template trial.  I'm needing something better.  At least for the cold of winter.  So...I'll try this scheme for a bit and see if it will suit me.  It really screws up the print color of the doom and gloom posts but the text wasn't so important there anyway!

A Gift from New York

My friends M and E (along with K) spent the day in NYC and look what they brought home for me!

This is a challenge to photograph as the camera wishes to focus on the flat surface rather than the 'etched' image on the interior.

This is totally amazing to me.  Especially all the reflections from the top.

How do they make these?  3 - D and all the fine lines...inside.
Baffling.  Thank you!

p.s.  I got a nifty Statue of Liberty pencil, too.  It is displayed next to a Statue of Liberty pen!

The Dark Side

I was up for a change.  Don't know as I'll keep it but it sure makes photos look good.    I have no idea what this font color will look like on the dark gray...

Comments welcome.

Okay, just previewed it to make sure it's readable.  Won't keep the color but fun to play with.

Fine Dining

With the busy-ness of the Christmas season we have done a bit of extra eating out.  Hardly fine dining, but good food.

Denny's...usually attached to a budget motel...breakfast all day.

On Rocky Neck...a fave breakfast and lunch spot only open weekends in the winter.

Inside Sailor Stan's...yes, we were the only patrons at that moment.

So Many Questions! (Bernard)

Pretty much the size of a standard wooden matchstick with no actual flame stuff on the end.  Many of them have been glued together end to end.

As you can see, it has joined the collection.  The photo shows part of the collection.
They get dusted quarterly.

Ta Da ----------

Done.

1250 'matchsticks' later

Oh, the Suffering

I thought this would be a fun project.

What was I thinking?

Still lots more to go...46 pages of patterns.  And some say delightful things like make 7X or 4X or...
I am making progress, though.  I'm working on the double pedestal.

Keystone Bridge Gets Trimmed

Just some photos to compare with the ones in my last post.  The DPW has started work clearing out overgrowth around and under the bridge.  All that seems to be left is to cut down some vine-y stuff, clean out dead stuff, and remove the remnants of an old chain-link fence.  The photos.......

Now you can see the bridge!

Beautiful at Flat Ledge Quarry

Flat Ledge Quarry

The arch reflected