Scattered Thoughts . . .

S ince it appears as though our weather will be great for the solar eclipse, I've been focused on getting all my astronomy and photography gear prepped for the big couple of minutes of total solar eclipse.   I also raked the part of the backyard where we will be setting up for the total eclipse.  Everything seemed to be going well and then we had well over a foot of heavy, wet snow dumped on us...  again.  The same thing happened less than a week earlier! So, two large amounts of snow followed immediately by temperatures in the 40s and 50s...  extra showers after getting soaked in sweat due to cleaning up the yard, driveway, paths and backyard, then extra loads of laundry to clean the sweat-soaked clothing, then Saturday came along when Sheila cleans the sheets and does all of her own laundry...  this resulted in a backed-up septic system.  Naturally, it is a weekend and we don't want to call to have the septic pumped out on the weekend so we're making-do with a very slow a

I had been very slowly recovering from my long-lingering COVID symptoms but things drastically worsened again this past weekend. We had about 13 inches of snow Friday night into Saturday so we had to head outside to at least clear off the roof especially since the snow wasn't supposed to stop falling for another 12 hours or so.  We didn't need a collapsed roof on top of all my health problems so we headed outside for a painful couple of hours.  It turns out we had another three inches of snow through the night on Saturday night after we cleared off the roof so it is good that we took care of the roof when we did. I started up the snowblower and made my way toward the driveway.  I had just broken through the deep snow with one slowblower-width path when it started making a terrible noise.  I noticed that one of the four augers was no longer held in place with its pin.  Fortunately, I had two spares on the control panel of the snowblower so that was a quick fix.  I started up th

W e're getting some snow today...  and some rain...  and some ice...  and a lot of slush.  The temperatures are hovering in the 32-34° range and have been like this since yesterday.  This is a terrible temperature range in the winter because it makes for terrible driving conditions.  Sometimes the roads are wet, sometimes the roads are icy, sometimes the roads are clear but any of these conditions can change in a matter of seconds.   Naturally this would be a day to stay home like almost all of the school districts have already decided.   Most of the schools are closed but, ironically (or perhaps moronically) although Sheila has been working from home consistently everyday since Montpelier was flooded about five months ago, she was told that she must go to Montpelier today of all days.   Why must she dig out the car?  Why must we rush to clear the driveway and the end of the driveway of heavy, wet snow?  Why must she risk driving on roads that could be dangerous and which promise t

I 've been trying to keep up with moving snow each day this week.  Winter finally arrived here in our neck of the woods and we are finally seeing some snowfall.   The snow this morning is deep and exceptionally heavy.  We're trying to dig out as quickly as we can because Lukey has a state championship hockey game at 1pm today.   Getting to the game depends on two things...  digging out the car...  and my health after digging out...  I've been moving snow almost every day this week.  Most days I've had to move about four inches of mostly light snow.  Yesterday or the day before was about eight inches of snow that needed to be moved...  that is from our driveway, pathways around the house including to the oil tank and gas tank, and removing snow from the roof.  Today was clearly a minimum of 12 inches of wet heavy snow...  more in some spots, less in others.  Most important is removing the snow off the roof when it is heavy and over about six inches.  The biggest problem

T oday we have some highly unusual sunny skies but it is still frigid out there at -8°.  I shot these two images through our living room window...  It actually looks great out there for some solar astronomy!  We rarely get clear skies in the winter here so these crystal clear deep blue skies are quite atypical for us.  There is no way I am heading out there though unless I absolutely must head out there.  It is far too cold for me!

Sometimes, if you listen carefully, it seems as though nature sends us clues.   I had sketched some plans for a treehouse to be built next to the kids' playhouse.  I had sketched a ladder going from the deck in front of the playhouse up to the treehouse next to the playhouse.  I would store firewood and the snowblower underneath this treehouse.  It really seemed like a good plan but, honestly, I keep wondering whether it is a good idea or not.   I have so many other projects that need to get done around the house and the building season is short up here.  Adding a treehouse to that long list sometimes seemed a bit too much especially considering my health also limits how much I can get done.  Another reason I was questioning the wisdom of this project is because the grandkids have now moved from right down the road to about an hour away so their time here at Gee and Papa's house will probably be quite limited.  Because of these reasons, I was leaning toward forgetting about thi

No matter where I have lived across the country, the weather has always been known to change wildly within a day or even hours.  Even though it is not so uncommon, it is worth mentioning when it does occur.   Last week started out a bit on the cold side which was really average temperatures for this time of year.  Then, on Monday, we had a little bit of a snowstorm that dumped about eight inches of wet, heavy snow on us.   I didn't bother trying to start the snowblower since we have not been leaving the house anyway but I did need to rake the roof and do some shoveling.  The snow was deep and it was heavy so it was a necessity to remove it from the roof.  I knew that it would only get heavier as it melted on the roof and eight inches of snow is a lot of snow.   I wasn't too thrilled about needing to rake the roof so early in the season.  Even a healthy person wouldn't be too thrilled about needing to rake the roof but my spinal injuries take a big hit whenever I need to mov

Sometime after midnight last night, I got up out of bed and wandered to the bathroom.  On my way to the bathroom, I passed by one of our windows and instantly noticed that the ground was covered in white stuff! This morning, I awoke to a little snow squall outside our windows and everything was blanketed in clean, soft white...   It is not yet after Memorial Day weekend so this snowy weather should come as no surprise.  After all, we are almost as far north as southern Alaska (54° latitude vs 45° latitude) .  Sheila, however, is in a bit of a lousy mood over the snow.  She's usually done with snow falling from the sky by mid-January.  Personally, I like when the muddy brown spring landscape is covered in fresh snow.  The snow hides the lack of vegetation and all the mud while it blankets everything in a clean soft look.  Plus, spring snow always melts on its own requiring absolutely no shoveling (almost always anyway). On the positive side, we haven't done any plan

Although, at the moment, the sun is shining brightly in an exceedingly rare mostly cloudless sky, we continue to get snow every day.  The house is barely visible behind towering banks of snow where we have piled up snow from the driveway and walkways to the house.  I like winter but, at this point, my health and my spinal injuries have had enough of this nonsense.  It is causing far too much pain.  There are some projects I'd like to tackle too but the frigid snowy weather is keeping me indoors.  I have a few little woodworking projects I'd like to complete but I need to set up my power tools outdoors where I have room and where the sawdust won't cake everything inside the house.   In the meantime, the falling snow provides a nice peaceful landscape out our windows.  Enough is enough though... my old, beat-up body needs a break!

The snowstorm that was forecast to hit us actually did materialize and it dropped a fair amount of snow on us.  Sheila and I spent about three hours clearing out the driveway, the paths, the mailbox, the fuel tank, and the roof.  This is the longest amount of time snow removal has ever taken us! We removed about 14 inches of snow and, since then,we've had another few inches.  I actually expected far more snow to be dropped on us this storm but, considering how much work it was to clean up today, I'm thankful that we got considerably less snow than was forecasted. Thanks to some of Sheila's old co-workers, we have a nice snowblower and that has come in handy many, many times since it was gifted to us.  This helps out my spine significantly but, I should point out, it is still a painful experience.  The snowblower is actually a bit too heavy for Sheila to handle so I am the one to manhandle the snowblower while Sheila gets started on raking the roof and doing a little

Back in August, when Sheila was first diagnosed with this latest cancer, she received a lot of love and attention from all her friends, family and co-workers. Visitors and telephone calls were very common during this period and it was all very much appreciated not only by Sheila but by me as well. Besides, we needed some social interaction and, actually, still do very much. The social interaction is a nice break from the seriousness of cancer and we don't get much social interaction since the cancer has returned. Although Sheila had changed jobs a year ago, her old co-workers all got together to provide a card and some much needed cash to help with any of our expenses. That was definitely appreciated by both of us. Thank you, everyone, for that! Around the same time, Sheila's old boss from her old job called to ask what she could do for us. Wilhelmina has always been very thoughtful and a supervisor anyone would want to have on their side so her question came as no surprise

Actually, the last two weeks of 2017 and the first three weeks (so far) of 2018 have been exceptionally lousy but this is giving me a very uneasy feeling about this new year.  In our case, it seems that things are constantly breaking. If it is not one thing, it is another. Touch this... it breaks. Look at something else... it breaks. Fix something... turn around and there are two other things broken. The list is so long at this point that I can't even remember everything that has broken in the past four weeks! The first two problems I can remember four weeks ago were related to our electrical and our furnace.  Our electronics were all acting a bit odd and quirky. Things were shutting down on their own. Other things weren't working correctly. After a couple of hours of troubleshooting with an electronics tester, I found myself at our circuit-breaker panel with the cover off testing the monster main lines coming into the house (something I'd prefer to avoid) ... the vol

Before the absolutely crazy and unseasonably warm weather hovering around 60 degrees which has caused a mid-winter mud season this week, we somehow managed to get some snow!  As this snow started slowly inching its way down our metal roof, it slowly changed the profile of our roof... Typically, once that snow hangs off the roof by about a foot, it breaks off and crashes down onto our deck. This time, however, we had some freezing rain before getting this latest 14" of snow so that snow sliding off the metal roof was pretty solid underneath and supported by some ice this time. Within a day or two of inching its way down off the metal roof, the snow from the roof had created a sort of natural awning covering our windows and our front door!  The snow was hanging down so far that it was covering more than half of our front door! That was a lot of snow hanging down in one giant piece! From inside the house, this hanging snow awning looked like a giant frozen wave. When

I awoke feeling much less energetic than on an average day. Shortly after getting out of bed I realized that I probably would not get much done on the toilet project today since I was already feeling rather lousy and I wasn't thinking clearly. My spine was still hurting enough to make sleeping difficult which also made it difficult getting up out of bed. These weren't good signs for having a productive day with a home repair project. When I made my way out of the bedroom, I had looked out the window to see how this forecasted "storm" is progressing because I knew that if it was as bad as the forecast insisted, then I would need to spend my time and energy outside clearing off the roof of heavy snow. When I looked out the window I saw only two or three inches... for us, this is pretty much an every-morning dusting. I shook my head at this lame "storm" and continued on my way.  While I was taking my morning slew of medications, I decided it would be wiser

We had a really nice Thanksgiving Day... relatively quiet... with some friends we haven't seen in quite some time... it was warm in the house... while it was snowing outside like it was Christmastime.  Liza spent the morning with us watching the Thanksgiving Day parade. This parade should be renamed "The Parade of Balloons and Commercials" because they no longer show any of the parade... only the balloons. They do show some quick acts from current Broadway plays but that is not the parade. Anyway... we watched most of the 'parade' with Liza. After Liza left, Sheila's sister and her two children stopped by for a little while and that was a nice surprise.  Not only was the weather rather Christmas-like but our home looked like Christmas as well.  Every year, when it came time to go cut Christmas trees, we always felt it was a tremendous waste of resources and that we were being selfish and wasteful just so we could go out and pay $35 to cut down a tre