Winter cometh...

Fwd: The Life of Ice -- Redux

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Begin forwarded message:

From: Wil Mosher <olddog299@gmail.com>
Date: November 29, 2013 at 1:41:51 PM EST
Subject: The Life of Ice -- Redux

Taken this year in the morning on Friday, November 29. Sent via Adobe Photoshop Express (App Store | Google Play Store | Windows Store)

Ice - true 70mph ice boat/speed skating ice. The cycle begins, anew.

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Ice Redux - 2

Taken this year in the morning on Friday, November 29. Sent via Adobe Photoshop Express (App Store | Google Play Store | Windows Store)

And so it begins, again.
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There Be Ice Bergs

I happened to glance out the window on my way by and to my surprise, a "growler" appeared. You can't really see it in the photo, but there's sheet ice attached as big as a sheet of plywood just below the surface.

Here. I blew it up using a photoshop app on the iPhone:

I

I hope your turkey day is going to plan. It's 26* F with a steady 20mph breeze from the West out there. No birds seen today. I think they've all left for warmer climes. 

The Life ( & Death) of Ice -- Reboot

Ice Day 3

One of the major threats to continued ice life is rain. It's in the low 50's outside (Tuesday) and a couple of inches of water is sitting atop the ice on the lake. The open strands of water between here and Moose Island are growing and the wind is gusting in the mid-thirties. Not looking good for survival of the ice; if it does survive it'll be rougher than a cob. Ice skating and ice boating won't be smooth going, let me tell you. You try skimming atop a washboard at 60MPH while your sphincter tries to eat the seat cushion to keep from dragging on the ice three inches below. Exhilarating, for sure. And, not something these old bones will go out of their way to experience again anytime soon. I have fine memories of ice boating on Mallet's Bay on Lake Champlain in Vermont, but it was as smooth as a baby's bottom and speeds into the 70's were barely more rugged than sunbathing on the Cape.
Anyway, we will just have to wait and see. We are only half way through this particular storm. A lot can happen between now and the end of rain and wind. I am hopeful that I can get the BBC moved before it freezes in place like last storm. And I hope y'all have yourselves a happy Thanksgiving. Try not to hurt or be injured this holiday weekend -- leave that for the professional football players on the idiot box.
And So It Goes...

UPDATE: As of sunset, the ice is still intact.

Boondocker Hot Water Heater

Setting up for SWMBO's morning ablutions before work...

The Life Of Ice

CHAPTER 1

The life of ice is surprisingly tenuous, given the steadiness of the building blocks involved. Here it is day two, and a seemingly innocuous event which would be beneficial under other circumstances, threatens the very existence of the ice. The threat I refer to is snow. The ice is barely a couple of inches at it's thickest. Temperatures are forecast for 20's & 30's today, overcast this morning with some clearing mid-day. Perfect conditions for melting the ice. While snow provides insulation, it also traps atmospheric dust within. The dust acts like a solar collector, warming the ice from above. The ice will thin. Tomorrow's weather will provide the coup de grace. . . Two to three inches of rain. What little snow we have will hold the rain in place to aid melting. Late Wednesday as the front pushes through a brisk northerly wind is forecast. Wind will be the death knell for the ice. It will be Friday before conditions are right to allow the ice to form anew.

And So It Goes.

Open Water!

So, not completely covered, it offers wind an opportunity to tear up the ice when the temps rise.

Ice - Day 2

Ice In

Morning dawned, bright, clear and cold. Only 17°F, with a -10°F wind chill, bone snapping cold. Over the whistles and groans of the 30 to 40 MPH zephyrs blowing around and through our fiver, the low growl of the Honda e2000i generator and the wail and snort of my aging Black and Decker coffee maker was the absence of the sound that has been a constant backdrop since the end of June. Gone was the sound of water. No waves crashing the shore. Wavftelets gently lapped the shore no more. Loons no longer warbled insanity to the rising Sun. No plop! of a perch rising to snatch a mosquito from the mill pond smooth surface. Nope. Just the eerie groan of wind waves driving the weight of a seven mile long sheet of ice into the shore accompanied my coffee pot this morning. And So It Goes...

If It’s Sunday It Must Be Gale Day

Woke this morning to a high in the LR of 49*F. Outside, the wind is blowing in the 25 to 30 MPH range with gusts to 50 MPH and the temps are in the 20’s. With the “wind chill factor” the feels like is around 5*F. Sitting here at the table with my back to the slideout wall, I wear three layers on my torso, two on the bottom over underwear. Still cold. Furnace still won’t fire. This is now supplemented by a frozen or blocked LP line, so it’ll be Papa John’s pizza for supper tonight as the fridge is running off the generator and nothing LP fueled is working. The wind gusts are such the TV antenna is whipping about in the wind. Locking-in digital TV signals is futile, so my wife’s football games (read: nap background noise) keep cutting out and disturbing her enjoyment (waking her up).

So, off to town for genny gas and LP for our Lil Buddy heater, pizza to gas us up (heh, heh) and something sweet for dessert. Hope your Sunday was better, but looking at the weather in the SW and elsewhere it doesn’t look like today was suitable for much of anything. Wind has friends tied up in Tampa Bay with small craft warnings forcing three anchors (two forward, one aft), Dizzy Dick is hunkered down hiding from a cold rain and the Bayfield Bunch and others in the desert are hiding from rain, wind and mud. Chinle is fighting a soggy wet snow in Northern Colorado. Rick is dodging typical Vancouver Island winter weather and family in Maryland face rain and cold on Chesapeake Bay. Be a good day to make a beef stew and watch football. Oh yeah, I’d need an LP stove for tha

And So It Goes…

Ice Cycle

Ice embraces in a cruel womb,
Choking life from leaf and heart,
All the while preserving that green, vital spark
I will need to rise anew, come the THAW.

Jewelry sparkling in a January morn,
Encased in Winter's cloak
Upon the frozen land I stand,
Lonely sentinel to life's potential,
While Summer's grasses slumber under icy branches.

All the while, the mice tunnel through my roots,
Seeking last year's corn.
Yet even that tiny life sustained comes with a price,
As Coyote and Crow starve and Owl awaits the heavy snows
That allow a safe pounce on frozen ground.

And great Northerly winds do howl
In concert with my tender buds
Struggling to sustain life within
While frozen lens penetrate to my core
Crackling deep as branches flail.

All hail, the Ice Queen cometh,
Death her constant squire.
Surcease, her lover, astride the throne.
And at her side the frozen shaft, my limb ...
It does Her bidding, Now.

Ice has me in its talons,
A death grip upon my soul.
Will this Winter never end?
Must I endure the indignity of shredded bark
And broken bough as ice rends the life from me?

What light is this, green and blue,
Singing in the skies of life and warmth,
Sizzling in its electric potential,
Sun spot red, yellow, gold. A terrible solar flare
Fortells the death of Ice itself.

Borealis, bringer of light, life and warmth,
Banishing ice from the tundra of my mind
and surface of my twigs.
In company of Spring, Ice cannot sustain.
Her reign abridged, once again.

More ice forming

Here you can see the impact of the wake from a duck hunter's motorboat as it meets the ice in the cove. Sounds like faerie harps after a Bachanal.

Ice in the cove

DizzyDick asks when the lake usually freezes ... sometime during November or, rarely, December. Ice fishing season begins January 1st; perhaps 3 years in 5 the ice is strong enough to support trucks and the shacks we call ice houses. It has been blowing hard for a few days, two where temps went just barely above freezing. Now, as you can see, no wind and the supercooled water is trying to freeze.

Cold, Clear, Autumn View.

What am I still doing here in Maine in November?

Good question. Second day of gale force winds and sub-freezing temps. Still with a busted furnace. Just a little "Mr Buddy" convection heater keeping the interior sorta tolerable. Not the regulator. Bought a new ignitor board last night for $120. Guess there's no coffee in my immediate future. Still too cold for these arthritic hands to attempt an installation.

Damn! Winter arrives with a howl!

Subject: Damn! Winter arrives with a howl!




Well, the Weather Weenies forecast cold temperatures as a large Arctic high dropped down from Hudson Bay. At 2AM, I'd dozed off watching TV and reading your blogs and awoke to no heat coming from the furnace. I knew I had installed a full bottle the previous evening, so what could it be? Troubleshooted the furnace and discovered it was failing to ignite, despite the gas valve actuating. Couldn't find anything wrong at the furnace so delved into the system deeper. It appears the regulator is failing to pass sufficient fuel to run anything more demanding than the two burners I have going, heating cast iron fry pans to radiate some heat into the room. It had dropped from 60* to 40* by 5AM in the living room and I started having serious concerns about the state of affairs in the piping and tanks down below. It was about 20* with around 15mph of wind hitting us side-to. I was chilled to the bone and damn frustrated besides as nothing I tried fixed the problem. Finally curled up next to SWMBO as my legs felt wooden from the knees down. Up again at 6:30 to drive the boss to work. Grabbed a cuppa Dunkin Donuts and a coffee before landing at the local RV parts place. Thirty minutes, a couple of tall tales and half a century lighter I departed for the barn where I keep my stuff to pick up a catalytic space heater. I brought my treasures out to the Lake and set them up. No, the Fixers^1 hadn't repaired the furnace in my absence ... It still failed to fire despite basking in the dawn's chill light for two hours at 18*, thank you very much. Soon the inside temp had outstripped the exterior by 30* so failed attempts at firing the beast yielded some warming in the cellar and fears of frozen and burst plumbing slowly crept to the back of my mind, as did conciousness (I am too old to try to get by on an hour's sleep). I awoke with a start about noon, pleased I hadn't burned up nor asphyxiated from the catalytic heater and/or the jury-rigged frying pan heaters. Found the fridge had faulted off, so it too wasn't getting enough gas either. Refired the furnace multiple times until obstinacy was clearly fruitless. With that conclusion, the furnace declared unilateral victory and finally cycled on the way it is supposed to, with fire in the chamber and no more fault codes.
Enough - I don't know why it failed and there is no guarantee it won't fail this evening, but right now it is 72* inside and my feet aren't cold nor blue. It's 32*F outdoors and the wind is keeping everything frozen ...
This boulder (below) is about 3 cubic yards big - you'd need an excavator and dump truck to move it, even if you could get all the local, state and Federal permits required. And, you will note, completely sheathed in ice.

And So It Goes ...

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That time a garbage scow crashed into a space station - Boing Boing

For Dizzy Dick, contemplating his own mortality, a little Space history:

That time a garbage scow crashed into a space station - Boing Boing
http://feedly.com/k/17THL6H

shared via http://feedly.com

Murphy is bugging me...

We had to make a run to town Saturday evening to pick up some prescriptions ready at the Wal-Mart pharmacy. SWMBO went inside to collect them while I sat in the truck (usually a cheaper trip that way). Once the boss was safely ensconced in her bucket seat, the key I did turn, but nada, nyet, and no joy. So I got out and wiggled a few connections to see if I could cajole the old gal into turning over, and all I got for my trouble was a glare from the old lady.

One hour, two trips to the back of the store and a few nitros later, I finally have the _@_)_;?/#!!!?/!! thing installed and we proceed home, a two hundred dollar hole in our budget, a bag of lousy Chinese take out for supper and a very bad mood.

Sunday saw both the wife and I down for the count with a case of autumnal grippe. Between us a box of tissues was consumed for the continuously running noses. I sneezed some seven hundred times. Kidney stones started to bother the Missus, so a jug of cranberry juice was cracked. A grand time was had by all.

Monday morning came earlier than anticipated as Iggy tried to crawl under the covers with yours truly. It seems the air temperature inside was at 42° F. and headed lower to match the 27° outside. Being sick isn't conducive to keeping track of the LP tank fullitude status. Empty. Big time, two 40 pound bottles empty. So, I cannibalize the BBQ tanks and fight with the regulator until sufficient fuel is flowing to fire the furnace, crawl back under covers and wait for heat. Sadly, the dog was of the opinion that breakfast ought be served, right away, followed by chase the bone and walkies, before any settling in would be allowed to commence. By then, SWMBO was awake and demanding food and attention, too. I never did get back to bed...

Comes this morning. Cold. Ice in the cove, 21°F. Air temp cold. The truck starts ok, but the boss is so discombobulated that she left her wallet and water bottle behind. It's the equivalent of a Monday morning as she had yesterday off. So, all of Murphy's Monday Morning Madness after the start of Standard Time happened this morning. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, dontcha know.

And So It Goes...

Raking, Anyone?

View from the "throne room" during Friday's inch and a half of rain.

The Calm After The Storm

Scary Thought For This Morning

Came down early to make coffee. Opened the door to let the dog out. One eye open, I looked out upon the lake 20 feet away in mill pond smoothness and thought,

"Oh my gods! It's shell ice."

That is likely to happen tonight, Monday, as the predicted low is 21° F.

And So It Goes...

Autumn Is In Full Swing

Hey all! Missed me? That's OK, your aim will improve.

The leaves have departed to huge mounds at the curbs of streets. Laughable, as it may be weeks before Public Works will get to them, what with plow trucks to ready, salt and sand piles to top off, and last minute road openings to finish before the serious freeze arrives. Down here near sea level, the bears and skunks are still making a nuisance of themselves fattening on mast (acorns) and getting themselves into trash can mischief on pick-up day. The dog and cat are putting serious efforts into covering every surface with hair. Next time, it'll be both white or both black ... none of this Harlequin crap to deal with. Then again, Miss Belle has been looking mighty tempting to this year's fledgling Great Horned Owl that persists in whistling up a sonata of fetching dog calls. Sounds like novice day at the dog park out there with the full moon and bare ground yielding nothing for her belly, again. Luckily, the juvenile bald eagle has moved into town, striking herring gulls in mid-air at the local Mickey D's, to the horror of soccer moms refueling their teamsters before practice. And this year's loon is so forlorn it's taking to hanging out with migrating geese at night. NOT good, as there are a few weekend warriors blasting away on Friday and Saturday mornings at sun-up.

So Winter is just around the corner but thankfully late in putting in an appearance here in the lowlands. Do we stay or do we go? We are still on the fence. Money is really tight. My health, in particular, is giving us fits. SWMBO is enjoying her new job, but it doesn't pay enough to get an apartment in town, even if we could find a reasonable rent that takes pets. Heating this spacious new home takes 2-3 Times the LP gas that the Airstream took, despite good insulation... just a lot more volume. It probably won't fit into my daughter's yard in Louisiana, either. So then it becomes a question of finding an affordable park, near some kind of sit down work, with full hookups that takes a dog (the cat will not travel). A tall order.

So that's where we are this week. Next week, who knows? BLM boondocking near Quartzite sounds better all the time. Or, maybe, the Rio Grande Valley or Port Aransas? So much depends on keeping the better half happy. Me, I'd be happy working a gate at a well site. Just pay me enough to download books to my Kindle.

And So It Goes.

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Rain, rain ...

Go away.
Come again,
A sunny day!

The sultry promise of a new morn steals in slowly from Quebec.

At night, you can see the stars and airplanes reflected in the water.

Autumn Dappled Granite

From our entrance to the lake, taken to remind me how quickly progress the seasons of our lives. Placed in the 60's, it looks like it has remained since the last ice age, ca. 13,000 years ago here.

The autumn has rapidly advanced. Swamp maples are past their peak, while more upland deciduous trees are drying and dropping. The excessive rain this summer has something to do with it, but I'm not sure exactly how it translates to dull, dry leaves.

Hunting season opened about ten days ago, so most of the waterfowl have already come through. There is something special about being awakened by goose guns going off at sunrise just outside the window. That warm feeling from puddling piss, for instance...

equinox

Autumnal Equinox
Comes rushing in with a vicious rattle,
Icy pellets awaken me, alarmingly.
Fear of dying as Death roars by,
Leaving leaves and limbs akimbo.

"Fall Is Arrived! Behold the glory,"
roars the wind Northwest.
Harbinger of the roiling death
so close around the corner
lurks the ultimate foe...
Winter.

Everybody’s Heard, About The Word…

[Sorry about the title, a take-away from the chorus of “The Purple People Eater”]

Life continues apace here in Maine by the lake. Leaves are starting to turn, while the ten days of rain have convinced the super-early swamp maple that turns a month ahead of everything else in the cove to drop its crimson leaves in disgust. The Arctic Snow Geese have been through and got out just ahead of the bad weather when it was still hot, muggy and 90 freaking degrees out the first week of September. That was when our second generator died, preventing parallel operation which translates to no air conditioning. The Canada Geese have been bitching and moaning at night in their little floating rafts out in the middle of the lake while awaiting a return of good flying weather. And of course, yours truly has got itchy feet without the means to go.

Came across these in my memory the other day while standing in six inches of water refueling the Honda e2000i generator. Thought I’d share…

The one thing that the Autumn brings to these parts – most of these are grounded:

As one wag put it, they come with FAA-issued tail numbers, too.

Wicked. No, really.

In a copyrighted story in the Bangor Daily News back in April this year a collection of words that may crop up here on occasion and their meanings. I don’t even think about them, but some may cause shaking of heads and furrowed brows atop wrinkled heads. So be it…

About a month ago, we ran a story on the Dictionary of American Regional English, a collection of the colorful and varied words used in Americans’ everyday lives, across the country, organized by region — including Maine and New England. We included a short but eclectic list of some of words specific to Maine, and asked readers to submit their own suggestions for Maine words.

We received an excellent response, and have since compiled them all and done a little research (to the best of our ability) to weed out the words used elsewhere in the country from the more strictly Maine ones. We’ve come up with our own, revised list of Maine vernacular words and phrases, a little dictionary containing words ranging from the obvious, well-known “dooryard” and “wicked” to lesser-known gems such as “laury” or “sprills.”

 

See y’all on the flipside.

Favorite Foods – It’s All Good

On Saturday, while I was in town doing the grocery shopping, Dizzy-Dick was expounding upon his favorite foods. I must admit, his description of his favorite boudin sausage and cheese stuffed deep fried jalapenos from Jack-in-the-Box got my mouth to watering, but his waxing poetic over rare to medium-rare  grilled beef liver for lunch had me nearly drowning from drool.

I suffer food gladly. There’s damn little I won’t eat or at least try a couple of times before giving up. I’m not overly fond of SWMBO’s beloved raw wieners, but that’s OK – I just brown mine up before dumping in the baked beans and rice that goes with them in this household these days.

Crustaceans are my downfall. I loves me some lobster. Mud bugs be me. Crabs ‘r’ us, too. Mollusks are little hard-shelled jewels. I love the simple pleasure of escargots in garlic butter with a hot, crispy loaf of French bread as an accompaniment . Steamed clams and drawn butter, or mussels ‘ca vin. Heck, deep-fried grasshoppers alongside of fried shrimp would be a delightful contrast, both served up with cocktail sauce and Thai peanut curry sauce. Then there’s oysters. Is there such a thing as a raw oyster too cold on ice in a hot chili cocktail sauce, a slice of lime at my side to spread the glory even farther…

I like meat. Steak, rare and hot off the grill, lightly seasoned with garlic butter, salt and pepper gets my gastric juices just a-flowin’. Roasted venison, braised bear, BBQ pork, chicken, turkey, and other poultry in all the myriad ways it may be prepared – delightful.

I’d probably die of terminal confusion, just trying to pick out a last meal on death row. We haven’t even started on all the cheeses, veggies, breads, soups and stews, salads.

Man, I love to eat and this old body shows the result. I’m not just roly-poly, I’m officially, majorly, obese. The only way I’m ever going to lose weight is to stop eating and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. C’est la vie, eh? There be far worse ways to go, that’s for sure.

So unlike Dizzy-Dick, there’s no picking favorites … it’s all good.

Dawn's early light

Moon full at 5:15

Morning comes sneaking up on me...

It probably comes as no surprise that we've been experiencing what passes for summer in these parts the last few days. All the heat and humidity takes it out of this fat old man. So, I tend to doze off in the evening watching the boob-tube, only to awaken as Craig McPherson is signing off the Late, Late Show at 1:30 AM. Said three or four hours of sleep is it for that night...

I pulled that same stunt tonight. I picked and liked, read, played alligator, listened to my music with earphones and had a pleasant enough time, if you don't want to be sleeping, that is.

About 5AM I looked out the window and observed that just a month ago the sun would be fully above the horizon at that hour of the morning. Not this morning. It looked like the moon had set, it was so dark.

Fifteen minutes later I went out with Iggy - he to water the trees and I refilled the generator. At that point, dawn was breaking and I discovered the moon was high in the Southwest. Who knew?

.

Bad Choices Are Me… or The Fecal Matter Has Hit The Fan!

 

 

About 7:15 yesterday morning as SWMBO braves the vagaries of our bilge pump-powered shower, I heard the now infamous words, “Honey, the water isn’t draining…!”

Phooey, thinks I, it’s too soon to have to empty the holding tanks – I only did it a week ago. I check the notoriously unreliable electronic gauges and they both indicate ‘Full’ tanks. Damn.

Wrong conclusion, Dawg.

So I quickly hatched the scheme to take off about 25 gallons of grey water into the “blue boy” so my wife can finish her ablutions.

Bad choice #1.

I pull the stinky slinky hose out and make up to the waste tank and pull the valve open. And all Hell breaks loose – the portable tank end of the hose separates from the connection fitting and I have 100 gallons of  sewage gushing onto the ground.

Stink – “oh my”, as George Takei would say. So much for driving the boss to work. I’m covered from head to toe in effluent, gagging at the stench, and still have to empty the portable tank into the septic system.

First trip is nothing too exciting. Since I’m already slimed, I decide to take care of the current supply of black waste water, too.

Bad choice #2.

I make up the spare slinky hose to the portable tank and open the valve and wouldn’t you know it, that hose separates from the trailer end fitting and now I have raw sewage all over the ground, the portable tank and me, too. Gag me to the max. George Takai has a clothes pin on his nose and he’s doing the Wave of Shame we all used as kids at me and my predicament. I have no choice but to try to dilute the pollution. Wouldn’t you know it …

Bad choice #3.

The Rule 800 bilge pump chooses that very moment to give up the ghost and stop pumping.

I may be obtuse, but even I know when Murphy has hit a grand slam between my eyeballs with a 2x4. There’s nothing for it but grab some buckets, wade into the lake up to my waist to wash the merde off me and start the dilution* process by manual bucket brigade, with me being the only brigade member to show up for the party.

My wife missed all of this, having found it necessary to take the truck and drive herself to work (she hates doing that, preferring to apply make-up and prepare herself mentally while I negotiate with the vehicle-bound terrorists that pass themselves off as early morning commuters).

An hour or two later, I have all of the various hoses repaired, the area around the trailer where all of this effluvia was discharged has been diluted as much as I dare (didn’t want the trailer sinking out of sight in suddenly saturated ground, now did I) and I have cleaned up enough that I can contemplate drinking my first cup of coffee of the day, take my pills and figure out my next mistake, er, adventure.

Walked the dog, only beating him a half dozen times for trying to roll in the smelly stuff and then bowed to the inevitable – I donned my breathing apparatus and mowed the lawn. It is too bad the mask only filters out pollen, molds and dust, or I’d have used it to keep the sewage stench at bay…

So that was my day. How was yours?

 

 

* ”The solution to Pollution is Dilution” was one of those little catch phrases that stuck with me from wastewater management class.

Black Death Boondocking

Photo Credit: The Life of Jamie

So, you say you like squirrels? They’re warm and cuddley, fuzzy little phreakers who merely like to eat nuts and chase each other over bole and stem, limb to limb?  Well, hold onto your peanuts and avoid camping in Southern California anytime soon … Read this:

From Reuters:

Health officials said that as a precaution, visitors were ordered to leave three campgrounds and a recreation area of the Angeles National Forest, which encompasses some 655,000 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains just north of metropolitan Los Angeles. Plague, known as the "Black Death" when it was blamed for killing some 25 million Europeans during the Middle Ages (emphasis mine), is a bacterial infection that can be transmitted to humans through the bites of infected fleas. A health department spokesman said no people were believed to have been infected. "It is important for the public to know that there have only been four cases of human plague in Los Angeles County residents since 1984, none of which were fatal," the health department chief, Dr. Jonathan Fielding, said in a statement.

Maybe not fatal, but tell that to this gentleman:

Photo Credit: Mama Bird Diaries

Possibly a camper from the Angeles National Forest?

And for those who remember Monty Python:

“I’m not dead, yet…”

Credit to Boing, Boing, where I first saw this story.

A Wild Night

(No, not that kind of wild night – I’m well past the point of any wenches giving me a side-long glance, except to check out my prodigious belly.)
Last night I put the slide-outs in three times as line storms roared through with high winds, lots of sky-2-ground lightning and deafening thunder claps. The final instance was at 11:00 PM and was just in the nick of time -- as I was bringing in the third slide-out the winds tried to rip the slide off the trailer. It was the scariest storm yet, as the warning I read online said it was approaching at sixty miles an hour!

Image Credit: hdwallpapers4desktop.com

Usually, SWMBO and I watch the lightning out the window in the bedroom with the light off to get the full effect, but on that last one, she left the lights on and pretended to read as it was a particularly violent storm, flattening the waves in one moment and then thrashing them into three foot combers the next. Mind you, we’re parked 10’ from the water’s edge. A wild night, for sure.
A walk-about with Iggy as he performed his constitutional this morning only showed a handful of small, dead limbs down. My wife had left a house dress on the back of a folding chair when she scrubbed down to get the day’s toil and grime off in the afternoon (our shallow bottomed lake is neither cool nor hot, so no point heating water at great expense to bathe) and it was where she’d left it, sodden but no worse for the wear, despite 60+ MPH winds.
To end an already too long entry, we survived, none the worse for wear, except the button pushing finger on yours truly sustained a devastating strain.
And So It Goes.

Let’s hear it for Air Conditioning…

Photo credit: Taken from a movie review of "Desert Flower" on Frocktalk.com

When I was a little boy in Pennsylvania and Maine, summers were spent in old, sweltering houses. You just lived with the heat, y’know? Shopping for my mother was a treat, as it meant a trip into the big town ten miles away where all the stores had air conditioning. Heck, even my mother’s dress shop had A/C. And my Maine grandmother was one of those poor souls who consider it freezing below 86 degrees F. But she had a window unit in her kitchen in her later years and bugger the expense, she’d cook in relative comfort! For us kids, though, it was always hot. Just the way of things, and don’t slam the screen door on your way out.

SWMBO, despite being born and living in Louisiana for most of her life, can no longer tolerate extremes in heat or cold. Whether this is by result of the prescriptions by her doctors or oncoming decrepitude, who knows (I’m going to pay for that one … big time). Cooling is a must for her. So is heating, but that’s a discussion for January.

Not that the need for coolness is all on my wife. I take both diuretics and alpha blockers that specifically warn against direct sunlight exposure, and given how redneck it is around here, wearing a kaftan isn’t an option, less I want to play target practice … with me as the target.

SO, yesterday was the hottest day of the year, thus far. A grand total of 92 degrees at the airport, the site of all things official, weather-wise. Out here at the lake, the breeze was out of the southwest, which means it was a land breeze for all intents and purposes and about as cooling as a blast furnace in Pittsburgh in July. Back when such things existed, of course.

Now, this new-to-us home has air conditioners. Plural. Two of those suckers up on the roof. And I do mean suckers. In order to have A/C you need power. Lots of power. We’re camped out on someone else's property (Thanks Katie and Dave, you’re wonderful). There is no AC power here. Except what you make for yourself, of course. Which is exactly what we have been doing. Making power with our paralleled Honda e2000i generator sets. In this instance, ‘paralleled’ refers to combining the outputs of the two generators in parallel such that instead of a nominal 2KW (actually, 13 amps) we can output a combined total of 26 amps of electricity, at a price. And what a price it is. We keep all the blinds closed to minimize insolation gain (heat from the sun streaming through the windows will heat us up to oven-like in no time at all). We can only run one air conditioner at a time (start-up in the neighborhood of 22 amps), so seal off the bedroom/bathroom section during the day and only cool that area at night. And still we’re consuming about 9 gallons of gasoline in 24 hours, ten on a bad day. Have you checked out gas prices this week? $3.75 a gallon and headed up, my friends. So, for the mere pleasure of not melting away, we are eating through savings at upwards of $45/day, counting the fuel to drive to town to buy more fuel!

I’m just glad it’s not the Airstream. Beer cans with no insulation are even hotter, despite air conditioning.  Even the walls are hot to the touch.

Sure hope this heat wave breaks soon. And it’s a good thing the heat has sapped appetites … there’s a savings to be had. Still and all, I’m thankful for the coolth of the A/C.

Here’s hoping you’re staying cool where you are, too.

Broken Heart

So I went to do a miniscule chore during the heat of the day this afternoon.  Angina hit me, big time. A two nitro spell (on top of the extended release nitro I take daily). Damn, I hate getting old!
This chest pain business is a relatively new development. Sure, I had chest pain and tachycardia (rapid heartbeat) as I recuperated from open heart surgery ten years ago, but haven’t had any occasion to use the Nitro in the refrigerator until this spring. They said the triple bypass would last a decade or so … guess the cardiologist knew what he was talking about, eh?
So, of course I haven’t any insurance. Visits to doctors and hospitals are strictly pay-as-I-go. There’s nothing in the kitty for medical expenses. And there’s no possibility of any Medicaid assistance as the Governor vetoed any expansion of Medicaid for seniors. Guess I’ll just have to get used to the tangy burn of Nitro again.

All that is not repairable...

An hour shot to hell. Damned piece of Chinese junk. They got the motor such that you have to throw away the whole thing when the brushes wear out. Utterly ridiculous. Hoover should be ashamed of themselves.

Bah Humbug!

Lessons Learned

I may be getting older but there’s no sign I’m getting any smarter. Cases in point:

The new-to-us fifth wheel trailer is considerably larger than the Airstream. Large enough that it can’t get close enough to the septic tank for periodic pump-offs. Therefore, I went out and acquired a “blue boy” – one of those blue plastic tanks on wheels to transport sewage from an RV to a dump site. So, last night it became evident that it was time to deploy said “blue boy”.

First lesson learned – if I want to avoid crawling around on my hands and knees while being eaten alive by the jaws with wings we call black flies and mosquitoes, I’d better put the kitchen slide-out back in BEFORE attempting to attach to the discharge pipe.

Second, my brand new ‘blue boy” is wondrously airtight. This became evident when I opened the sewage valve, the hose filled and then a small amount of effluent entered the tank. Hardly the slug of wastewater I expected, however. Then, in the light of my flashlight, I observed the tank growing bigger and bigger. Alarmingly so. With visions of the sewage scene from that movie with Robin Williams and Kristin Chenoweth, I reached down with grave trepidation  and unscrewed the little cap the level indicator sticks up out of, and WHOOSH! the sewage gods commenced to bestow their bounty upon the interior of the tank. Meanwhile, I was passed out from an overdose of methane and even SWMBO was getting a case of the vapors when the fumes rushed in the open window beside her chair where she was watching Masterchef... Oh, and the little cap with the indicator landed twenty feet away in the grass. Lesson learned – vent the “blue boy” before opening the dump valve on the trailer.

As if Murphy wasn’t yet satisfied with tormenting me, this morning I was in the middle of chores when I pulled a boneheaded mistake that almost cost my best friend his life. I speak of my dog, Iggy. Without thinking clearly, I brought him outside with me off-lead. A squirrel took it upon himself to sound the alarm. Like a shot from a cannon, the furry little phugger was off into the woods chasing the rodent and that was the last we saw of him for over eight hours. Thunderstorm, torrential rains, mosquitoes as big as eagles, eagles the size of pteradactyls, and dump trucks on the camp road, in addition to multiple neighbors in motorized vehicles.

I spent most of the day looking for my missing companion but no luck. Some kids on dirt bikes and four wheelers saw him, but they were in terrorist mode at the time, so the pooch lit out into the woods as the bikes bore down upon him breathing fire and brimstone.

So imagine my surprise when I returned from a McDonald’s run (searching is hungry work, plus I needed a Dunkin Donuts De-Caff Iced Coffee) to find the errant canine firmly ensconced in his crate in the living room, looking contrite and remorseful. I’d just trolled the subdivisions within two miles of here and accosted a woman at the head of our road walking her dogs in vain hope of obtaining a sighting of the fuzzbutt. So the lesson reinforced once again, the Schipperke Escape Artist stays on-lead at all times, regardless of how inconvenient it is to me.

I do hope your day wasn’t quite so educational.

Lac-Megantic Tragedy: Intentional?

Rick wrote this morning about the horrendous tragedy that occurred in the southern Quebec resort town of Lac-Megantic when an idling freight train mysteriously released all brakes and rolled down upon the center of the unsuspecting town. Neither the engineer nor the conductor were on the train, as it is common practice to hand the controls over to the operators of the west-bound train and then ride home to Montreal as the other crew does the same by going back to the east.

Photo:  BENJAMIN SHINGLER, Associated Press, By BENJAMIN SHINGLER and ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Updated 12:16 am, Tuesday, July 9, 2013 via Greenichtime.com

It has been big news here since Saturday morning. About 60 Maine firefighters in some 20 vehicles responded upwards of 100 miles to aid in the battle against the inferno. While the news has been calling it “crude oil,” the fact is it was residual crude recovered by “fracking”, which means it was mixed with water, kerosene and other highly volatile petroleum distillates, heated to the boiling point of water and contained within a pressurized vessel, not at normal atmospheric temperature and pressure as is common practice with crude. So what rolled down  the tracks in the wee small hours of Friday night were essentially very large IED’s, highly effective ones at that. And that’s how you simply vaporize an entire club full of people. Merde!

The transport of fracked oil and drilling fluids from the oil fields in Nebraska and the Dakotas to refineries in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has resulted in the usual brouhaha of Earth First!, Sierra Club, and other militant “protectors of the environment” in this bastion of fruits and nuts. Unspoken in the media, but in the forefront of cynical old farts like me, is the very real possibility this was an intentional strike by one of these lug nut groups with too little grasp upon reality. Similar activities have occurred out West and in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. I will be terribly saddened if these folks have had their lives stolen to make some dubious ‘point’ in  the seemingly never-ending crusade to put trees and chipmunks needs ahead of those of hard working North Americans.

New Home & Change of Venue

We have a “new” home. New to us, that is. It’s a 2003 Mobile Suites fifth wheel trailer, a 36’ with three slideouts. Impossible to fathom doubling our living space in one fell swoop, but it is true. Photos to come, but friends borrowed (and never returned) our camera and the iphone is suffering from a moribund battery.

Here’s a public Google+ album (https://plus.google.com/photos/102712343152807198578/albums/5898514990209270017) with all of my photos of our new home. There’ll be more in the future, but this will have to do for now.

SWMBO is now a much happier camper. My serenity is gaining, too, with a move to the lake for the summer. A little hectic this first week, what with the Fourth of July holiday and all, but worth it.

Taken from my truck in the Bangor, Maine Wal-Mart parking lot, 06/19/2013. Is it any wonder communities enact bans on parking lot camping with egregious examples such as this, Class C motorhomes with greywater (we hope) discharges to the storm sewer (NOT a sanitary sewer leading to a treatment plant), operators towing trailers of all varieties unhooking and disappearing, etc. Come on folks, we're better than this.

Memorial Day Musings

First things, first: My hat is respectfully doffed in salute to those brave souls, volunteer or conscripted, who have taken up arms in defense of our country and its ideals, regardless of the overt or covert objectives behind the declarations of President or Congress. I, and every other citizen, owe you all our lives, liberty and happiness. Thank you.

Being the consummate procrastinator, as well as under the weather, I failed to make a trip to town Saturday to acquire a pair of flags to place at my parent's grave site. First thing this morning upon dropping SWMBO at work, I made a bee line to Wally World. Sad to say, there was no joy for the personal patriots division to be had in that big box store. None of the other stores around the Mall open before ten, so I was suspecting the the P' s were going to be SOL in the flag department this year. But, what do I spy but activity in the parking lot of Lowes! Upon investigation, flags of the requisite colors, stripes and stars, of a size to go next to a (flat) headstone were immediately procured and the trek north to the grave yard was undertaken. I am the only family member left. My memory isn't what it once was. So, picture me in our one-ton dualie, driving the cart paths in this 200 years plus old cemetery, driving up and down the same few lanes my memory insists is where the family plot is located, swear softly at myself under my breath, unable to "find" the surname stone. Seems someone cut the bushes that flanked said stone. It hasn't moved -- I just didn't recognize the naked granite marker. Stupid memory.

Anyway, today the forecasters claim we will see the sun for the first time in ten days. The grass is over a foot high and the weed wacker won't start. Oh joy. No money in the kitty for a new one, either.

And So It Goes... Hope y'all have a safe and fun holiday.

Update

It's been West Texas windy of late. The breeze broke up the ice on the lake as I predicted. Still some snow banks and mud preventing the move over. New moon and a true sound of Spring last night- there was a woodcock drumming and "kee-wee" -ing on the hill for a mate. I hope the coyotes don't get him. I had to run off a bunch of them the other night while out with Iggy. Despite her desperation to get with kittens, Ms. Belle has figured out the coyotes and owls can't get to her in the dog kennels, so she's taken to coming and going into the garage through them.

---***---

In like a lion...

April Fools Indeed

 

SWMBO* and I tied the knot on a sunny, balmy noon fourteen years ago today. She was just shaking off the flu, I was coming down with it. By mid-afternoon, we were both sound asleep in our sick bed…

Ten and four years later, the morning dawned gray and wet, slushy snow flakes interspersed with rain while temps never left the thirties all day. SWMBO gave me a hat pin which reads “Excellence In Service” with a tiny bit of bling and the number “14” in the center. All attempts at photographing it with my phone have failed to resolve focus issues. I am such a Neanderthal – I prefer manual focus like my old SLR to these digital screen devices with AF.

We have managed to survive the March of 2013. For most intents, winter is over. We have had almost 79 inches of snow this year, about three inches more than our 30 year average during my tenure here.

Ice is now gray on the lake. The evening news is replete with tales of ice fishermen and others falling through the rotten ice with four wheel drive vehicles, ATVs, snowmobiles and Snow Cats. Those who haven’t gotten their ice houses off the lakes and rivers by now are doomed to lose them AND receive a fine from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (each shanty must have a permanent placard with name, address and phone number of the owner). The dooryard has a large hole, once a puddle, which a year of turning with dual rear-tired axle has dug. The mud is about six inches deep where the sun has melted the frost while early morning is reminiscent of traveling the old “corduroy road” of my childhood.

Most of the snow is gone from the fields and woods. Iggy has been ranging much farther afield, out “covering” his territorial markers in the never-ending battle with the coyotes and foxes. Speaking of coyotes, a rare, white coyote came out of the woods down in West Kennebunk, crawled under a family’s porch and up and died moments later. It did not appear to be starving, so the COD will have to await toxicology tests.

I hope all of you who commemorate the Ascension had a good one. For the pagans amongst my friends and readers, hope you had all the Peeps(TM), hard-boiled eggs and chocolate bunnies, gum drops and other sweets you can stand.

 

*SWMBO – She Who Must Be Obeyed – my wife.

 

Addendum: I composed the above on the 1st but ran out of juice for the laptop before I could post the entry to Blogger. So now I’m once again up against the battery limit after reading other’s blogs this morning, so time to hit the SEND button.

First Impressions

That's the underbelly of the dual-ly. Ten inches of clearance -- twelve inches of snow. Danged thing can't get out of it's own way in the snow. Naturally, the Town plow had pushed up a bank of two feet at the road, so SWMBO couldn't get out to go to work. Our plow guy didn't come by until evening, of course. Beggars can't be choosers ... I could always offer myself up to the Heart Attack Gods and try to shovel out the sixty or so feet of driveway.

Beach Weather

I tried sunbathing. Snow kept blowing up my nose!

Spring Is On The Way

So I went by the camp today. With the wind blowing from the North about twenty-five miles an hour, the ice at the South end of the lake was singing and moaning louder than Janis Joplin. But, there is, as you can see on the photograph, a ray of hope - a line of open water above the ledge off the point. So, tomorrow's predicted fourteen inch snowfall will likely result in the breakup of the lake ice a few weeks early. I won't know for sure unless all the snow melts beforehand as the road is dirt and was passable this morning because it was only twenty-four degrees.

In any event, the calendar says the Vernal Equinox is upon us, so I guess I will go get my sunburn cream and lie out in the blizzard in the morning to get some color. Pink and gray are colors, aren't they?