Zombieland

Zombieland

I was driving around Manchester on Sunday, even though I'm seeing it I still can't believe how few cars there are on the road. Everywhere I went the roads are largely empty, the town feels like a scene out of the Zombieland movie.  Up the street around 2pm I saw where all the cars were on a Sunday afternoon, there were easily 60 cars in line for Starbucks, lined up and around the bend and down in front of the other stores, really? We're all doomed!

I got the DR Field and Brush mower running, mice in the engine cowl, suckers chewed nearly through the spark plugs wire and built a two story house in there. Once running I mowed a bunch of raspberries and honeysuckle vines.  Went to the NB town dump with a trailer load of construction debris and was told Green bagged trash only.  Now what? Great, now my trailer needs to be unloaded before I can use it for anything else.

Planning the 2020 Victory Garden out, end of May is coming fast. 

Brought the dogs out tonight Sunday in the rain pulled my pocket light out and took a quick walk around the front yard looking for night-crawlers, spotting and pulling them by the dozen it's a blast and cuts down on the fishing costs. Fishing licenses are $47 ea. again this year. Pulled the boat out from under cover and got the trolling motor battery charged up. Took a drive to Mt William pond and saw a couple trout on a stringer aside a canoe beached there.  I heard NH Fish & Game are not announcing where they are stocking this year just to help with the social distancing, probably a good idea. Gorham Pond I saw a couple guys skipping stones that's about all was going on there. We'll get licenses next week if all goes well.

Sunday is looking to be 70 degrees. Maybe we'll take the boat out

FOX IN THE FIELD April 27, 2020

FOX IN THE FIELD
April 27, 2020


Had a fox visit tonight at 7:30pm, Rose has seen her a couple times now.

She? Looked huge when at the back of the field, poor light through the door window

 Looking at Rose on the steps

In front of the brush pile, new coat coming in.

A Family Loss

We lost a family friend yesterday - Linda Upham on 4/23/2020.

A great friend to my wife and our family passed in the night. We lost touch for a while but Rose and Linda rekindled their friendship and were the best of friends over the past year often talking for hours catching up on each others lives. Linda was there when Rose and I got married all those years ago in Pepperell.

She flew to NH and stayed with us for a time last summer, we enjoyed her company and friendship. We are saddened greatly with the loss of your friendship.  You will be dearly missed Linda!

Linda and Rose

Linda and Rose

Rose and Linda

L-R Don, Rose, James Linda, Crystal and Jason

Crazy Spring - Covid, Power, and a Fire...

Crazy Spring - Covid-19, Power, and a Fire...

Covid 19 stuck my place of work on Wednesday, a worker tested positive for the virus, (I am working from home the last couple of weeks)  the plant is now shut down for 4 days now to deep clean the facility before anyone can go back to the plant.  Hopefully no more employees will be impacted by the event.  I sent my guys home for the remainder of the week, they can work from home.  We'll see what next week brings.

Rose and I were talking about a generator I was thinking about for the Camper, a unit smaller than the 6000/7000 watt unit we have for the house earlier today.  The 3500 watt unit would run the camper with ease, had electric start and was remote controlled.

Then we're sitting in the living room a couple hours later watching the news and without warning the house power goes out.  It was 6pm Wednesday night, within 20 minutes Eversource called and texted us to let us know they were aware we had no power.  Initially the messages said that by 7:15pm we'd have power back, we decided around 7pm to get the generator running just in case. It was a good thing we did, a little while later they said we wouldn't have power until after 9:30pm, then they pushed it out to 4:40AM due to downed trees they said.  Our generator will run about 10 hours on a tank on a medium load plugged in, so we should be all set until power is restored I thought.  We have to have the generator to power the fridge, freezers, etc. as we lose power a couple times per year, overnight generally, and one year for 10 days before we had power  restored.

Oddly enough after the power went out we went for a drive it smelled like someone was burning brush, thought it was our neighbor who frequently has his firepit going, a large ash fell by me as I walked out the door, Rose stepped on it as it hit the ground just in case. Rose thought maybe it was a house fire, I said it smelled like burning brush or a firepit. We thought nothing more about it until later.

Rose went out with the dogs for their last run of the evening about 8pm, I heard her talking to someone out front, turns out it was a fireman asking if we called the fire dept. No "we didn't", he said he was looking for Simon Farms Rd., that is our neighbor up the road Tony's place.  firetrucks and police cars were now driving by, flashing lights lit up the house in red and blue.  They all pulled up to Tony's house. appears it was a chimney fire they brought a ladder truck up.  We couldn't really go up there as its a one lane road that only services his house.  

Power came back on a 5AM this morning I'd turned the bedroom light switch on before I turned in so I'd know when the power was restored.  I threw on my slippers, and robe and went downstairs, opened the back door to go out and shut off the Generator and low and behold 1/2" of snow had fallen...  I shut down the generator, and proceeded to plug the Fridge and Freezer back into the wall outlets.  We don't have a generator disconnect so we power the house when needed with some extension cords, it works fine.

What a crazy night I thought as I poured a cup of coffee.

EASTER SUNDAY

Happy Easter

It'll be an odd Easter this year, churches are shuttered, family distant and holed up. Oddly quiet on the roadways, few cars driving by. Rose picked up a small spiral ham and my fav scalloped potatoes that will be great for dinner.

The governor of Maine concluded, "friendly magical creatures" including the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are essential workers and may continue traveling throughout the state.  Whew, and I was worried...

Spring chores are in full swing now, fields getting mowed, getting ahead of all the puckerbrush and raspberries, they grow up so fast along with all the wild roses, and the nasty vines, poison ivy, and poison sumac. The birds spread the seeds of several pain in the ass vines around here, Bittersweet the worst of them can be seen climbing 20-30 feet up trees choking them out, we cut the vines where we see them at the base.

Back side of the brush pile... Freshly mowed and ready to grow, (Needs a cow)... lots of milkweed fluff the birds will be picking up for nesting.

Zebulon is getting big.  He's enjoying the good weather, and shedding his weight in fur weekly

The greenhouse before, falling down and being overtaken by brambles

The remains of the Greenhouse, benches, etc. Time to go to the dump.

We picked up and moved a bunch of bricks, Rose figures $1000 worth of bricks that we'd piled in several places over the years.

Several dead trees fell down over the winter, these all needed to be cut up and put into the burn pile. My Stihl chainsaw I picked up two years ago is still running great, it does need a good sharpening, maybe later today I'll take a file to the chain and get her ready for the next big thing.

Rose is happy, Easter Sunday her barn swallows arrived, she saw a lone scout that usually arrives a couple days before the main group of them, they normally arrive April 8th - 12th.  I was surprised to see a bluebird up in a tree in the field yesterday.  We have several birdhouses to repair and rehang before mating season starts up shortly. 

We lost a big elm by the driveway we'll have to get a tree service in to take it out, seemed healthy right through June last summer then the leaves started falling off and today most of the bark is missing and branches frequently fall in the driveway, we won't park there anymore due to the trees rapid decay.

COVID 19 continues to run rampant throughout the area, we're pretty much hunkered down at the house now. The new normal... it's funny I used to complain about long lines INSIDE the grocery store... this is the grocery store in Bedford.  

Hannaford in Bedford

I'm hearing about farm feed shortages, probably a good time to buy a heifer, oh and garden seeds being in short supply in some areas, seed suppliers have orders at 800% of normal, lots of scared or very bored folks out there. I do think we'll put in a garden this year.

Yard work, & Covid 19

Second Week in April 

Rumor has it the sun may come out, that'd be nice.  Dogs are going stir crazy being cooped up in the house, we are still squarely in the midst of mud season here.

Yard work is tougher the older you get, and it seems to take longer every year to get to the point it no longer hurts to do yard work.  Rose and I re-stacked and cut up a bunch of the Apple wood from several apple trees that came down a few years ago. We hang onto this apple for camping as it burns for a long time doesn't pop and crack like pine and it smells great when burning.

Managed to get the lawn tractor started up, unfortunately the DR Field and brush mower needs a new battery, I think I made a mistake when I bought this one, there is no pull start on this 14.5 HP mower only electric start so if the battery is dead, you can't use it. I'll have to get a battery on order...

We took down the old greenhouse frame, the area looks nice now.

Snow's all gone, seems like just a week ago we had 8+" on the ground.

Called Mom to wish her a happy B'day and see how they were doing, they're itching to get out of the house... 

I read an article from a Wuhan China survivor who was talking about being prepared to shelter at home for 4 months. This'll get ugly if that's the case.


They're saying stay away from the grocery and pharmacy over the next couple of weeks when we're expected to peak around here.  NH has 819 Covid 19 cases active, while Mass has 18,941 as of this morning...

T Shirts I want to produce...

• Out on an abundance of caution!
• Flatten the curve!

 Stay safe, now go wash your hands...