New Hampshire – Page 35 – New England's Narrow Road

At Least We Have a Roof Rake!

Trees bending under weight of ice. — The ice pulled my tree over

I got up early this morning like I always do, and flipped on the outside light to see this little birch tree in the back yard all bent down. Its the tree where I hang a couple of my bird feeders and I had to go out (later) and move them to a new place.
I was up at 3am and about 15 minutes later (thankfully I had made my coffee!) the power went out. Actually, I was surprised it was on at all the way the wind was blowing and after seeing the coating of ice outside.
Surprisingly the lights were back on about an hour later. When it got light enough to get some pictures I went out to see how icy it was. The trees are glistening in the sun so it looks very pretty and once the ice melts off the little birch I am hoping it will straighten back up.

My landlady bought a roof rake a few days ago and we have all been busy getting as much snow off the roof as we can. It turned out that the storm yesterday became more rain and freezing rain than snow, but we still needed to be ready.
She told me that people were coming up to New Hampshire to buy roof rakes from as far away as Connecticut and that the store only had a few left. So she was lucky to get hers.
Getting the snow off the roof is not too bad, but then where do I put it? As you can see (above), shoveling my deck is not easy now that the snow is so high and more WILL be coming off the roof – where will I put it?

Raking snow off the house roof — Getting the snow off before the next storm. 1/4/11

Richie (my cat) is very bad. You can see him in his favorite spot for hunting birds (in my first picture above). Yesterday while I was cleaning off the deck and shoveling out my woodpile, he caught a little chickadee. I hate that! I have set up three areas where the birds can eat so when Richie is outside the birds don’t have to eat near him, but they sometimes still get too close and he is very fast.

When I was uncovering the wood to lug some inside, Richie was climbing on it and fell head first into a deep pile of snow. It was hilarious. I should have had my camera – but I was working – because he was a sight with his butt sticking up out of the snow and his head buried. He managed to turn his head to the side and look up at me and I grabbed him and pulled him out. Pretty funny.

One day this overhang of thick ice will come crashing down off the roof. Yikes.

Ice Dams – what to do (agordonins.wordpress.com)
Timesunion.com: Roof rakes a commodity as snow piles up (timesunion.com)
Roofers busy in snowy Northeast with leaky roofs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Cop saves Vt. man trapped up to neck in snow pile (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Two Days of Snow On The Way

Well, I have kept the path cleared to my front door this winter and it hasn’t been easy. The plow guy pushes all the driveway stuff right up into the front of the house which means I have to shovel through that. Then the roof emptied it’s load onto the front steps and that was a heavy bunch of stuff to shovel. Now up to 2 feet of snow is expected over the next 2 days and I’m wondering how high I can pile the stuff and what will happen when the next batch falls off the roof?
Winter has come all at once to New Hampshire.

The Morning of Space Shuttle Challenger

We always watched the shuttle launches. First on the television, right up until after blast off, just in case there was a delay at the last second, which sometimes happened. Once it lifted off we’d run outside and stand in the road or at the end of the driveway and look east above the treeline watching for the glow. We’d follow it up and could usually just barely see the two solid rocket boosters dropping after a couple of minutes. Once the shuttle was way up out of sight, around 5 minutes or so and the smoke trail was taking on a wavy shape from the wind, we’d hear the rumble coming. That was so awesome. We lived about 60 miles or so from Cape Canaveral and it took that long for the rumbling from the massive lift off to reach our area. Sometimes it was louder than others and actually shook the windows. The kids loved it.

On the morning of January 28, 1986 my oldest son was in school and my only other son at the time was three. We were watching the count down that keep getting delayed mostly because of the cold, and finally gave up because I had to get to the grocery store. After my shopping was done, at the old Winn Dixie on Providence Blvd. in Deltona, as we were heading out to the car, I noticed some people at a parked car listening to the radio and others trying to get a view of the sky. Someone said, “The shuttle exploded”.

On the way home, I headed east driving down Doyle Road and I had a perfect view of the sky where ordinarily I would have seen a beautiful big plume of smoke left from the launch. This time the sky was full of zig zag, swirly patterns of smoke that were definitely not a normal sight. My heart sank. So much hype had been given to this mission especially. We’d been kept informed of all the training the first teacher in space had to go through. Krista McAuliffe was the lucky one chosen and all I could think about was all the kids in the New Hampshire classrooms who knew her and were watching that day as the mission ended before it even began.

Years later my family went over to Cape Canaveral to watch a shuttle lift off from as close as civilians are allowed to get. It was truly an awesome sight. And now I live in New Hampshire where the teacher came from. Today the local news will be interviewing people in this area who are related to the story in some way. It’s hard to believe it was 25 years ago.

Derrick: Lessons Linger 25 Years After Challenger Tragedy (npr.org)
Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster FAQ: What Went Wrong (space.com)
Challenger: 25 years later, the wound still aches (msnbc.msn.com)

I Found The Snow

Last month I was asking where all the snow was, but I can tell you now that I have found it. For the fourth time in a little over a week the kids are missing school. My son is so sad, I’m sure he will be crying all day – NOT. But I might be… just kidding. No time to cry – must shovel!
We are not setting any records (except maybe the one for the most snow in the month of January) and usually get a bunch of snow where I live, but we are just getting it all at once.

So this morning when I went out to shovel out the bird eating stations and took a few photos. I think we are likely to get around 6 inches today. My car is in the shop so I won’t have to clean that off! Nice..! Of course I will have to pay the bill to have my brakes fixed.

If you are in New England, I hope you are enjoying the white stuff and are getting ready for that arctic chill coming this weekend when the temps will be well below zero.

I hate when the snow is as high as the deck. It makes getting it off much more difficult. As you can see, I will have a bunch to shovel once that roof lets go. And that is some heavy stuff.
The cat caught a blue jay the other day and I think he must have done so while hiding in one of the snow paths that lead to the bird feeding areas. The other cat, Fontana, mostly stays inside.