Last year, we did not get very many trick or treaters. We didn’t this year, either.

In an effort to give away candy, and because this thought had occurred to me two or three months ago and I really wanted to do it, I decided to create a ghost in the front yard. I managed to get it up before my wife got home, so her and a few teenagers walking by got a good laugh out of it.

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I ran the Boston Marathon on Monday, and was happy that the weather was not all doom and gloom as had been forecasted for the past couple of weeks. The doom and gloom managed to blow over the day before the race, and started clearing up in the hours before the gun went off. I called my wife an hour or two after I finished the race (I wanted to make sure she was out of class) and discovered that her classes had been cancelled and that the power had been off and on all night and all day.

When my friend dropped me off at the train station, I discovered that the tracks had been washed out and that the trains were cancelled. Thankfully, he wasn’t too far away and had his phone on him so I was able to get a ride to the bus station.

The highway was flooded in a few places, and there was no power in the Portland area. Driving through Portland is very eery when there are no stop lights, no street lights, no house lights, and temporary stop signs everywhere. One of the only places that had power was the local peeler bar (which seemed pretty busy for a Monday night) and the blocks around it.

I also had to try taking four or five different routes to get home, because the roads were all blocked off. I’d get going one way, and have to turn around and try another. When I got home, I discovered that my picnic table had been blown off of my deck and into a tree. I suppose that that is better than into the brook on the other side of the tree.

Things had not significantly improved yesterday. Roads were still closed, power lines were still lying in the street, and the area was still flooded. Things are starting to slowly get back to normal, though.

Update: A coworker sent me a link to some pictures from work before the office got closed for the rest of the day. They weren’t uploaded with a creative commons license, so I can’t post the pictures themselves here. Some of the more interesting ones include the wind blowing some trees over, the flood in the driveway (there is a four foot ditch right next to the driveway, so that is a lot of water!), and some tree trunks that broke next to some trees that were torn right out of the ground.

Coming just in time to spoil our plans to leave the state for the weekend, Winter wanted to show everybody that while Spring weather has begun to peek through every few days, it is not quite here yet. I am not sure exactly how much snow we got, since I was out shoveling 6 or 7 times and the wind left drifts everywhere. It was an interesting mix, though. Light powder, that then melted and became slush before freezing into ice, covered with more powder which then began to melt into slush. There was a great layering effect that happened.

I am very glad that we tried finding some snow shovels on clearance in the past few weeks. Our old plastic snow shovels were all torn up at the ends; one of them had lost about an inch and a half all told and the other was all curled and splitting. Our new shovels have a nice metal brace at the end of the shovel to help get the ice up and to keep the plastic from breaking. I also bought an ice pick for the driveway that has already shown us more value than the buck and a half it cost us.

All told, I think that I spent about 6 or 7 hours out shoveling. Thankfully, our neighbor has a snow blower and he did about a quarter of my driveway for me, which saved me about an hour and a half of work. The plows were able to clean up the streets and what was left melted off nicely, which meant that I got a couple of quality runs in this weekend without having to worry about footing.

Having a metal roof is nice, because the snow doesn’t have to be brushed off of your roof.

This is the first time that I have actually been home when it came down, though. It starts out sounding a little like thunder, but then it doesn’t stop for a good 20 or 30 seconds and begins getting much louder. That, and it makes your entire house shake.

I am just glad that I put the plywood over all of the shrubs that are right in the line of fire.

Thankfully, the patio chair in our back yard was already buried under 4 feet of snow, so I doubt that the pressure of all that falling snow will damage it much in its nice little insulated shell. The bowl in our back yard collects all of the drift from the yard and what comes over the water, despite being 4 or 5 feet above the water. I am sure that no small amount of that is what slides off of the roof as well. I don’t plan on using my back door too much right now.

Shoveling snow can be hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow is most likely hard work. Shoveling 8 inches of snow while it is still a blizzard condition is definately hard work. So what are the two best ways to make shoveling that snow easier? Other than lifting weights for months ahead of time in order to be physically fit enough to shovel your driveway, that is?

First, shovel the end of your driveway before the back side of it. While the shadows on your driveway and the time of day can certainly change this around, you will generally find that the snow at the end of your driveway is heavier than the snow at the back side. The dirt and grime that the snow plows shove into the snow, coupled with anybody pulling into or out of your driveway and packing it down, means that shoveling the end of the driveway is going to be more difficult than shoveling the lighter and cleaner snow that is away from the road. If you shovel the heavier snow first, then you will not be as tired when you are done because you will still have the energy to move that snow. If you save the heaviest snow for last, then you will have a much harder time as fatigue sets in and your workload increases.

Second, shovel the snow from left to right near the end of your driveway. I tend to push the snow that the plows have thrown into the driveway to the end and then with the direction of traffic, so that I am leaving it on the shoulder at the end of my driveway and off to the side. If you shovel half of the snow to the left and half of the snow to the right, then the plow trucks will just throw that snow right back onto your driveway. If you leave it on the shoulder to the right side, then the plows will carry it away from your driveway and you will have less to shovel the next day. Another advantage to this strategy is that more of the dirt and salt from the road is left closer to the road, so you will not be leaving that detriment in your yard for the spring. The street sweepers will come and pick up more of it. Unfortunately, the plow is probably going to send quite a bit into your yard anyway, but every little bit helps.

We got our new Propane Tank delivered, installed, and filled very easily. Our energy company within a few days of our having called them when we ran out of propane, and they not only arrived right when they said that they would but even called ahead to make sure that it still worked for us. My wife was on vacation from school, so she was able to meet them at the house. They were very pleasant, answered (almost) all of her questions, and got our old lines replaced and the new ones run with a minimum of fuss. They tested everything to make sure that the installation was correct and everything was safe, and even offered a few tips about how to improve some other fixtures that they noticed while they were down there. Those tasks were already on my to-do list and just haven’t been crossed off yet.

All in all, it was a great experience. Should we ever decide to utilize the gas in more places in our home, they assured us that we would be able to tap right into our new lines with ease. Unfortunately, the man who installed everything did not know how much it was going to cost, and he did not dispose of our old tank. I will need to find somewhere that will take it off of our hands now, since I do not really see any reason to keep it standing next to the side of my house.

In the picture of the propane tanks, the new tank is the white one on the right. The old tank is the taller one that looks like it has a few years on it that is on the left.

It has been a few weeks since we were broken into, and I have long since cleaned up most of the broken glass from the door. A friend of mine then came over and measured the door for me to make sure that I got the correct size, and told me he would be by after work the next night to help me install it. The best laid plans, however…
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A couple of days ago, our clothes dryer stopped doing its job. I knew that it would at some point in the near future; it was only a matter of time. We ran out of propane. Since the dryer is the only appliance that we have using the propane tank, I am happy that it lasted as long as it did. After all, I have no idea how full it was when we bought the house.

The problem comes with getting the tank refilled. I have no idea which company actually installed the tank, since it has no markings on it. It is a 75 gallon tank that stands about 4 feet high. I have not specifically looked into the laws and regulations, but I doubt that I can legally transport it filled in my pickup truck without some sort of license.

For ease of billing, I called our oil company to come out and replace the tank with one of theirs. Their prices are competitive, and they will deliver. They refuse to deal with another company’s tank, but I will only have to wait for 2 or 3 days before they get over here to swap the tanks out. The woman I spoke with on the phone was planning on swinging by after work this afternoon or before work tomorrow morning to make sure that the pipes we have installed are the correct diameter to fit their tanks. That will give them a better estimate of how long it will take to install and they will be able to let us know ahead of time how much work needs to be done inside the house. They will definately need to come in to test everything and make sure we are up to code and safe, but hopefully that is all that is necessary.

Last weekend, the former owner of our house stopped by to let us know about a burglar alarm we had installed in the house. We were completely unaware of it, and he let us in on a few other tips as long as he was here.

One of the tips was that the plywood beneath our shed was for covering the shrubs in the front of the house to protect them from snow falling off of the roof. This morning, it began snowing pretty heavy with no quick end in sight. After I got done running, I did a quick shovel of the driveway and got the plywood out. Thankfully, I was still wearing my stabilicers, since carrying the plywood up the small hill covered in snow was a little tricky even with spikes coming out the bottom of my feet.

The plywood was actually hinged together from two sheets and in various sizes, so that it was easy to create a tent of sorts over each shrub and bush. A fairly efficient design, and with different sizes it was easy to figure out which bush to put each one over. A couple of them I think have grown a bit wild since I didn’t trim them at all this year, so next year I will have to try taking better care of them.

I have a few lawn care items that I want to address in the spring, so that will just have to go on the list.

I woke up this morning and saw my mail box in my neighbor’s driveway. Looking up and down the street, and you would not think that there was anything wrong.

My neighbor’s mail box is on a post next to my mail box, which stands directly in front of a telephone pole. The pole is driven into the ground in the side of a ditch. I guess that just makes them that much more of a target.
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