Fall in Upstate NY

So, last post was on Sept 18th.  Sept 27th (Wednesday) we broke high temp records.  Sept 28th temps crashed, and we had several days of barely making a high of 70.  Yesterday, Oct 4th, we had a high of 80.  Tomorrow, Friday, they’re predicting a high of 69.  Saturday its going to be 80 again.  Next Thursday the predicted high is 62.

At least we shouldn’t be getting a frost any time soon, based on current predictions.  We came close last Saturday night, but it didn’t quite happen.

I finished getting black plastic on the empty garden beds.  Put frost covers back on the remaining peppers.

Gave myself a lovely set of bruises up and down my right arm moving heavy stuff at work, but hey, no bandaids required!  I’ll take it.

The husband of a co-worker died unexpectedly, and I agreed to work an opening shift to cover for her.  My body still hasn’t recovered from the 4:15am wake-up.

Arty decided that he was going to play lapdog:

Not much else going on here right now.  Have fun all!


Random bits and thoughts

The upside to having my mother now on Facebook is I no longer need to send her photos and what not separately, she can see them and show them with my dad and it’s much easier.

The downside to having my mother now on Facebook is that she freaks out every time I gripe about getting sick, and every time I gripe about work, and…..

*sigh*

 

Speaking of Facebook, there’s a video going around of a Comcast worker doing work on the side of the road and a bunch of cars almost hitting him.  The general FB opinion is that the Comcast worker is EVIL and why didn’t he put out more cones, and OMG!!!  GONNA BOYCOTT COMCAST!!!!  Meanwhile I’m looking at this video thinking those morons are going WAY TOO FAST for road conditions and they better hope their insurance companies never see this video……

 

A few months ago I ordered custom muzzles for both dogs.  Arty needs one for vet visits, and I’d been trying to train Apollo to wear one just in case but hadn’t been able to find a premade one I liked.  The company offered the option of matching leashes (both leashes and muzzles made out of biothane), so I ordered one for Arty (we’re really picky about the leashes we use on Apollo).  Everything arrived, and I love the muzzles.  The leash….well, the biothane is awesome, but the clip they used is cheap crap (one reason we’re picky about Apollo’s leashes).  Since its technically a custom piece I decided it wasn’t worth griping at the company, I’d just replace the clip at some point with something heavier.  But I figured the cheap one would last the winter at least……

I was wrong.  Last Saturday, while I was at work and Husband was taking the dogs out for one last potty before he left for work, the clip on Arty’s leash somehow popped open (I suspect ice in the spring, and the cheap spring not being enough to keep it closed anyway), resulting in him taking off in mad-cap zoomies down the road.

Apollo saw him taking off, got all excited, and bounced off the end of HIS leash (another reason why we’re picky about his leashes), at which point HIS COLLAR CLOSURE popped open and he took off after Arty.  They were easy enough to catch, they only got a couple houses down the road before the excitement wore off, so everyone’s home and safe.

We’re not quite sure what happened with Apollo’s collar, in theory it’s possible that we just caught a large enough chunk of fur in the closure, resulting in it not closing properly.  However this collar is 4yrs old and I’m having a hard time believing that we’ve never gotten large chunks of his fur caught in it before.  Which makes me think that even if we DID get fur caught in it the closure itself is failing.  Which wouldn’t be a huge shock since it IS 4yrs old and gets put on him and taken off him multiple times a day.  But it is frustrating.  So until I can find a new collar I like for him we’re double collaring him.  His current collar (which, when closed, can’t slip over his head) and his old martingale (which, even when fitted properly, he’s proved he can slip out of if he really wants), in hopes that the double collar will be enough to keep him restrained.

And no, neither dog has all that great of a recall.  Normally we do have a GREAT emergency recall.  But Arty was in psycho zoomie mode cause he’d been cooped up in the house due to the cold, and Apollo wasn’t letting him go by himself.  We’re back to using Arty’s old leash, not the end of the world, but annoying.  Lotsa fun….

 

My work has been typical Christmas madness.  This is the time of year when I tend to really hate people in general.

And then I had to explain to a casual acquaintance that the use of “frenzied beasts” (by a mutual acquaintance) when referring to Black Friday/weekend crowds was not racist.  Her argument consisted of “but it’s OFTEN racist!!”.  I pointed out that context matters.  She asked if there were any terms that I thought were ALWAYS racist.  I said I always consider “nigger” to be racist, but if the community as a whole really wanted it taken that way they needed to stop using it in media.  To which she responded that it’s alright if black people call each other “nigger”, cause context mattered!  To which I responded “so why are we having this conversation again?  Cause you just proved my point”.  She hasn’t spoken to me since.

 

Speaking of retail, and people in general.  Please take some thought as to how you treat people in front of your kids (or grandkids or random children around you).  A while back I had a lady approach me looking for a particular product.  She was pushing a cart with a kid in it, probably less than 5yrs old, though I suck at guessing ages.  Kid called her gramma.  She told me that she was looking for two specific products, either of which would work for her project.  I told her that I wasn’t familiar with the one, but the other is right over here if you’ll follow me.  As I turned to lead the way I hear the kid say “you must be new here if you don’t know….” at which point gramma shushed him.  I pretended to not hear, though I’ll admit that what I wanted to do was snap at the kid about manners (which wouldn’t have been useful, but yah).

But someone in this kid’s life has said that to people who are trying to help him/her.  And not just once, likely it’s been said multiple times.  The kid rattled it off word for word.  5 yrs old or less and he already thinks that’s how you treat people who’re trying to assist you.  Oh sure, he doesn’t understand the context of it.  Doesn’t matter.  With that as his guide how do you think he’s going to grow up?


Winter

Arty gets cold faster than Apollo, and the single digit temps we’re already getting this winter are a bit much for him, but he has fun for as long as he lasts.  Apollo on the other hand doesn’t understand why we can’t spend all day out there!

We’re definitely getting a much more normal winter this year, instead of the incredibly warm one we had last year.


General update

We came within a couple degrees of a frost over the weekend, but got lucky, so the garden still grows.

Since I’ve already got 15 quarts of tomato sauce stored away I decided to smoke half the tomatoes to go into the next batch, I figure if we hate it we’ll still have plenty left of the normal kind.  I’ve basically stopped picking tomatoes, there’s going to be a million volunteer plants next year, but I managed to totally overwhelm myself with tomatoes this year…..

Hot peppers are still going strong.  The Buena Mulatas would make a very pretty decorative landscaping plant if anyone was so inclined.

I picked a total of 5 pumpkins this year.  I haven’t had a chance to process any of them yet, but a couple are pretty big.

My supervisor at work is on her way out, I forget when she said her last day is, but its only a couple weeks.  Now the wait to see who they put in her place.  I know who I’d like to see in the position, but only time will tell.

Arty has managed to get into something he’s allergic too, he’s got a nasty raw itchy spot on his belly.  I noticed a week or so ago that he was itchy, and gave him a bath.  Extra itchy isn’t unusual for him this time of year, he goes through a shed period now, but I was keeping an eye on him just in case.  The bath seemed to help a little, but not as much as I’d hoped.  Then yesterday he was rolling in something (dammit dog, do you want another bath!!) when I noticed the raw spot on his belly.  So we’re off to the vets in a bit to make sure its not bacterial or something.

Otherwise there’s not much going on here right now, normal fall-winter prep stuff.  We’ve managed to not have to kick on the furnace yet, but I’m not sure that’s going to last much longer.


Garden

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Buena Mulata Pepper plant, and flower.  Pretty little thing!

 

Arty of course was delighted to help me in the garden:

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He was only interested in the potato bed too, and not for digging either, he just wanted to stand in it.  Go figure….

And there’s a House Wren building a nest inside the pump head for the old manual water well pump.  I know we don’t  use it much, but we DO try to keep it functional……thats going to be a fun one to clean out!


Snow two

Arty was wondering where his green grass and warm sun went

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He was very upset at the cold and snow appearing out of nowhere.  He’s well on his way to being shed out for the summer, and isn’t the most cold tolerant dog to begin with.

Meanwhile Apollo was having a blast

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And if you needed proof we got more than 6″ of the stuff by yesterday morning, there you go.  I guess this is why he was refusing to shed for so long.  His legs finally let go of their hold on the winter coat this past week, so hopefully this’ll be the end of it.

Yesterday afternoon they put out a winter weather warning for our county, another 3-6″ overnight-into Monday.  Yay.

As of 8am today, Monday, I’m thinking we got somewhere close to another 3″, but it’s still coming down, so we’ll see what the totals are.

I’ve been putting off getting new tires for my car, thinking the worst of the winter weather was over, and I guess this is what I get for thinking.  Drive into work today ought to be interesting, to put it mildly.

This isn’t exactly a truly “late” snow for the area, we’ve had snow on Mother’s Day on more than one occasion.  But after the early warm spring everyone’s pretty well horrified by it.

I guess this is what I get for putting away my winter boots a couple weeks ago.

Greenhouse is nice and toasty though.  Makes me wish it was big enough to climb into……


Snow

Mother Nature finally decided she’d better get her ass in gear and give us a proper winter.  Between late Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon we got a solid foot of snow.

The dogs are thrilled.

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I was perfectly happy not having had to do any shoveling yet this winter…..

(Tomorrow, Friday, is predicted to have a high of 40……)


RATN

Arty officially completed his Barn Hunt Novice Title today, making him officially Artemis RATN were I to bother with paperwork for him.

He was far less impressed with the whole photograph with his ribbons thing than he was with the find the rats thing.

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But thats ok cause I’m still proud of him!


Updates

We had a couple of absolutely lovely 60+ degree days last week.  I can finally access the garden again, and the snow in the yard is mostly gone except from a couple really shady spots.

Course, that rapid melt means that every single waterway has burst over its banks with no prior warning.  In many cases by a good 20 feet.  And of course the ground in our yard went from frozen solid to swamp in the same period.  

When I could finally access the garden again I was surprised to see quite a bit of green already.  It looks like the combination of insulating snow and black tires kept the garden warm enough that many of the annual flowers I planted last year (for color) survived the winter (the coldest one the area has ever had) and were getting ready to bloom!  Course, this means that every single weed survived too…..

Current 10 day forecast says we’re not supposed to dip below the freezing mark at all during that time period.  Though we’re going to be getting a fair bit of rain instead.  We don’t need more water at the moment, really.  The downside to that is that every single fruit tree in the region is about to start budding.  If we get a solid frost after this (which is entirely possible since normal last frost isn’t for another month at least for most of the area) its going to play havoc on the orchards.

I’m going to try growing broccoli again.  I’ve got it started in pots inside with an eye towards potentially planting it under row covers in a couple weeks.  Along with the Sugar Snap peas, radishes and some lettuce.  The tomatoes and most of the peppers are out in the greenhouse.

I found a local farm who’ll deliver a pickup load of well aged cow manure for cheap, course, the ground’s so wet she can’t drive the pickup right to the garden like I’d hoped to be able to do.  So we’ll be ferrying the lovely black dirt with hand-carts and the lawn tractor (if the lawn tractor doesn’t bog down in the mud anyway).  But it should do good things for my garden, so its worth it.

Arty’s enjoying the warmer temps, while Apollo is mourning the missing snow.  Arty has now completed 2 of the 3 required Qualifying runs to earn him his Barn Hunt Novice title.  Hopefully he’ll get that last Q later this month at a local trial.  We’ll be running Apollo for his Instinct title at the same trial, so wish me luck!


Snow!

This is the first time since I moved to NY that my parents in MA have more snow on the ground than we do.  But that doesn’t mean we’re slacking here.  We’re just over average snowfall, and since we’ve not had a single (normal) thaw since the snowfall started its almost all still on the ground too.

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Looks so pretty and peaceful doesn’t it…..Well, here’s a photo, taken of the same spot, back on 2-2-15:

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Those orange things are the tops of 5gallon Home Depot buckets that mark out my garden patch there (so we can keep the dogs off it in the winter).  Now go back and look at the first picture again.

Yah.

There’s a reason all that snow is unbroken and smooth.  Its pushing 3ft deep.  Might even be over the 3ft mark at this point actually.  Its hard to be sure since the wind scours the surface constantly.  The drifts are insane.

And COLD.  Did I mention COLD??  Syracuse, the closest major city to me, has broken several cold temp records this winter.  Last Saturday morning the temperature between midnight and 1am dropped to -16(F) before windchill.  And oh yes, there was windchill.  Most days the windchill is dropping the “feels like” temperature at least 20 degrees, and we’ve had drops of up to 40 thanks to the “breeze”.  Its so bad that EVERYONE has ice dams and icicles on their houses this winter.  No matter how well its constructed or what its made of.  Even the steepest of metal roofs can’t shed their loads properly when its this cold.  The local stores can’t keep roof rakes and the Roof Melt tablets in stock, and folks are out on ladders with hammers and chisels trying to keep the ice on their roofs down.

Even Apollo thinks thats cold.  He still wants to go out in it mind, but instead of wanting to stay out he doesn’t argue when we tell him its time to come in either.

Which doesn’t stop him from lounging in the snow when we let him:

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Poor Arty disappears completely when he tries to hop into the snow, and I’m pretty sure he frostbit one of his feet last weekend (we’re keeping an eye on it).  I have booties for him, but they don’t fit well and he really doesn’t care for them, kicks them off almost as soon as he’s out the door.

The wildlife is suffering for it too.  Mind, I’m not complaining, to much, since it means that the insect and rodent populations shouldn’t be as bad come spring.  But the local birds are clearing my feeders (2 of which hold about 5lbs of seed apiece) in less than 2 days at this point.  We had an American Tree Sparrow strike a window and not pick up and recover like normal (considering it was barely above zero I’m surprised ANY of them pick up and recover honestly), so I took it down to the local wildlife rehabber, who said that she’s got lots like him that she’s waiting for a warm spell to release.  This winter has been hard on us all.

In slightly more cheerful news my tomatoes and jalapenos have all sprouted though!

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