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The weather for Easter is great, warm and sunny. There's been lots of melting and bare ground is becoming more evident every day. The snow banks will take a few weeks longer to melt away, but they too are shrinking.The ground is still too mushy and muddy to do much in the way of yard work – cleaning up winter debris, removing fallen tree limbs, or cutting back brush. That's going to have to wait a few more weeks until the ground dries out. This signifies that we have entered yet another of the 7 seasons we experience up here in New England, in this case Mud Season. While the calendar says we've entered Spring, it won't arrive here for at least another month or so. We still have Flood and Black Fly Seasons to get through before we get to Spring.
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One bit of winter damage that will require more than a little clean up is the driveway here at The Manse. It has taken a real beating over the past 12 winters and is looking pitiful.When the contractor (who presently resides in prison) built this house, he cut corners in a few areas that he should not have. One of those areas was drainage, at least around the perimeter of the driveway and parking area next to the garage. The lack of good drainage has caused water to drain underneath the pavement which in turn has caused it to break up during the freeze/thaw cycles. There has also been some undermining causing depressions here and there. We have to be careful where we drive and where we park in order to minimize further damage to the pavement.
While we could have someone come in a lay down new pavement, that won't solve the problem. I have a feeling we'll be in for some excavation to ensure proper drainage.
Call this yet another joy of home ownership.
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Bogie tells us about her last sled (snowmobile) run of the winter, including some pictures.With the sun and warm temps, most of the trails here in central and southern New Hampshire are in pretty rough shape. Most will be closed after this weekend. Those up north will still be passable for a while, but the state of New Hampshire will close them soon enough.
Ice fishing is also finished as all of the bob houses (ice fishing shacks) have to be off the lakes by sundown tomorrow (April 1).
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Call it an Easter miracle: Democrats realize their policies suck.No kidding!
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I was happy to see that my home state of New Hampshire was named one of the top 5 most free states, finishing at the #4 spot.My only concern is that in 2009 New Hampshire was rated #2, meaning the moves by the governor and dominated-at-times by the Democrat legislature have caused the state to slip two notches.
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Now the envirowackos are trying to ruin Easter.I think what they're really trying to do is replace everyone else's faith with their own belief in Gaia, whether we want them to or not. Asking whether our chocolate bunnies are made from 'ethical' chocolate or our Easter eggs are 'sustainable'.
These folks need to get a real life and stop trying to make ours miserable in some attempt to assuage their guilt.
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It figures.Why fire expensive executives when you can lay off inexpensive employees who actually do the work.
Wapo's problem is that they have too many chiefs and not enough Indians. But then that's the problem with a lot of businesses on their way to oblivion.
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I can see small modular reactors as being the answer to the nuclear power issue.The various parts of the reactors will be factory built, trucked to the site, and installed. They're far less expensive to build, take much less time to build, will be identical to each other which makes both operating and maintaining them easier, and while not generating as much power as 'regular' nuclear plants, will be cheaper to build, something important to smaller utility companies.
There are also smaller self-contained reactors that have been proposed, plants that will generate between 30 and 50 megawatts, each is in its own 'capsule', a sealed vessel that contains the reactor, cooling systems, and generating equipment. It would be moved to a prepared site, off-loaded, hooked up to the electrical grid, and started up.
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By way of Glenn Reynolds comes this piece that explains why young voters vote for dependency on the state: It's all they've ever know.The family is communist — from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs — and it takes a while to realize that the rest of the world doesn’t work that way, because only parents are willing to make that sort of sacrifice, and then only for their own kids.They assume that what their parents did for them as they were growing up everyone else should do for them as well. It's that evil and false 'altruism' they insist everyone must feel in order to keep living in the style to which they've become accustomed. But it's not up to us to support them in such a fashion. It's up to them to support themselves, just as their parents did.