Kwaree Blog

Visiting Madison Center, CT

Have I told you lately that I enjoy the Connecticut coast?

So it snowed on Saturday night. We didn’t let that stop us on Sunday. Sunday’s weather was perfect for a ride in the car to see what was going on down in Old Saybrook, Westbrook, Clinton, Madison Center and Guilford Center. I really wanted to see what Branford Center looked like, but we were getting a little ahead of ourselves. We’ll have to visit that another day.

It’s so strange to see a totally different culture from what we’re used to around here. I mean, it’s not totally different, but people along the coast seem to enjoy boating and golfing a bit more than we do. Also, if the number of restaurants is any indication, they enjoy eating too.

Okay, I’ll give you the 2 minute rundown of what I witnessed on our drive through these areas:

- Old Saybrook has a nice coast line. Too many people in that town for my taste.

- Westbrook has a few huge marinas, so if you are into boating, that’s your place to be. They also have the Water’s Edge Resort and Spa which looks very nice.

- Clinton was pretty cool. They had a huge nursery called Clinton Nurseries that appeared to hold a massive amount of compost behind a fence. When I say massive, I mean massive. The main street was tight and historic looking. Good for getting out of the car and walking around.

- Madison looked like it was the most wealthy of the towns we visited. There was some sort of a Santa gathering on main street and perhaps a parade. There were all sorts of people around who appeared to really love their town. If I live there, I would probably love it too. It’s really nice.

- Guilford Center was nice as well, but smaller than the rest. It’s a great looking town with a fairly large green. I bet I would like that during the Summer.

Once we hit Guilford, we turned around to head back. As we were driving, my lady indicated that she would be interested in visiting a beach. Since I have always wanted to walk on a beach in Winter, I thought it was a great idea.

The first beach type area we came across was Madison Beach. It was a pretty cool area and was located right past Madison Country Club. We hung out for a while and took some pictures which I will post below. The funny thing about this beach was the wind. On shore, there was a bit of wind, but not really all that much. When we walked out on a rocky area that jutted out about 100 feet into the water, we could hardly stand there because it was so windy. Strange. I’ll tell you, when it’s 37 degrees, the wind really cuts right through you.

After that, we stopped off at Hammonasset Beach State Park. Now this was the bomb diggity. I didn’t even know that Connecticut had beaches like this (again). The park is pretty huge and even offers camping. I could totally see us walking up and down this beach for our daily exercise. Great sand, great water and interesting features. I’ll post the pictures below.

After that, we stopped off at a diner in Old Saybrook and headed back. It was getting dark, so I figured our day out on the Connecticut shore was just about over. Till next time…

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New MoistAir 14 Gallon Humidifier

Well, I did it. I sprung for the MoistAir 14 Gallon Humidifier. It works pretty nicely.

A few weeks ago, there was a snap in the air. I thought, “Oh no. Here we go again.” I had to light up the pellet stove and with that comes dry air. I woke up a few mornings with a dry head.

I had known that I was going to get this humidifier since last year. I wasn’t looking forward to spending over $100 on it though. As you might remember, I purchased another one last year and it couldn’t cut it. I thought the evaporative route might be better traveled.

This humidifier is supposed to cover 2,900 square feet and evaporate 14 gallons a day. Having run this little machine for a few weeks now, I would agree with the manufacturer’s claim. It certainly pulls the water out of the tanks and puts it into the air. We have the unit set up in the basement and we constantly hear the gurgling of water. The only modification we had to make was the slip a few tiles underneath the front of the unit. For some reason, the water wasn’t coming out of one of the tanks. Since I put the tile under there, it has been working great.

By the way, there are three fan speeds and three humidity level settings. I forget what we have the humidity settings on, but when I see moisture on the windows, I turn it down.

One question: Just wondering why the people who made this humidifier thought it was necessary for it resemble a 1978 station wagon. Fake wood grain went out a few years ago.

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Hampton Bay Exterior Motion Sensor Wall Lantern Light

Who says you can’t buy the least expensive item on the wall and still get good results? Not me. I suppose these lights weren’t the “least” expensive, but pretty darn close.

When it comes to lighting, the price usually starts pretty reasonably, then gets a little higher and finally gets just stupid. I am not sure I have ever purchased an expensive light fixture, but strangely enough, every one I have bought looked great. Go figure. (the same is true with shower heads and door knobs, but I already covered that)

I had a project sitting on my to-do list for a while. The project was to switch out the current lighting fixtures we had on the sides of the front door and replace them with motion detecting lighting fixtures. We had motion sensing wall lights on the old house and I really liked them. They are great for seeing what you are doing when trying to get inside. It’s funny that I waited this long on this project. I guess it slipped me by. The impending darkness reminded me.

A few days ago, we were shopping at the Costco up in Enfield. We were pulling out of the parking lot when I remembered that there was a Home Depot a few stores down. I thought it would be better to visit this Home Depot while we were already out, instead of making a special trip. I made a right and off we went.

When we got inside, we made our way to the lighting aisle. We were confronted with a wall full of blinking lights. The lights were blinking because it was full of the motion sensing fixtures that I was looking for. The scene was pretty funny…as we walked down the aisle, the lights seems to follow us. They were only on “test” mode, so they shut right off. After a while, I think I got a little distracted because every time I would walk over to check something out, a light would blink on right in my eyes.

The two of us went back and forth for a little while discussing which fixtures were our favorites. We ended up getting the ones I liked because as I said towards the top of this post, they were less expensive than most of the other fixtures. Again, there were those teensy weensy little fixtures that were really cheap, but not really what we were looking for.

When we got back, I started getting these things installed. I turned off the breaker and pulled the old fixtures off the wall. I hooked up the new fixtures and turned the breaker on. I set the switches on the fixture to the most sensitive heat and the longest stay on time and waited for dark.

A few hours later when it was nice and dark outside, I went back out to walk in front of the lights. They turned on and made me a happy boy. I went back inside to do some more work. Then, about a half hour later, I took a look outside the window. I noticed that they lights were still on. Not good.

I went back outside and changed the settings. I think the wind was messing with the sensors. The package says something about heat, but I guess motion sets the lights off too…moving heat. Not sure how branches count as heat, but I’m not a lighting engineer.

I changed the switch settings to medium sensitivity and the lowest stay on time. From there on, everything worked great.

So great…I got two more fixtures today to replace the garage fixtures with.

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Pruning Daffodils

Yes, it’s about that time of year, folks. It’s when the majority of Daffodil flowers die off in the Northeast. I’m not sure of anywhere else, because I don’t live anywhere else. Here, I simply look out the front door.

So, what to do when Daffodil flowers die? Well, it’s time to prune (or deadhead) the flower. I am going to do my best here, because I just did a little research on the topic. There was something I needed to look up that I’ll reference later in this post.

Now, I am only talking about deadheading the dead Daffodil flower here, I am not talking about cutting down the entire plant. Here, I’ll show you some pics.

As you can see from the above photos, dead Daffodil flowers look pretty nasty. Even if all the advice on the internet told me not to prune these things, over here, they would get pruned. I am just not going to look at that kind of thing. As for the Daffodil plant itself, I would say they don’t look all that bad. It’s a nice looking, green bushy plant. I’ll keep them around until they start to droop.

That brings me to another topic. When do I prune down the entire Daffodil plant? Well, from what I have been reading, you are supposed to leave the entire Daffodil plant standing until it dies off naturally. It’s important for the plant leaves to soak up the sun’s rays to energize the bulbs for next year. That’s what I have been reading anyway. From personal experience, you could probably run these flowers over with the lawnmower every year for the next 20 and never get rid of them. I learned a long time ago that people just love to copy each other when giving advice on the internet without any personal experience.

So this is pretty interesting – As I was pruning off the dead heads of the Daffodils, I noticed a sack, seed pod or ovary right at the base of the dead flower. I split one of these seed pods open and noticed a bunch of tiny white seeds (as seen in the photo above). After I saw this, I said, “Hmmm. What the heck are these things?” Since I had no idea, I looked it up. Here is what I found.

Daffodils multiply in two ways: asexual cloning (bulb division) where exact copies of the flower will result, and sexually (from seed) where new, different flowers will result.

Seeds develop in the seed pod (ovary), the swelling just behind the flower petals. Most often, after bloom the seed pod swells but it is empty of seed. Occasionally, wind or insects can pollinate the flower during bloom by bringing new pollen from another flower. When this happens, the seed pod will contain one or a few seeds.

Daffodil hybridizers pollinate flowers by brushing pollen from one flower onto the stigma of another. Then the resulting seed pod can contain up to 25 seeds. Each of these will produce an entirely new plant – but the wait for a bloom for a plant grown from seed is about 5 years! Source

I though that was fascinating, so I decided to sprinkle those pruned Daffodil flower heads around where I wouldn’t mind seeing more Daffodils in the future. Hey, who knows if they will just rot or if they will actually turn into a plant someday.

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A Nice (Chilly) Morning Bike Ride

Sticking with the strategy of doing at least one cardio and one strength training activity per day, I decided to go for a bike ride this morning. Well, I decided this last night after one of those beautiful warm spring days. Unfortunately, this morning is a bit chilly and windy. It’s supposed to rain over an inch tonight. That’s okay, because I aerated the lawn again yesterday and the rain will wash all those little dirt plugs back into the ground.

Back to the bike ride. Since one of the areas I really have to work on is my legs, I thought a bike ride would fit in nicely. The legs have some large muscles in them that, if toned, can really help with overall fitness. I absolutely hate working on legs and pretty much avoid it if possible. Doing that doesn’t do me any favors though, so I try to at least do something that I don’t hate too much. That’s bike riding.

The ride I took covered about five miles. There were a good amount of uphills and downhills. Remarkably, I plowed right through all of them. The first big hill is usually the one I have to stop and walk a little on, but this time I just rode right up it. I wasn’t even that tired. I think it might have something to do with the weather though. It’s a heck of a lot easier to breath in cool weather than it is in hot, humid weather…and that was the type of weather I had to put up with the last time I tried to climb this hill.

Today’s ride was really good. I actually focused on my breathing, which helped. One of the things I always get yelled at during a tennis lesson is to “BREATH!!!” Umm, yeah, I guess oxygen would help.

The first 4 7/8 miles were on pavement and the last 1/8 of a mile was through the woods. I had to be a little careful while riding through the woods because there are those round rocks hidden under the leaves. If you go too fast, whoops.

Overall, the ride felt great. I am probably going to mix riding in with all the other cardio activities I have thought of over the past week. By the way, if you want to learn a little more about why cardio exercise is important, just click here.

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Driving Through The Car Wash

Rarely, have I seen such a dirty car. I mean, I have seen those trucks where someone drew “WASH ME” on the back lift gate, but still, my car was pretty dirty.

Today, we had to run out to get a few items at the store. I have been meaning to wash the car for some time, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I figured that since we were out and going to be passing a car wash, what better time to get it done.

Do you agree that driving through a car wash is like one of the most fun things you can do? I think so. It really is. There is nothing like the feeling of driving a filthy car through the car wash and feeling those but sponges whack the car from all angles. This time, I wanted the rims cleaned the most. The new brake pads made a mess of things, not to mention all the dirt and salt all over the rest of the car.

About half way through the wash, I gasped and totally remembered that I had the camera in the back seat. I reached behind me, grabbed the camera, turned it on and started clicking away. I really wish that I had the video camera, or at least more battery life in the regular camera. I think getting a video of going through a car wash would be the coolest thing to post. I’ll do it next time.

For now, all you get is a few photos of the second half of the car wash.

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The Morning After The Snow

I guess it really isn’t the morning after the snow, because it’s still snowing. I think it’s supposed to stop today, but I heard last night that we can expect 4-6 more inches tomorrow. Holly, the Norwegian Elkhound (snow dog), just loves it.

Norwegian Elkhound

The minute she feels snow under the pads of her feet, she rolls around like crazy, giving those weird snorts that dogs give.

Typically, I would be a little upset at the whole situation. I was hoping to avoid any snow at all this year. But truthfully, I am having a blast. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have to scrape anything off the cars and try to shovel around them. That was always a miserable task. Also, I don’t have to shovel the end of the driveway. I used to really hate that part of the ordeal.

Remember when I was telling you about how I thought we could shovel the entire driveway instead of buying a snowblower? Yeah, I must have been on crack. There is no way in the world I would have been physically able to shovel this driveway. No way at all. Even if I had a team of my best friends on the job, half of them would have quit.

By this point, I don’t have to tell you that the snowblower is da bomb. I was so proud of it this morning, I asked Laura to come outside and take some action shots of me. She took a whole bunch, but these are my more fashionable.

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Clearing the first area of snow with the snowblower.

Jay, pulling the snowblower out of the garage.

Sure beats a shovel.

Snowblower eating the snow for breakfast.

I did learn a few things while clearing the driveway this morning. First, blow the snow in the same direction as the wind. I nearly froze half my face by going against the wind once. Second, self propelled snowblowers are awesome. I loved watching those snow tires grab that pavement. No slip, no slide, no nothing.

That’s all I learned.

Go enjoy the snow. I’m outty.

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Just Getting Some Stuff Done Around The House

After I came back from playing tennis this morning, I moseyed around just finishing up some stuff that needed to get done.

First and foremost, I had to make a new batch of beer. I am almost out of my current beer (Irish Stout). It will be horrific if I run out. I ordered the ingredients for my new batch a few weeks ago. This time, I am not messing around. I mixed things up a bit with a new recipe. Here’s what I did…I went ahead and did my thing with the original recipe. I added what I needed to add and stirred when the directions told me to stir. This time, instead of just sealing up the big jug and waiting for it to ferment, I decided to brew a pot of decaf coffee and pour it in with the rest of the mixture. I also added 100 grams of cocoa powder. When I was finished mixing everything together, I took a big smell. It was like I had my nose in a huge wine glass. Ahhhhh, the aroma of chocolate coffee stout in the making.

Now, all I need to do is to find somewhere in this house that remains between 70 and 80 degrees. Yeah right. Like there is anyplace that hot here. I think I am going to store the beer downstairs, because that is the most heated area of the house. Even if the temperature goes up and down, I think it will be ok.

Beer kit thermometer

Today, I also made another batch of ice cream. I decided to make traditional vanilla bean, because I haven’t made a real smooth one yet. I am very proud of myself because this batch came out very well. I believe that if you tried it, you would give me a hug. It’s intoxicating.

Later on, Laura and I went outside to hang the Halloween lights around the door and to trim the Lilac bushes in front of the house. She did most of the lights and I did all of the Lilac trimming.

Rob, just in case you were wondering, this is what I was doing when you called.

I’ll take a picture of the Halloween lights another day. It’s pretty windy outside right now and I might blow away.

Since it was a great “working outside” afternoon, Holly the dog decided to join us. I tapped a metal stake into the ground and put her leash around it. Laura took a bunch of pictures of her and I wanted to show you the one where she (Holly) looks the most buff.

Holly the dog - Norwegian Elkhound

Doesn’t she look like such a punk?

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