I have posted before about how vocal our dog Zoe is. I have a couple more examples.
She has different vocalizations for different situations. There is the impatient whine when I’m preparing her dinner. There is the sort of growling she makes, sometimes for unknown reasons, and sometimes because she has to go out to relieve herself. And then there are the simple barks.
She barks a lot. Sometimes it’s because she sees something that wasn’t there before, or maybe a cat that she has seen many times before, and sometimes just for the sake of barking, to announce her presence to the world.
She is certainly the most vocal dog I have ever had, and maybe the most vocal dog I have ever met.
A weak cold front came through this area early Thanksgiving morning. There was some rain, and then some clearing, perfect conditions for fog to form. And it did.
We could see nothing of town. I imagine the people down there couldn’t see much either.
A cold front moved through Wednesday afternoon, bringing clouds and rain. After the front, there was some clearing, just enough for the sun to illuminate the clouds to the east, over town.
The more I look at this shot, the more I like it. I took it with the panorama mode on my iPhone. I keep being impressed with what nice shots it can make.
I walked the dogs before noon, while it was cloudy but not raining. We are past the fall peak for the leaves, but some maples still held onto some color.
A cold front moved through Sunday. Before it passed, it brought some high clouds. I noticed them as I was driving home from running an errand. Most were cirrus uncinus, or mare’s tail clouds. Later, near sunset, when I took the dogs out, they were tinted pink by the setting sun. They looked like a painter had dabbed pale pink in the sky, and then whipped the brush up and away. I immediately dragged the dogs back inside to get my phone. By the time I got back outside, just a matter of seconds, the clouds had changed. They were still nice, though.
If you look carefully there is a hint of a bright spot and a little color in one of the clouds. It’s in the left third of the picture, about two thirds of the way from the top. Here’s a closer look.
I’m not quite sure what caused this effect. It was too far from the sun to be a parhelion, or sun dog, but it was about at the same elevation as the sun, which was out of sight behind the mountain. The cloud seems to be too far from the sun to be iridescent clouds, and the colors don’t like quite right to me. I thought it might be part of a parhelic arc, which circles the horizon at the same elevation as parhelia, but those are generally white, without color. If it were part of a parhelic arc, you might have expected to see other parts of it in the clouds, since some seem to be at the right elevation. But maybe not. I’m not aware of any other arc or halo that would appear where it did, so, in the absence of better information, I’ll just assume it’s part of a parhelic arc.
We’ve had some problems lately. I posted about our power outage. After we lost our power for four and a half days, we learned the value of water. And then a couple of days later our septic system backed up and we couldn’t use any of the plumbing fixtures, including toilets. And then we learned the value of indoor plumbing.
We were without indoor plumbing for a little over two days. I called the company that installed the system the day after I found our problem, but they couldn’t come for a couple of days. When they came, it was some of the same people who installed the system, and then the next year repaired damage to the system caused when one of the contractors drove onto the leach field. So, they knew the system. I was fearing the worst, but the problem was caused by a clogged filter that keeps solids from getting into the leach field. The repair was fairly quick, and not nearly as expensive as I was fearing.
So, what else can go wrong, right? How about a microwave oven? Yes, it can. And it did. It simply died. And then we learned the value of a microwave oven. Leah couldn’t warm up her coffee and I couldn’t warm up the beef broth I put on the dogs’ food. And we couldn’t prepare frozen dinners, which we have been eating lately. Nor could I heat up the gigantic marshmallows I sometimes eat as a dessert, although they are big enough to make an entire meal. You should see them when they puff up in the microwave. OK, it’s not as serious as no water or no plumbing. But, still.
I did some online investigations and found a reference to a couple of thermal protection devices that could be reached right behind the control panel. I pulled the panel off and checked the two devices. They are like fuses, only different. One is normally closed (that is, it makes a continuous circuit unless it fails). It fails when it gets too hot. It was fine. The other is normally open; when it fails, it makes a connection and a fan comes on. It was fine, too. There are other places to check, but it requires getting into the back of the microwave, and that means taking it down from over the range. At that point, I decided that replacing a part on the oven, replacing it, and then possibly having it not work, or fail again, was not worth the effort. So we replaced it.
Installing an over-the-range microwave oven is not exceptionally complicated, but it is a little bit of a hassle. They are heavy, and it’s hard to lift them into place when you’re leaving over the range. But we did it.
Installing a new microwave from a different manufacturer means taking the old bracket out and putting in the new one. It also means drilling new holes in the upper cabinet floor to match the two bolts and power cord on the top of the oven. Drilling the holes in the right place means some fairly precise measurement and marking. That’s not my strong point. My practice is usually measure once, then cut two or three times. But this time everything was in the right place.
The microwave failure was disappointing. It’s the second appliance to fail in the three years we have been here. We put in all GE appliances, all in the same finish, when we moved into the house. The dishwasher logic board failed about a year ago, and then, a year later, the microwave oven failed. That is not a good record. I couldn’t recommend getting GE appliances at this point. We have two more GE appliances, a range and a refrigerator. So far, so good with them.
Our record with various problems at the house is making me wonder: is it me, or is this house jinxed?
Copyright 2013 Mark V. Paris
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