Summer Starting to End on the Farm

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It has been good spending time on the farm. I really had forgotten how quiet and dark it is here. It can actually be a bit unnerving. The leaf doodle bug was put to work in the forest. However, it looks like the car will be going back on the road. We can say it failed field trials,but that would only be partially true. The better utility value at this point is more suited to getting a teenager back and forth from high school. The mycological aspects of the farm did not disappoint. The pics of these shrooms are not photoshopped. The coal stove (very heavy) is loaded on the truck. It will be rebuilt in Georgia if I can save it. Coal stoves are increasingly out of production. When they are gone they are gone. The small wood stove is now in its place. The pic of the red sky in morning was indeed a warning of weather. We had strong storms and tornados in Upstate NY. Although I was travelling much that day in the area, I missed the worst of it.
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Work is slow. We are between science teams I guess. I lot of scientist have headed home in time for the holidays. Some have just headed out in the field. I am fixing shortwave transceivers today. The shortwaves are primarily used as backup comms for the field parties. Primary comms are generally done with iridium satellite phones. The HF radios get issued with the following materials; a durable case, 2 batteries, a radio, a solar charger, a microphone-handset, a tuned dipole and instructions. Good luck! The radios are good for 20 watts which is fine for this purpose. You can contact Pole or McMurdo depending on the frequency you select. We use 5 different frequencies. Of course we have very good radios systems at both Pole and McMurdo stations.

I snagged this pic from our common drive here on station. A bunch of penguins came to town the other day. I missed them though.

We find ourselves talking about our favorite foods that we can't get (or enough of) on station. Pizza, chicken wings, pickled herrings, and nachos came up today. It is a strange assortment of folks on station that’s for sure as part of these discussions. I was talking to a Dining Assistant (DA) last night that has retired from a telecom job and lives in Mountain View CA (near Stanford) with no bills, and is now washing dishes and resupplying napkins. The pay for a DA is almost nothing. I think it is less than minimum wage. This brings me to the very arcane laws here. I mean very arcane. You have to figure a jurisdiction and then argue legalities from that point. My employer is in Denver Colorado, in the US. My permanent residence is in NY. I am living on a US sponsored science base on a continent where no country owns the land and no passport is required to enter.

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