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Showing posts from March, 2007
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We have been working on Rosie. She isn't sick. She just seems too stiff to get up on her own. We are giving her meds three times a day and exercising her. The photo shows how to get a llama up that has been down. We have a llama sling and sometimes they just need a pull on the sling. Other times you have to use a come-a-long and winch the animal up. This is the third llama that we have had to use the sling on. We have got of use out of it for sure. It isn't much fun but that is the kind of work you need to do when you have animals. Today I am buying aviation books, budgeting the lessons and the plan, listing a bunch of stuff on ebay and working on my book. The weather is nice out there. The chickens are out and they are getting lots of bugs and enjoying their freedom.
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I have not blogged in quite a while. Spring is starting to spring around here. The daffodils are starting to peek out of the ground and almost all the snow is melted. It won't be long now. Rosey the llama is down. We not sure what is going on. I took my first real flying lesson tonight in about twenty years. Here is a picture of the plane, a 1966 Cessna 172. I am comfortable, but not confident. Flying in and out of a grass strip (2600 feet) is a bit different. The surrounding hills are about 1000 feet higher than the airfield so if you are cruising at 2500 feet you are only about 600 feet about the terrain. The final approach puts you about 20 or 30 feet above some trees at the end of the runway. I think I will get the hang of it but it will take time. The book work is the easiest for me. Taking all the flight information in and processing it in realtime is a bit of a skill to learn. Knowing what to look at and for how long is a trick. Knowing what controls to gain feedback by
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I got a nasty bug that was going around work. Man o Man. I was sick. I lost over 5 pounds in less than 24 hours. Bonnie and I both got sick. That was unusual. The animals must have gotten concerned about their food supplies. The animals are all fine. Current animal count is 6 llamas, 7 chickens, and 1 big orange cat. We are still looking at feeder-beef and breeding a llama. I am making farm plans for this spring. Every year we bring the farm back a little more and make it more attractive and useful. I have some NY state government training coming up. That will be good. There is a lot to learn about all the laws and procedures and what-not with the economic development and planning arena in which I participate. Then the snow started. After the "storm" was over is when we got hit with most of the snow. I am well enough now to get us dug out and operational again. There is almost no comparison to Antarctica. It is so humid. The air density is nice and high and you can hea
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Some pretty neat pics coming from "IO" a Jupiter satellite. www.planetaryexploration.net/jupiter/io/index.html
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These photos were sent to me by my friend George from the Palmer Research Polar Ship. He says he will arrive in Punta Arenas Argentina on March 26th.
New very high detail interactive maps of Antarctica just came on line. http://lima.usgs.gov/
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I am fixing this and that around the house this weekend. I wish I could talk about my regular job there is always so much stuff going on. We finally got a break in the cold weather and today it is above 40 and raining a little. The llamas appreciate the warmer weather but they don't mind too much getting locked in the barn when it gets cold. I am going to a conference in Rochester on March 23rd. Then I am headed to Canada for work on the 4th. After that I am headed to Idaho at the end of April for work. Bonnie is going to meet me out there for a couple of days of vacation. The first picture shows safety in action in Antarctica manifested as a sticker on the shop truck. The second image links to a movie of a typical pickup at a field camp. In this case it was us getting picked up at New Harbor camp on a really nice day. Nick in the left seat and Mike at the pilot position on the right of the Bell 212. I never have figured out why the seats are backwards compared to a fixed
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Here is an interview with Anne Aghion the documentary filmmaker I met in Antarctica. I very much expect to be in her Antarctica documentary. She says she has just started to edit. My beard was frosted real nice one day and they got a nice shot of it close up. I very much suspect it will not end up on the cutting room floor. We shall see. There are other shots as well. http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=1757 I already know I cannot watch another Antarctica documentary the same. The United States Antarctica Program (USAP) is quite small so knowing folks in the film or credits is pretty much inevitable. Being away in Antarctica actually helped me miss most of the winter as strange as it sounds. It is tough to get up in the dark, go shovel, plow, dig and otherwise move the snow out of the way. And after that you get the treat of moving your vehicle through it all to get to work or wherever you are going. Upstate NY is a tough place to live. The summers make up for it around here. The lack of h
Here is a Top-10 list in ways to destroy earth. Interestly enough, none of these methods seem to mention global warming or Antarctica. (The navigation to the actual list may be difficult to find, but it is there and the intro is fun.) http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp.html