Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

We are off to Chautaqua lake a for a few days. I am fishing for walleyes. The rabbits and birds really enjoy not having Tioga the cat around. We don't hear all the danger shrills from the birds and the bunnies are pretty much coming to the back door. I haven't really looked at cats yet. I am thinking a Maine Coon cat or two this time. We know we want a big cat. I have gotten serious about losing the 10 pounds I put on in Antarctica. Food is always on my mind. I am running the 5k running race next Thursday for the corporate challenge. Every pound I don't have to carry with me helps. I will run it about 25 minutes. The Subaru has been in the shop. It blew a head gasket and it is getting a new catalytic convertor, brakes, tires, and I am sure a few other things by the time it passes inspection. I have had a couple of great flying lessons. My last lesson was the usual mix of good and bad, pride and shame, and other elements of learning. The exciting part was on one of m

Here is a video of Condition 1 weather at McMurdo. This was in the dorm next to mine. The video was taken by the winter comms tech.

Tioga is gone. He was in and out of a coma. He did wake up and knew we were there and he purred and purred even though he was so sick. Then he slipped into his coma and we put him to sleep. I looked at hundreds of different cats before picking him. We have no inside pets now. I am not sure how long we are going to be catless. I miss having them around already.

Well, we have made the decision to put Tioga down. He was a great cat. We will be going to the Vet in a little while so we can be there and bring his body back to be buried next to Resses, Fawna, Junior, and Rosey. I have a lot of photos of Tioga. He was such a great cat. RIP Tioga.

Well, today started off a little different. Tioga the cat was involved in freak accident. I was in the barn and he came in and while I was in the other room I heard the step ladder fall. I suspected the cat's involvement and went to see if he was hurt. He was hurt, bad. We took him to the vet and he is still there. He seems to have taken quite a bump to the head and broke his jaw. We will decide whether or not to put him down tomorrow. It is not looking good. He has been a great cat. He has caught voles, mice, rats, weasels, rats, rabbits and he even killed a rooster. He is the first pet I picked out and named. The pic with the scar is when he had surgery a couple of years back

A lot is happening. It is Summer and I guess a lot always happens with the longer days and warm temperatures. The barn and fence are looking better and better. We have the gates made, painted and hung. We also got the front of the barn painted. That made a big difference. I will be working on the loft door and it will be pretty much done. I am using a remote low voltage switching arrangement for the light on the barn. That will properly control the light from inside the house over a 25-pair phone cable that I ran underground when I had a ditch dug for the main power service entrance. I buried every king of wire I had in a separate 2 in conduit when I had the ditch dug. It will feel good to actually start to use that function that we planned on a couple of years ago. I had a flight lesson tonight. I seem to be retaining information and my lessons well. There is a lot to a landing. Greene (4N7) is a great place to learn since it is difficult. You lose sight of the runway right away sin

"Every man dies. Not every man lives. The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the "buts" you use today." -- Les Brown, Bandleader

The difference in making it or not is in assiduousness. No matter what it is. --Charles Dowdell

It is Independence day once again. I am monkeying around with stuff here on the farm. The gates are coming along and I managed to fix a bunch of stuff. It is raining on and off. The llamas got out a week or so ago. It really startled the neighbor to look up from the sink and see Professor looking in the window. The llamas, I guess, were just bored. Here is a picture of my Recirculating Infusion Mash System (Rims) I built a number of years ago. It was quite an innovative device for all grain brewing of beer. I designed the electronics and the compact system. It is now out of my house. I have too may hobbies. I want to concentrate on a few such as the dozen or so I have left. This picture shows Calisto (the white one), Professor, and Artemis chilling on the scene yesterday. Artemis is in the dirt spa. This is where the llamas take turns rolling around in the dust and enjoying their dirt.

I have been mostly doing farm related work. Work on the barn and gates and such. It all takes time. The tractor lost its clutch slave cylinder so I'm rebuilding that, hopefully will have the parts Tuesday. Pete Nystrom is headed down for Tuesday as well for the day. That will be fun. I gave a presentation about Antarctica last Wednesday at the Greene Library. People really seemed to like it. Here is a great slide show in today Chicago Tribune. It has picture and voices of friends of mine. I can easily recognize where each of the photos was taken, as well as who the people are and their voices. Chicago Tribune