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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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There has been a lot of activity lately. Spring gets that way every year. I need to get up in the air this week. I took possession of my Mom's rocking chair. The story goes that the rocker has been in the family and my ancestors brought it over on the Mayflower. Anyway, It is very old and has had lots or repairs over the years. It is an interesting design and looking at it makes me feel comfortable. Sometimes "stuff" can do that. Although, "stuff" doesn't often do it for me anymore.
The blog is in transition. It will be a few more days for an update.

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My time management skills will really being put to the test soon. There is so much to do on so many fronts. We had a good great Easter. We have had some great hikes and I have been flying solo. It is a profound experience flying around in the heavens by yourself. It puts everything in such a different perspective. Having the time to fly during the day has been a real blessing. The following pic describes "Dowdell's new first rule of advertising," which is, "Someone has to wear the chicken suit." And no. It wasn't me.
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I am proud of DJ. She has done well over the last few years surviving a nasty-bought with cancer, being widowed suddenly. If that wasn't enough she got laid off from the Raymond Corporation without cause or warning. In fact she commonly worked lots of extra hours for years before being stricken with cancer and had positive performance appraisals. Nice management, not. Inconsistent, yes. Maybe if she was Italian she could have held on to her job. Now she is successfully running her start-up gluten-free bakery. She did all that in about 3 years.
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I finally have real broadband access! Through my ham radio connections I managed to get a terrestrial link using a Motorola Canopy solution (5.7 GHz) and a 15 mile (plus) path. Of course, I would have never been able to do this except for I am on a hill that faces the tower in Binghamton. It is a haul. It is safe to say I am at the far fringes. I am working to help expand the system with the installation of a new tower on my property. The dish on the roof is fairly big (nothing like the old c-band TVRO dishes though). I was hoping we were going to get 10 or more Mbps, but I have to settle for speeds just under 5 Mbps. Considering with Wildblue (satellite) I was only getting 600 kbps with 900 ms latencies; I am very pleased.
Here is a nice you tube video of a difficult landing, more difficult than Greene NY.