I haven't done much night sky observing or astrophotography lately. It gets dark too late now. Soon the days will be getting shorter again and by then the Summer Milky Way will be up in a good spot too. While I was letting the dogs out last night around midnight, a really bright meteor happened to go overhead. It was one of those that goes clear across the sky and almost to the horizon on the other side. It was throwing sparks and slowly broke up into a beautiful shower before fading away.
Normally the last day for the woodstove fire is on Memorial Day Weekend. Not this year though. I've still had a fire in it almost every night. By the sound of the forecast I might have a fire during the day this weekend too! I've been cutting a little wood, and keeping up with firewood customers. Seems like every time I go somewhere, I come home and have to haul more firewood in the dark to replenish my "for sale firewood". Karen sells all that I have for sale when I'm gone! Excellent.
Despite the unusually cool weather, my garden is doing well. We've been eating winter onions and the radishes are about ready to start harvesting. I gave everything a shot of fertilizer the other day and weeded it completely. Looking good, barring any acts of "god".
The other morning when I was milking the cows my back started hurting (also nothing unusual for me, that and headaches). No big deal, I just have to keep moving and working. If I set around it hurts more! I decided to complete a project to keep my mind off of it. Awhile ago we bought a rotator for our TV antenna. We've never had one. I thought it might be nice to see what stations we can get from more directions than one now that they have all those new digital channels. I set out to do that yesterday. My plan was to use all the existing equipment, antenna etc., and just put up the rotator.
I took it down and got it all set up just like I wanted it. I cleaned all the old connections on the antennas (I had two, one for UHF and one for VFH) and was all ready to put it back up. The antennas were mounted on a couple old pieces of water pipe, with a pipe coupler in the middle instead of regular antenna mast. Normally if Karen had been home I would have had her stand on the ground and steady the mast while I was on the roof and walked it up into position.
Well, I don't have many helpers and I am so used to doing things myself that sometimes shit happens. Karen was at work, but the pipe/antenna/rotator assembly didn't seem too heavy. I stood on the ground and started walking the antenna up, with the pipe sliding on the drip edge of the roof as I went along. The pipe coupling got to the edge of the roof and .............. IT SNAPPED! The coupling was rusted and thin and it snapped clean! The antennas, rotator, the whole works came crashing down on the rooftop and hung over the house on the other side. Smashed everything all to hell! Both antennas were totally destroyed, the preamplifier was mangled, even broke the top off the new fresh out of the box $100 rotator! I guess I should have left well enough alone.
Anyway, I made a mad dash to the Lake Delton Radio Shack in my old jalopy of a truck and had to buy new everything. In the process of looking at new antenna mast, I hooked my finger on a sharp edge and bled all over their store. Fortunately I had a handkerchief in my pocket, but I didn't even know I had cut my finger until I noticed the salesman wiping blood off of things! Oops, sorry.
Anyway, to make an already long story longer, when I got home from Radio Shack it was time to milk FB's cows. After that, I finished putting up my $448 worth of new antenna stuff just past midnight last night. Now since I can rotate the antenna I get channels that I had never even heard of! I guess it was well worth the investment, even if it didn't turn out the way I had originally planned it (certainly way more expensive than the original plan). It's still cheaper in the long run.
Now, there is a couple trees branches that are a little too close for comfort to the antenna. I'm going out to take care of those right now, or attempt to. Money and help are so hard for me to come by that I don't want to take any chances of the wind whipping those branches into my new antenna and damaging it. Unfortunately I can't reach them with my pole saw, even when standing on my ladder. I will either shoot them off with my shotgun (yep, real redneck here), throw a rope over them and rip them down with my Polaris Hawkeye ATV (more redneck), or maybe I can at least pull them down far enough to reach with the pole saw.
Wish me luck!
- Quads, hailing from Grand Marsh Observatory atop Elk Castle Hill
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