… then I must be healthy as a horse by now. I can’t believe how many hours I’ve been sleeping. A couple nights back, I had an episode of busy brain syndrome — planning and organizing all the things I need to do when we get back to Roatán— and didn’t fall asleep till after 3:30. But most nights I sleep at least nine or ten hours. I guess I was more run down than I thought. I’m feeling much more rested now and, in fact, getting a little antsy. I think we have all our shopping done. We got a few things for ourselves and some for the radio station, mostly replacements for items damaged by that last lightning hit on October 15th. And we’ve been very busy being involved with Mildred’s parents and her dad’s medical issues. Having Jesse and Kristin here, too, has been icing on the cake.

Mildred’s dad is all set up with Hospice now and he really likes the people he’s met so far. We do, too! The difference between Home Health Care and Hospice is pretty remarkable. HHC is focused on getting you cured, so they were rather restrictive in the things Dad could and couldn’t do. Except for church and doctor appointments, he was practically home bound. Hospice emphasizes comfort and getting as much out of life as you can. They got him an oxygen concentrator right away, so he’s way more comfortable and energetic.

Mowing grass & chopping leaves

The grass isn’t all that tall yet, but the leaves were getting deep. Mildred’s dad likes to run them through the mower to chop them up and blow them off into the field. I worked on  it a while yesterday, but didn’t get it all done. It was nice to be outside after so many days of rain. As you can see from the picture, that is a sweet mower! Now the rains have come back, so we’ll have to wait and see if it dries out enough to finish the job before we leave on Saturday. Earlier in the day yesterday Dad, Jesse, and I all went to the barn and removed the orchard sprayer from the tractor. Jesse got to drive and I got to wrench. Then I got to wash all the chunks of rust and other crud off my face that I collected while working under the sprayer.

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Jesse is the proud new owner of his first ever digital SLR camera. He and I have been having a wonderful time roaming the farm and filling up our memory cards. We’ve been shooting everything from the mundane to the spectacular. We got some great sunset shots last night.

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Yesterday was a big day with the mowing, the mechanical work in the barn, visits from the Hospice nurse and chaplain, and visits from other health care people. Today is another big day. Dad has a doctor’s appointment for some minor surgery for skin cancer on his nose and then we plan to have an early Thanksgiving meal with Mildred’s brother and their family. With the six of us plus John and Linda, some of their kids and grandkids, I think we’ll have a great time.

Saturday will be another big day and a long one. Our flight back to the real world leaves Columbus at 7:15 AM. Since it’s over an hour to the airport, we’ll be getting up early, even for me. But we’ll get to Roatán pretty early the same day, which is nice. I wonder what route the plane will take since it looks like there will still be a hurricane in our normal flight path. We’re just glad it veered north of our island home.

It’s sure good to be back home. Utila is a beautiful place, as you’ll see if you look through the photo gallery at the end of this article. But there’s no place like home, especially when Mildred’s at home and I’m not. Then, too, there are the extra long days I put in over there to get as much done as quickly as I can so I can get back to my dearly beloved.

I had three goals for the trip and I accomplished approximately three things – just not exactly the same three I expected. I got side tracked immediately when I opened the door to the transmitter shack. A blast of air hit me that was so hot I wondered for a second if there was a fire. Nope! Just no air conditioning. It must have been at least 120-130 degrees in there. I was amazed that the transmitter had not shut itself off, but it was still going.

It turned out that the compressor was shot. No one on the island of Utila had a new one and I didn’t want to take a chance on a used compressor on a piece of equipment that is vital and that remote. So we now have a new air conditioner. I was surprised that the dealer didn’t gouge me since I was desperate, but it was actually a pretty reasonable price. It’s still not pleasant to have to spend that kind of money replacing a machine that isn’t really very old.

Then I got to work on the most urgent item on my original to-do list, the rust inside the bottom of the AM tower. I included a picture in the gallery below that shows how rusty it was and how impossible it is to reach. I tried Lance Bodden’s idea of using dive tanks to blast out the rust and it worked pretty well. Even using a small camera to take pictures in there, I can’t be completely sure I got all the rust out, but I know I removed a bunch of it. After letting two coats of Rust Bullet paint dry in there, I tried another anti-rust idea. Our visiting tower expert, Carl Hompstead, suggested last fall that we try putting wax in there. He and I thought toilet wax rings would work well. So I filled the cavity with melted toilet wax rings. I sure hope it works because, if it doesn’t, it’ll be a bear to get it out well enough to paint again.

I had hoped to locate and repair some of the broken underground radial wires, but that turned out to be a futile episode of traipsing around the pasture and digging little trenches all over the place. I could not find any of the wires that had been sticking out of the ground last fall. I’m sure they had been cut off and sold by people wandering in the pasture. I found one wire about 50 feet from the tower, but never could find the part it broke off of. It’s hard to say how many wires are missing out of the original 120, but I suspect that we’ll need to replace them someday because erosion keeps exposing them.

I had more success with our monitoring and remote control system. I learned quite a bit about how it works and I think I stopped it from making phone calls to the station to report silence during non-broadcast hours. While I was at it, I treated for termites and did some other housekeeping. My last afternoon there, I finished with enough daylight to take a ride out along the “iron coast.” I hope you enjoy the pictures of that, as well as some of the other scenes of Utila.

We are beginning to make plans now for Ken Anderson and Carl Hompstead to come back and help finish replacing the guy wires. We will need more funds to get the men here and for lodging and meals. We also need to coordinate that with our upcoming furlough, so please pray for wisdom in that area. Thanks.

This picture gallery has 42 images, so there are four pages. Have fun!

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It’s been a regular work week here at HRGS. That means that stuff still breaks about as fast as I can fix it. The first thing on my list Monday was to read all the electric and water meters. In the process, I ambled past a 1/2″ water pipe that was squirting water into the air. I didn’t even get one day of not fixing broken stuff.

The rest of the week was a little more calm except for Wednesday and today. On Wednesday, the electric company came and shut off power so they could change the program on our electric meter. So I fired up the generator ahead of time and switched over for them. When we went back to “normal” a couple things decided they didn’t like the transition. The worst was the studio computer network. Some computers could see some computers, but none could see all the others, nor could any of them access the internet. I spent four hours trying to find out what the problem was. To make a long story short, it finally just started working. Musta been the dreaded loose connection – but triggered by a switch from generator to RECO electricity. Right!

My long day today was by my own choice. The soffitt on the front of our house has been slowly getting ready to fall completely off. It has come partially down and been repaired several times before now. I guess you have to expect that when it was aluminum and was installed with steel screws and is right in the path of the salty sea breeze. I put on a pair of gloves and gave it a hearty yank. Most of it came right down just like that. I had to remove two screws and break off a few that were too rusty to remove. The new soffit is vinyl. I sure hope no one minds that I used stainless steel screws to secure it.

But it wasn’t all work. I have managed to find time now and then for some fairly long walks this week. The main reason for the walks is to try to burn off some of the extra weight I’ve accumulated since Thanksgiving. I’ve managed to get rid of almost 4 pounds so far. The added benefit is that it gives me a chance to explore some of the photogenic places around here with my new Nikon D3100. I loved the D100, but it was getting a little long in the tooth. It took great pictures, as you’ve probably seen, so I was comfortable in selling it to a friend, which helped defray the cost of the new camera. That was one of Mildred’s conditions for getting it. But this is quite an upgrade in terms of resolution, shooting speed, and electronic noise control. Here’s a sample of some of the images I’ve captured this week on my walks. The first seven I’d already shown on Facebook, but the other seven are from yesterday afternoon.

Below that, you’ll find this week’s Audio Update. It’s late, but I guess you’ve already read some of my excuses.

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