There is nothing so pathetic as a rainy weekend and an old guy who can’t go outside and play with his toys. Flashback to early summer of ’57, when I walked three miles to Latteri park in a rainstorm just to hang out with my friends.

When I arrived, no one was there. So I started knocking on friend’s doors, only to find most were on road trip vacations with parents. The rest were too smart to go out in a rainstorm and they wouldn’t invite me in because… well, I was soaked from being out in a rainstorm. Childhood can sometimes be problematic. So I went into work at my dad’s auto repair shop and remained there until I was an adult.

This morning found me at the ready with a fully charged mini drone, checked out and preflighted. It was the tail end of a severe thunderstorm with rainfall slowed to a drizzle, but still too wet for exposed electric motors. So me and “Doolittle” sat on Chuck’s tailgate, waiting for clearance from the tower. Eventually we did get the go ahead, launching next to a large puddle. Only ten minutes flight time, but that little drone did scoot…35 MPH.

The timber harvest underway. A few more weeks to go before closing out with a lot of steps to make sure there is a future of more trees, lots of wildlife habitat, and access blocked to off the road vehicles. Hunters and hikers are welcome, but we have too many 3/4 ton pickups with a cooler full of beer, irresponsibly ripping up private property. Then there are the hordes of very expensive ATVs parents buy for their children and send them out without supervision to terrorize the neighbors with open space property. 

“Doolittle”, a name to try out…

Joseph, what’s up with the drone? I picked up the habit of using my full first name from my mom. She used it when she could not think of a positive reason for my behavior and she used it with great frequency. Off on my way to work after school; Joe. Coming home at 2 AM riding a motorcycle I borrowed, and 3 years underage for a license; Joseph.

There were two primary reasons for looking into a drone. The first was to inspect the high peaks of my roof for signs of deterioration. The second reason was to be able to fly over a timber harvest on my property to verify areas being worked and machines present on the job. 

Doolittle is a Skyrover S1, which is classified as a beginner’s drone. More than a few clicks above a child’s drone, but way short of an advanced rig. Clear sky range is 7+ miles and maximum takeoff altitude is 16,000+ feet. Weighing less than 250g, it requires so FAA registration or testing. Subsequently, operators are restricted to 400′ AGL maximum altitude.

Flight time is good at 40 minutes on one battery. It has forward and downward obstacle avoidance with a maximum speed of 35 mph. The 3 axis gimbal keeps the camera steady while allowing side to side and vertical control. Video is 4k 60 fps and stills are 48 MP. Storage is via 128 GB micro SD memory. 

The S1 is software heavy, but extensively configurable to accommodate the pilots preferences and the mission. As an example, with obstacle avoidance on, a beep is emitted from the controller when an obstacle is approached. More than the warning, when too close the drone will stop advancing and will ignore stick motion in the obstacles direction. That said, the feature can be switched off.

The drone has several settings for “Follow me” meaning it will literally follow me around or lock on to a selected subject so it will always be kept in camera view. If I forget to monitor battery charge level, Doolittle will return to its original point of departure within a foot or two.

I also had to convince myself I did not need an elaborate drone. For me it would be wasted money. So I purchased direct from the Skyrover site where the S1 was on sale for $249. I’m happy. 

It took approximately a half hour worth of flying to get Doolittle to serve useful purposes. That is the time it took to stop staring at it in the sky above my head to control flight and start looking at the live stream appearing on my phone attacked to the controller. I don’t fly general aviation aircraft anymore, so this has been an opportunity to soar again.

Roses! Angry, hostile and with a bit of an attitude

How in the world could a flower of such romantic distinction, the subject of poems and sonnets, a mark of beauty be such an SOB on relocation. I am shuffling the garden around and the roses would not survive living under the huge sun blocking umbrella of the Japanese Maple. So I attempted to rescue the roses. I was moving them to adequate sunlight when one bush decided to bite me in Sharknado fashion. I’m sure, once established in their new home, they will chill out. Outdoor labor is supposed to be healthy. Good exercise and vitality from sunshine. Unfortunately, it is beating the crap out of me.

If you are going to make a rock garden, you need to get some rocks

It turns out that the John Deere 1025R (aka Sparky), like the S1 drone, is right size for my applications. In this case, I hung log lifting tongs on some stump pulling nylon strap, hanging from the D rings on the bucket. Turns out the tongs lift boulders as well as logs.

This is my feeble progress. I got sidetracked playing “Drop boulders on other things” until it was too dark to see. Gallon water jugs were my favorites.

If a house is built in the middle of the woods, the woods will relentlessly attempt to reclaim the land. Yet another task to share with Sparky. The tree line is loaded with 40′ trees with 8″ trunks that seem to block all sunlight with 20′ sucker branches. So the routine is to cut the trees close to the ground with a chainsaw, use a tractor mounted grapple to lift them at the midpoint so that the truck stress is all downward, then limb them and cut them into firewood and brush piles. I could not live where I do without that little tractor.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Glad the weekend is coming to a close.