Our Olde House: November 2024

We got our inflatable dragons out before Halloween and put them on the front lawn. Miss Sherry also put up some black and orange lights around the dragons and on the porch railing. Unfortunately, it was stormy Halloween morning and too windy for either dragon to stay inflated. Since it was supposed to rain by late afternoon we decided to take down the dragons and put them away in the morning. After five weeks of drought, it started to rain beginning at 5pm on Halloween, which kept all trick-or-treaters except for two away.

I managed to blow out the front gutters before the rain since they were pretty full of leaves. My leaf blower on the Cat5 setting works great for this and is much easier and quicker than shoveling out the gutters. It is still much too hot to be called Fall but our pin oak tree is shedding leaves at a relaxed rate. I decided to get a start on my leaf mowing while the leaves were dry and before it rained again; I got two large bags full of leaves off of the driveway and front lawn, with many more bags to come. Just for balance I mowed the back lawn again which is still growing although very slowly, so I have a hard time telling what I mowed and what is left to mow.

I realized that since the tires on my lawn trailer were flat, karma would dictate that I would need to use that trailer soon. I was going to procrastinate doing this chore, but I never got around to it. I took both flat tires to be reinflated. This went very smoothly as the tire guy inflated both tires onto their rim, and I easily put the wheels back onto the axle and stored the trailer back inside the big barn.

I sprayed all of the weeds outside of my perimeter of grass while it was still hot so the spray would take hold. This is mostly kudzu that I am trying to control but there are some miscellaneous weeds in the mix. A lot of stuff looks dead now, and I will spray again once it starts to grow back. This is a perpetual project since some of the kudzu will manage to survive. I also keep finding a stray poison ivy plant here and there which I will attack with my handheld sprayer as soon as I notice it; another never ending task.

The weather forecast finally includes some frequent rainy days and cooler nights so I picked up my sprinklers and hoses in the backyard. I store these inside so they don’t freeze and split. I also brought my very flexible hose from the front yard into the house before it freezes; these hoses are great being light and shrinking when the water is turned off, but one time freezing ruins them.

I bought myself a toy, it was not Black Friday or Christmas but I bought it anyway. It’s a drone with a camera that is supposed to be able to be flown by mere mortals. My less than optimistic attitude toward this drone is mostly due to an inexpensive drone I bought two years ago that I was never able to fly enjoyably. First the battery lasted less than 10 minutes of flying time, and it was so affected by wind that someone sneezing across the street would send it crashing into the nearest bush or tree. I finally gave up chasing and repairing this drone and bought a much more expensive model, which actually works and is fun to fly.

My new drone is wind resistant and has 30 minutes of flying time per charge. It hovers by itself even with some wind and flies in a straight line. There is also some level of collision avoidance built in, not tested by me yet, so it should go around trees and other obstructions. It took me four days of fussing and practicing my French before I got it to take off for the first time, but now it is very well behaved and fun to fly.

It also has an oops button, which I tested once, that will return the drone to its takeoff location, should you lose sight or track of it; that test did not go well. Based upon no information, I made the assumption that the drone would return home by retracing its flight up to that point, or preferably it would fly in a straight line back home. I was wrong.

I flew the drone across the street and let it hover in the middle of that yard with a clear line of sight back home. I was feeling pretty confident with my plan and pressed the Return To Home button. The drone shot straight up fifty feet, stopping only when it hit a tree branch and crashed to the ground. The impact broke one of the four propeller arms, and needless to say, it will no longer fly. I do not understand the logic of sending the drone straight up before heading home.

It took me four days to get it to fly, and another three days to crash and break it; I should have rested on the seventh day instead of flying it; I remember reading that somewhere. Hopefully I can send the drone to be repaired, but I am not too optimistic about the likelihood of success. In any case, Happy Thanksgiving to all; there is always much to be grateful for.