With a dry morning on tap I took care of chores after breakfast while Linda worked on preparations for dinner. First I photographed trees around our entire property that were dead or obviously distressed and not doing well. Next I took all of the sections of our Heights aluminum tower off of the back deck, where they have been stored since we bought it in May, and laid them out in the yard in the order in which they go together. I then photographed all of the pieces, including details of how they interconnect, along with the fold-over assembly, fold-over motor, and bearing plate.
Thrust bearing plate for ham radio tower.
I transferred the photos to my computer and then processed a selection of the tower photos, resizing and sharpening them. I put them in a folder in my Dropbox and e-mailed the link to Heights Tower Systems along with a description of what we have, what we intend to do, and what we think we need to do it. I also gave them the name of the amateur radio operator we bought the tower from. He was the original owner.
The gear-motor for the fold-over mount. Mast rotor in the plastic bag to the right.
Fold-over mount standing up on hinge end.
One meaning of having “words with friends” suggests that they might not be your friends anymore, but in this case it’s the name of an online game from Hasbro that Linda plays with Karen Limkemann. Karen and Steve came to visit this today and arrived around 3:30 PM. We all talked for an hour and then Steve and I went to my office to look at our Linux computer while Linda started pulling dinner together.
Ham radio tower sections laid out in the yard end-to-end.
Linda spent much of yesterday and this morning preparing this meal. She made a salad dressing from scratch, crushed red lentil soup from scratch, pita bread from scratch, mixed up a small batch of garlic butter, and made Koshary from scratch. We had a semi-dry white wine from Leelanau Cellars with the meal, and red grapes for dessert. The meal was truly outstanding.
Heights Tower Systems aluminum tower sections laid out in the yard.
After dinner we took a stroll around the property and showed them the landscaping work, the (disassembled) ham tower, the proposed location of the barn, and the natural gas and HVAC projects. Back at the house we discussed past travels and future plans at some length before they needed to head for home.