expand the area being searched Saturday, March 19 2016
This morning I made myself a french press of coffee, filled my travel mug, and took the dogs down to the Esopus cornfield for what I assumed would be another boring morning of them standing around with nothing to do while I systematically hunted for the lost drone. From experience, I know that if something isn't being found in the area being systematically searched, it's a good idea to expand the area being searched. Last night it had occurred to me that perhaps the drone had fallen behind a microhorizon (a little undulation in the field's topography) somewhat west of the general eastward slope nearer the Esopus. So this morning I began a systematic search farther to the west (that is, closer to where I'd launched the drone). I also decided to range somewhat more southward. (The north end of the field was now an unlikely area for the drone to have landed, since the landscape was somewhat concave there and could be quickly examined while standing in one place.) I don't think I'd been searching more than five minutes when I saw a pattern of gleaming in the sun-drenched grass that could only be a Syma X5C drone. I reached down, picked it up, and shook it to dispel the droplets of dew. The little bastard!
I continued southward from there with Eleanor, determined to give her a proper walk. Unfortunately, Ramona had become caught up in some attraction in the field, where she'd begun to excavate a hole. She did not join us on our walk, though I could see her in the distance as a black spot on the field even when I was third of a mile away. Eleanor and I walked to a point in the field (41.918396N, 74.080184W) where a low ridge of the Hurley Mountain escarpment clears from view and it is possible to look up Dug Hill Road and see our house near the top. To the unaided eye, it's hard to tell that the thing being seen is a man-made object, but I'd brought binoculars, and using them I could see the top of the east-facing gable above our upstairs bedroom, some 1.67 miles to the west-northwest. I could also see a structure belonging to our downhill neighbors, as well as the glint off a window of a car passing by on Dug Hill Road.
When I returned to Ramona, she was no longer digging and seemed to instead be chasing things short distances through the grass. She was so obsessed with this activity that she didn't join Eleanor and me on our walk back to the car. I decided to send my drone on another flight. Though there was a hand-numbingly cold breeze blowing, the sun was bright and conditions were mostly favorable for flight. I managed to have a nice flight and I didn't lose my drone. When I finally wanted to leave the field, I had to drive over to where Ramona still was and demand that she get into the car, which she eventually (if reluctantly) did.
This is video from the first of yesterday's two flights. The second one, which ended up in the drone being lost for most of a day, didn't actually record any video.
Today's flight. The last half of the video is just it lying on its back (until I manage to walk to it), but I didn't feel like editing it.
Back at the house, I celebrated the successful drone recovery with a 150 milligram dose of dextromethorphan, the active ingredient in tussin DM. That's about half of a proper recreational dose, but I hadn't taken it recreationally since 2013 and wasn't sure how my body would react. Also, I'm still coughing up chunks of phlegm, so the dose wasn't entirely intended as recreation. I went down to the greenhouse and basked in the sunny warmth there, though temperatures there never rose into the 80s. It's possible the sun is now too high to get it that warm, especially when outdoor temperatures are cold (it felt unseasonably cold today, though it turns out that conditions were almost perfectly average for this time of year).
Later I went back to the house and binge-watched old episodes of Moonshiners. I used to consider that show an implausibility standout, as it would be impossible to film actual moonshiners doing their thing at a still site. But in recent years I've come to realize that all reality shows are essentially fabrications, with scenes shot months apart edited together to make "stories." So as implausible as Moonshiners is, the actual subject of the show, the making of moonshine, is a lot more compelling than, say, the destruction of vast Yukon acreage in the extraction of insufficient gold to pay for the fuel necessary to obtain it. Also, some of the moonshiners are much easier to root for than any of the gold miners on Gold Rush. I particularly like "Josh and Bill," two youngish men with a propensity for flying into frustrated rages and building elaborately-concealed distillation bunkers. They have a delightful innate affection for animals; in addition to their rescue dogs Cutiepie and a mid-sized Pit mix, they now also have a mischievous Raccoon they evidently raised to adulthood after its mother was killed by a car. Also, the show has improved since the last time I saw it. It now has a better visual design, complete with short Requiem-For-A-Dream-style interludes between scenes.
After watching a couple episodes and drinking a little beer and liquor, I stood up to take a piss and that was when I really felt the dextromethorphan in my body. I can't say it was particularly fun; it felt a little more like an illness than I would have preferred. I was reminded at that point why it is one generally likes to walk around in the forest while under its effects. You need to move to feel it, and it throws a nice envelope of oddness around the world.
Later I made myself a stir fry of mushrooms, onions, tofu, green peppers, and egg plant. Those last two ingredients are ones Gretchen never uses; she hates both. Furthermore, she never uses Nasoya tofu, which she considers highly inferior. But it's the only kind one can get at Hannaford, and I think it's perfectly fine.
