Monthly Archives: August 2006

Flashback Friday #13: Lay Lady, Lay…..

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…Lay Across My Big Grass Bed.

Skeletal remains of Lady

My apologies to Bob Dylan, but how else could I introduce the gentle readers of this blog to Lady (or at least her remains)?

This ranch takes on it’s present form due to the labors of a family I shall call the Farmers.  The Farmers built the present day house and most of the outbuildings in 1980.  They lived here, working the land, raising cattle and operating a small dairy operation until 1996, when they sold the ranch to other owners.

There are three generations of the Farmer family that lived here.  The Farmer parents, the Farmer children, and the Farmer grandchildren.  In fact, a Farmer daughter gave birth to a Farmer grandchild right in the master bedroom of this house.

Eventually, we came to purchase this property in 2001.  In the course of moving our belongings into the house, I discovered an envelope taped to the underside of a desk drawer.  Naturally, curiosity took hold, and I opened the envelope to find a multi-page hand written letter within.  The letter was addressed to nobody in particular, and yet was written as if intended for everybody.  One of the Farmer grandchildren had penned this letter just prior to moving away from this ranch for good.

As I read this letter, I recall that tears began to well up in my eyes, as it soon became obvious how much this young woman loved both the property and the lifestyle that went along with living here.  It was apparent that she leaving the property out of necessity and not choice, which made me feel very bad for this unknown young woman.  Somewhere within the text of her open letter, she mentioned the names of various people that had enjoyed life on this ranch, and at one point the name Lady came up.  I did not think much of the reference at the time, other than to think that Lady was an unusual name (or nickname) for a person.  After sharing the letter that I had found with Retta, I filed it away in a safe place, for posterity’s sake.

Some time later, Retta and I happened to have the opportunity to meet the Farmer family.  At our gathering, when we mentioned the existence of the open letter we had found, one of the Farmers inquired as to whether we had discovered letter #2, written by another of the Farmer grandchildren.  When we replied that we had not yet found this second letter, they told us where it was located.  Just as they had indicated, the letter lay hidden behind the back wall studs of an under-stairs storage closet in the basement.  It was so well hidden that we would have never stumbled upon it, had we not been steered in the right direction by the Farmers.  The second letter had the same poignient tone as the first letter, and again I found a lump in my throat as I read it’s contents.  This second letter also contained a reference to someone named Lady, just as the first letter had.

So that sums up the two open letters that we discovered (with some help, I have to admit).  In the meanwhile, shortly after moving here we began an intense exploration of the hills and hollers of this ranch.  Along a fence line, in a very remote section of the property, we came upon the skeletal remains of a horse, which seemed to be in fairly good condition.  For reasons that I still cannot explain, I felt a desire to bring the horse’s skeletal head over to the house, where we set it among our collection of “yard art.”  And there it remained for quite a long time.

Fast forward a couple of years.  We received a telephone call from a Farmer grandson, who asked if he could come visit the property and reminisce.  We readily agreed, and soon he was hiking and exploring the property he knew so well as a child.  As I began to pick his brain for tidbits of information regarding the history of this ranch, I happened to ask him who this “Lady” was, that I had read about in the letters left by his sisters.  He explained that Lady was a gentle old nag that was ridden frequently by the Farmer grandchildren, and that when she died in 1994, they placed her carcass in a far corner of the property to decompose, which is where Retta and I found the remains.

Now that we knew the history behind the skeletal remains, and the attachment of the Farmer grandchildren to this nag named Lady, we felt that is was almost sacrilegious to leave her skeletal head among our yard art.  So I immediately took the remains out of our yard and returned them to where we had originally found them.  The picture above was taken where the bones now lay, in their former location.

What has surprised me is how the bones have been left undisturbed (except for the temporary relocation that we put them through) for such a long period of time.  It is twelve years since Lady died, and yet the bones remain in the location where first placed, unchewed and unmolested by the native wildlife.

Whenever we pass by Lady’s remains, we pay our respects, now that we know of her past connection to the originators of this ranch.  And I have vowed not to disturb her remains ever again!

Wildblue Satellite Broadband Update

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I have had a number of comments inquiring about my experience with Wildblue Broadband Satellite Internet access, so I thought I would write a post pertaining to my experiences with this service.  The original installation occurred in January of 2006, and the post regarding the installation and subsequent comments can be found here.

Wildblue Satellite dish

Wildblue Satellite Broadband is one of several satellite Internet service providers.  Wildblue has targeted the rural areas of the country in it’s marketing, and has teamed up with rural electric cooperatives and small telecommunications companies to provide installation and support.  Wildblue offers three levels of access to consumers as follows:

  1. $49.95/month  -  512Kpbs/download, 128Kbps/upload
  2. $69.95/month  -  1.0 Mbps/download, 200Kbps/upload
  3. $79.95/month  -  1.5 Mpbs/download, 256Kpbs/upload

All subscribers will have to buy their equipment, which consists of the satellite dish, a dedicated satellite modem, and a surge suppressor for both the power and coaxial leads. The cost of the equipment package is currently $299.   Wildblue seems to have a perpetual promotion which offers free standard installation.  If a special type of installation is required, you will have to pay your local installer for the additional parts and labor.

Wildblue maintains a web based BBS type forum for the benefit of subscribers, which can be found here.

My background with Internet access is fairly limited.  For years I was saddled with dial-up access, which as you probably know, leaves much to be desired.  After moving to this rural property, we opted for ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) service, which was made available to us through Northern Arkansas Regional Telephone Company (NATCO).  ISDN is a dedicated telephone line to each subscribing household, and offers the convenience of always-on service with speeds up to 128Kbps.  The ISDN line can be used for telephone service simultaneous with web browsing or faxing.  Wanting faster download speed than ISDN could provide, I was quick to jump at the opportunity to move up to satellite broadband when it became available in my area.  Using NATCO as the agent for Wildblue, I subscribed to the fastest service available (1.5Mbps/256Kpbs) at $79.95 per month.

My experience with Wildblue has been varied.  In terms of speed, the advertised 1.5Mbps that I am paying for is usually achieved.  Using the on-line testing available at Testmy.net, my service has consistently fallen in the range of 1.5Mbps-1.6Mbps, just as I would expect.  Occasionally, download speeds will fall to 1.0Mbps, but this has only rarely occurred.   Although download speeds occur as expected, upload speed is a distressing 48Kbps, which is a far cry from the 256Kbps that I am paying for.  In reviewing the postings on the Wildblue Forums, I find that my experience in this regard is pretty wide spread. Complaints about slow upload speeds (relative to advertised upload speeds) are common in the forums.

The other aspect of Wildblue service that has to be examined is service reliability.  In this regard, Wildblue has fallen far short of my (and other subscribers) expectations.  Wildblue satellite Internet access is supposed to be an “always on” service, much like DSL or cable Internet access.  However, with Wildblue, you can expect to find that you have no service from time to time.  It is not unusual to have the modem lose contact with the satellite while you are in the middle of some computing activity.  If you happen to be in the middle of a banking transaction, or in the process of making an on-line purchase, this can be a disconcerting situation.  On some days, this might happen a dozen times throughout the day.  On other days, satellite contact is never lost.  Sometimes you may go for days at a time without loss of service, while at other times, service loss occurs day in and day out, for weeks at a time.

Unfortunately, Wildblue does not seem to be on the ball in providing accurate, timely information to it’s customer base.  Communications with the company, both through it’s website, and by telephone support, seems to be a one-way street.  The bulk of complaints that appear in the Wildblue forums do not seem to ever be addressed by the staff of Wildblue.  My impression is that there are many dissatisfied customers, who would appreciate better service and communication from Wildblue, but who are trapped in a one-sided contract with Wildblue, and have no practical alternatives to the poor service (short of switching back to dial-up service).

The following message from the Wildblue forums sums up one customer’s dissatisfaction:

http://www.wildblue.cc/wbforums/showthread.php?t=2769

It is a must read for anyone considering Wildblue service now, or in the future.

The other issue that must be raised with satellite Internet access, via Wildblue or any of the other vendors, is the issue of latency.  I am not knowledgeable about computer networking, network infrastructures, or any other aspect of the Internet’s inner workings.  I only know what I have come to expect when I “click” on a link on a web page. 

My experience with dial-up and ISDN service takes the following form:

Click on a link – wait a fraction of a second, and the page begins to load, albeit slowly.

Start a download of a large file – wait a fraction of a second, and the file begins to download, albeit slowly.

My experience with satellite Internet access takes the following form:

Click on a link – wait SEVERAL seconds, and the page loads instantly.

Start a download of a large file – wait SEVERAL seconds, and the file begins to download, albeit very rapidly.

The obvious question is, would I recommend Wildblue Satellite Broadband Internet access base upon my own experiences?  One indicator of my answer is that I do not plan to cancel my Wildblue service anytime soon.  Although the latency issue can be maddening at times, and the upload speeds are dreadful, and the inconsistency of reliable service can disrupt important on-line business activities, the alternatives are just too painful to bear.  Would I jump ship at the first opportunity to subscribe to DSL or cable Internet access?  You bet I would, and I would never look back to my days as a satellite subscriber.  Much like a passenger on a crowded bus, you get the feeling that, yes, it is uncomfortable, but it sure beats walking to your destination.

AFTERNOON UPDATE:

Wouldn’t you know it, but as I tried to publish this post today, the Wildblue system went into a tizzy.  Long load times for the pages, several attempts necessary to save pages to my server, etc.  I performed on-line broadband speed tests from testmy.net and cnet.com, and the results for download speed varied from .536Mbps to .640Mbps, which is about 1/3 the 1.5Mbps speed that I am paying for.

A worse problem occurs when I perform some ping tests.  Issuing the following command at the command prompt:

        C:>ping yahoo.com -n 20

results in some horrible statistics, notably latency in the range of 800ms-1200ms.  Worse yet, the timeouts and lost packets are horrendous.  Out of 20 packets sent, 5 packets were lost.

I have looked at some recent posts on the Wildblue forums, and it seems that I am not alone in these results.  It seems that beam 35 (which is the spot beam for my area) is experiencing a multitude of problems at this time.  I will post the results of further speed and ping tests as updates to this post over the next several days, just to see whether or not there is any improvement.

2nd AFTERNOON UPDATE:

As I went to save the first afternoon update, my Wildblue satellite modem lost connection with the satellite.  The connection was down for the past two hours, and I am hoping to finish this update before it goes out again.  This seems to be the type of service that is occuring throughout the Wildblue system, so if you can live within these constraints, the service is acceptable.

3rd AFTERNOON UPDATE:

After the Wildblue satellite modem automatically reconnected with the Wildblue satellite, I am now achieving download speeds of 1.55Mbps, which is the speed to which I am subscribed.  A C:>ping yahoo.com -n 20 command now results in an average latency of 670ms, with zero dropped packets.

So for the time being, it is all systems go!

___________________________________________________

TUESDAY UPDATE

Noon Tuesday:

Download speed is .881Mbps, or roughly 1/2 of what it should be.

Ping test results in 1 lost packet out of 20 sent.

 

8:00pm Tuesday:

Download speed has dropped to .550Mbps, or 1/3 of what it should be.

Ping test results in 8 lost packets out of 20 sent.

Browsing web pages becomes painfully slow, with many retries required to load a page.

_____________________________________________

WEDNESDAY UPDATE

 

7:30am Wednesday

Download speed is 1.57Mpbs, which is what I am subscribed for.

C:>ping yahoo.com -n 20 command results in zero packets lost in twenty attempts.

 

11:00am Wednesday

Download speed is down to .63Mbps from the 1.57Mbps of earlier this morning.

C:>ping yahoo.com -n 20 results in 5 out of 20 packets being lost.

C:>ping southshore.cc -n 20 results in 7 out of 20 packets being lost.

 

7:00pm Wednesday

Download speed is now down to .42Mbps, less than 1/3 of subscribed speed.

C:>ping southshore.cc -n 20 results in 10 out of 20 packets being lost.

 

8:30pm Wednesday

Download speed has dropped to .32Mbps, or approximately 1/5 of subscribed speed.

The performance of Wildblue satellite service has been totally unacceptable today.  Tomorrow I will contact NRTC (my local telephone company who is an agent for Wildblue) technical support to see if this can be resolved.  It is possible that there is a problem with the dish alignment, the TRIA (transmit/receive unit at dish), the satellite modem or the dish grounding that is the offending culprit.

____________________________________________

THURSDAY UPDATE

I did not have the time to deal with tech support today, so just a recap of Wildblue performance for the day.

Download speed I pay for is 1.5Mbps

9:00am – Download speed is 1.57Mbps – right where it’s supposed to be.

2:30pm – Dowload speed is .76Mbps – 1/2 of subscribed speed.

5:30pm – Download speed is 1.79Mbps – higher than subscribed for.

5:35pm – Modem lost connection with satellite.

8:00pm – Modem has finally reconnected with satellite, but speed is .74Mbps, or half of subscribed speed.

Oh My! Where Did It Go?

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In a previous post entitled The Catfish Pond, I described one of the ponds located on this property, and discussed the problem of insufficient water clarity in that pond.  Today’s post is about another pond on the opposite side of the ranch property.  It is a spring-fed pond, so naturally we call it the “spring pond.”  Whereas the catfish pond is plagued by insufficient water clarity, the spring pond is beset by insufficient water!  This is a recent occurrence, and one which has us scratching our heads and wondering what course of action, if any, to take.  To understand our dilemma, it is necessary to present a little background information.

The spring pond is fed by a small fresh water spring that, to my knowledge, has been steadily and reliably flowing for at least the past 3 decades.  Below is a picture of the spring as it flows into the pond, which was taken April 10th of this year.

Spring outflow into spring pond

Although this is a small spring, it has provided an ample enough flow to keep the small spring pond full year round, even through the heat and dryness of our summers here in the Ozarks.  Each spring and summer, the grasses in and around the pond will grow in abundance, and each winter the grasses and other vegetation die off, amassing as a thick organic matting on the pond floor.  Over time, this organic matter had built up to the point that something needed to be done, lest the pond fill itself in and cease to exist at all.  The photograph below, also taken on April 10th, show the condition of this small pond at the time –

Spring pond on April 10th, 2006

After examining the pond in April, Retta and I decided that we would schedule a pond cleaning for the spring of 2007, which would entail the services of an excavator and a bulldozer to dredge and reshape the pond to it’s previous spring-fed glory.  In the meantime, I thought that I would introduce several grass carp (white amur) into the spring pond to see if they would help consume the excess grasses in the pond.  We have had success with this method of pond vegetation control in yet another pond on our property (see The Grassing of the Carp), and we were confident that the carp would work in this pond as well.

When the local farm store scheduled a fish stocking day in early May, I was the first in line at the stocking truck to order my 4 grass carp.  Returning to the ranch, I followed the recommended procedures for introducing and acclimating the carp into the spring-fed pond, and proceeded to forget about them for the time being.  On July 2, roughly two months after introducing the carp into the pond, I decided it was time to check the progress of my experiment.  Returning to the pond on July 2, this is what I found –

Spring pond on July 2, 2006

You can see in the photo above that the carp were doing their job, slowly but surely.  In previous years, by July the grasses would have completely covered the entire pond surface, and so it was evident that the carp were making a big difference in the vegetative mass in the pond.  Satisfied with the progress that the carp were making, I again put this pond out of my mind, and proceeded on with other tasks at hand.

It has been a little over a month since I last inspected the spring pond, so this morning (August 6) I thought it would be a good idea to mosey on over and see what was happening over there.  The first sign that something was amiss is shown in the following photo –

Dried up water hole

This creek bed is just below the outflow from the spring pond.  It has been a reliable watering hole for the animals, as it has always been supplied with a fresh supply of water from the spring pond.  As you (and George) can see, it is now bone-dry, as dry as dry can be.

Fearing the worst, I continued on over to the spring pond, and as you can infer from the following photo, I was not happy with what I saw.  From the same vantage point as the previous photographs, you can see that the spring pond has shrunk to a fraction of it’s former size, and the spring itself can no longer replace water lost to evaporation.

Spring pond August 8, 2006

For what it’s worth, the carp still seem to be doing their job, as the following photograph shows that the remaining small amount of water left in the pond is clear of vegetation.

Small amount of water remains in the pond on August 6, 2006

But I am doubtful that the pond will contain any water at all come September, unless something radical changes in the interim.  The following photo shows the diminished flow coming from the spring, which can be compared to the very first photo in this post, which was taken this past April.

Spring outflow into pond as of August 6, 2006

So now Retta and I face the dilemma – what to do with this pond?  We had originally intended on hiring heavy equipment to visit our property for the purpose of cleaning out the pond.  But if the spring itself is drying out, we will probably be wasting our time and limited resources undertaking this project.  Is this spring experiencing a reduced water flow that is just a temporary aberration, or are we feeling some of the effects of global and regional temperature changes that are here to stay?  Inquiring minds want to know!