Author Archives: Maria Langer

Watching the Weather

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It’s that time of year again.

I’m deep into my sixth season in central Washington State, working as a cherry drying pilot.

It’s an interesting gig. I need to be available to fly at a moment’s notice on any day that it rains. But if it doesn’t rain, I don’t work. And if there’s no chance of rain, I can argue that I have the day off.

So my life revolves around the weather.

Radar
Current radar shows a storm system to the southwest heading my way. If it doesn’t dissipate, I expect it to arrive within 2 hours.

7-Day Forecast
There’s rain in the forecast for the next three days.

Hourly Forecast
The hourly forecast shows a 32% chance of rain now rising to a 47% chance at 5 PM.

I start every day with a look at the current radar on the Radar US app on my iPad or iPhone — and yes, both are nearby, even when I’m in bed. If there’s any rain in the area, I put the radar in motion to see which way it’s going. Then I look at the week’s forecast on the National Weather Service website. If there’s any chance of rain for the day there, I look at the hourly forecast to get an idea of when the rain is expected.

The screenshots here from my iPad gives you an idea of what all of these sources look like right now.

I tentatively plan my day based on this weather information. On a day like today, I won’t wander far from base. There’s a decent chance of rain and a look outside shows me the cloudy day that proves it. Although I won’t get called until it starts raining (or finishes), it could start at any time. So I’ll spend most of the day watching the radar and looking outside, waiting for my phone to ring.

On some days — Thursday comes to mind — it might rain all day. Although it seems like I should be flying all day I only fly when I’m called to fly. My clients don’t want me to fly more than I have to — after all, it costs them money when I fly — so they try hard to wait until they think it’s done raining to call me out. That’s what most of them did on Thursday. They let their cherry trees get and stay wet all day. Then at about 5 PM, my phone started ringing. 12 acres here, 40 acres there. I’d shut down and had even tied down the rotor blades for the night when I got another call at 8:20 PM with a request. I didn’t want to go — I don’t dry after dark — but the sun doesn’t set here until about 9 PM and even though the sun wasn’t out, I thought I’d have enough light to do another 34 acres 20 miles away. So I untied the blades and took off. While I was drying that orchard, a call to dry another 7 acres nearby came in. It was nearly dark when I finished that one, climbed to altitude to avoid wires and other obstacles, and headed back to base. I was on the ground at 9:40 PM — a lot later than I wanted to finish my flying day. But I did have happy clients.

Growers were likely able to get away with the long wet day on Thursday because it was so cool out. But I clearly remember a similar day last year when it rained all day long. Although one of my growers had me come out to “dry” several times during the day, another decided to wait until the end of the day. Guess which grower had split cherries the next day? It was a lot warmer that day and the guy who waited until the end of the day paid for his hesitation with a damaged crop. Unfortunately, he blamed me. I know better, but you just can’t argue with some people. I wasn’t too disappointed to lose that contract for this year. I don’t like taking the blame for someone else’s actions — or lack of actions.

But it makes me wonder: if they’re paying me to stand by and come quickly when called, why don’t they call?

Let’s do the math. A typical cherry orchard can bring in 8 to 15 tons of cherries per acre. If we use a conservative 10 tons (which was very reasonable last year, given the heavy set), each acre of trees yields 20,000 pounds of cherries. I can dry about 40 acres of trees for less than $1000. 40 acres is about 800,000 pounds of cherries. If the grower gets $1/pound for those cherries, that’s $800,000. Is it worth $1000 to protect that? I think so.

Keep in mind that if more than 50% of the cherries split or rot, the crop won’t be worth picking at all.

But hey — it’s their decision. I just watch the weather and fly when I’m called.

Of course, when there’s no chance of rain, I kinda sorta have the day off. I’ll wander farther afield — perhaps to Wenatchee or Leavenworth or even Chelan — keeping an eye on the sky and the radar. I’ll run errands, do chores, visit friends, shop, and eat out. Maybe I’ll take out the kayak on Quincy Lakes or my little jet boat on the Columbia River. The whole time I’m out, I’ll be thinking about the weather, watching the weather, being aware of how long it would take me to get back to base if the weather changes.

Traveling farther from base — for example, to Seattle or Portland — is completely out of the question unless another pilot stays behind to back me up. Right now I have one backup pilot and enough work for both of us. Later I’ll have another and enough work for all three of us. So traveling is not in my immediate future.

My life will go on like this until the end of my last contract, on or around August 15.

Smoking Ribs
I really do love my new Traeger. If you could only smell them…

I’m not complaining — not at all. Hanging around Quincy and, later, Wenatchee Heights, is not something a reasonable person can complain about. After all, I’ve got all the comforts of home — more, actually, because it isn’t 110°F outside — in my Mobile Mansion. And even now, as I type this, I’ve got 3 racks of St. Louis ribs on my new Traeger grill, smoking away.

With luck, we’ll get a chance to enjoy them fresh and hot before the rain comes.

My Helicopter is NOT a Birdhouse

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Or is it?

Like I did the past four summers, this May I parked my helicopter outdoors at an ag strip — a simple runway used by crop-dusters — near the RV park where I begin my summer work season in Quincy, WA. (My first season here, in 2008, I managed to get a hangar at Quincy Airport.) My “helipad” is a concrete tie-down pad, created long ago when the ag strip was busier and was home to more airplanes.

These days, the strip is home to just one crop-duster, a yellow turbine biplane that barely fits inside a big hangar on the strip. That airplane’s predecessor was parked, partially disassembled, on the concrete pad in front of mine, tied down with frayed ropes. Its big radial engine had bled out its oil reserve years ago, leaving a grimy patch on the pavement that had absorbed dust and dirt and small pebbles throughout the years. Last year, part of its tail section was taken away. What remained was broken and forlorn, a sad reminder of what might have been a glorious past, its bright yellow paint faded and dirty from a long spell in purgatory outdoors.

Parking at the Ag Strip

Over time, birds had built nests inside its wings. They’d done this long before I arrived in 2009; I saw them come and go right from the first day I was there. Bits and pieces of straw stuck out of odd places. A bird would perch on a strut or cowling, then disappear into the airframe. I watched them while I was warming up my aircraft for a flight, or when cooling down at the conclusion of one.

The plane was still there when I arrived this May. But a few days later, I saw a flatbed trailer working near it. And then, one day, it was gone.

I hoped it was going to a new home, someplace where it would be rebuilt and would return to the sky.

Birds in the Fan Scroll

I was in Phoenix later that month, dealing with personal business, when my phone rang. It was the owner of the ag strip, Randy, who also flew the turbine crop-duster in the hangar. He’d never called me before. I didn’t even know he had my number.

“What’s up?” I asked him after we exchanged greetings.

“I’ll let Dalton explain,” he said.

I think my blood pressure must have jumped up a few points. Dalton was Randy’s ground guy. He spent a lot of time tearing around the strip on an ATV, running between the hangar and the refueling area and chemical loading area. I imagined him having some kind of mishap that involved the helicopter.

“I saw some birds flying in and out of the back of your helicopter,” Dalton told me. “When I looked in there, it looked like they were building a nest. I covered it up so they couldn’t get back in,” he finished.

Okay. A bird nest. Not something I wanted to deal with, but at least it wasn’t some sort of accident that involved the helicopter’s airframe. I thanked him for keeping an eye on things for me and for covering it up. I told him I’d be back in a few days and we hung up.

It made sense, when I thought about it. With the big biplane gone, a lot of birds were homeless. They moved to the closest replacement — my helicopter.

Nest in the Fan ScrollWhen I returned, I found the fan scroll cowl covered with cloth that turned out to be two old coveralls. I pulled them off to find a mess in the back end of the helicopter. Birds had flown between the fins on the fan scroll cowl (consult photo above) and had brought all kinds of hay and twigs. They’d left nesting materials inside the cowl and inside the fan itself. And there was a ton of bird poop.

What a mess!

I returned to my RV to fetch my battery powered screw driver, some hot water, and some rags. Then I got to work. First I removed the two screws holding in one of the fan cowl fins and attempted to remove all the material by reaching in. It soon became obvious that that simply wouldn’t work. So I removed the entire cowl — which involved removing about 20 screws — and began scooping out the junk I found. It took quite a while; there was an amazing quantity of the stuff. I wiped up as best as I could with the water and rags.

By then, Randy and Dalton had come by to chat. They told me to use the hose in the hangar. So I carried the filthy cowl into the hangar and cleaned it as well as I could with the hose and a brush.

Plastic over Fan CowlWhen I was satisfied all the nesting material was out and the cowl was as clean as I’d get it, I put it all back together. Then I used plastic bags to cover up the fins so birds couldn’t fly back in there. That would have to protect it until I flew again.

I should mention here that I opened all the inspection doors and looked carefully throughout the interior of the cowling to make sure that was the only nest they’d built. I admit that I was surprised that they hadn’t built anything in the main inspection area, near the upper sheave, beneath the hydraulic reservoir, or under the main rotor gearbox. I tapped on the mast cowling and tailcone in an attempt to scare out any birds that might be in there. Nothing. Not any other trace of birds anywhere.

What a relief.

Flying an Aging Aircraft

I started doing a lot of flying a few days later — charter flights, mostly. I removed the plastic bags, preflighted thoroughly, and saw no other sign of birds. When I flew, everything seemed fine.

Well, I did notice that the engine seemed to run a little warmer than usual.

The cylinder head temperature gauge has a little tick mark about 2/3 from the top. In the 8 years and 1600 hours I’ve flown the helicopter, temperature in flight is usually right around this line. It might be slightly to the left (cooler) on a cool day and slightly to the right (warmer) on a hot Arizona day. I’d never seen it to the right of the line in Washington state — it simply didn’t get hot enough. Yet that spring the temperature consistently reached and edged slightly past that line.

The engine was running warm.

At the same time, I noticed that the engine was warming up a bit quicker than usual. I figure it was because outside temperatures were pretty warm. That would also explain why it took a bit longer to cool down.

I also noticed a slight decrease in performance — I simply couldn’t maintain the 110 knots cruise speed I’d usually gotten when flying light. That could have something to do with the accumulation of dust and bird poop on the top of the main rotor blades. I cleared it off as best as I could as often as I could. I also figured that the performance issues might have something to do with engine compression; I’d learn more at its next 100 hour inspection.

Hell, my helicopter was getting old. Little changes like this were bound to happen.

Overall, however, the helicopter ran smoothly without any problems. I did numerous charter flights and numerous cherry drying flights without any problems whatsoever.

I did also notice some fresh bird poop on the fan scroll cowling, but regular examination of the area failed to show any trace of bird habitation. I figured that the birds just liked perching and pooping there with their old biplane home gone.

I should have known better.

The 50-Hour Inspection

I dried 73 acres of cherry trees yesterday morning. Afterwards, I landed at Wenatchee Airport, waiting for more expected weather to move in. I had just 2 hours left on my Hobbs meter before I’d need a 50-hour inspection. A 50-hour consists of an oil change with a filter change plus the removal of the spark plugs for inspection and cleaning.

When it became obvious that weather wasn’t moving in anytime soon, I figured I’d get the 50-hour inspection taken care of while I was there; more rain was expected the next day and I didn’t want to overrun the inspection time. I ran up the engine and repositioned the helicopter in front of Alpine Aviation’s hangar. While I was driving down into Wenatchee to fetch a case of oil, the excellent mechanics there would drain the helicopter’s oil and start working on the plugs.

Bird NesI was gone about 45 minutes. (I admit I also stopped at Dairy Queen for a chocolate shake.) When I returned with the oil, I saw a bird nest, complete with pale blue eggs, on the floor in the hangar.

I put the case of oil down and looked up at the ceiling. “Did this blow off the roof or something?” I asked Mike, who was working nearby.

“No,” he replied. “Cass pulled that out of your helicopter.”

I stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

But Mike wasn’t kidding. “He’s got quite a mess to clean up.”

I went outside to take a look. The left side panel was off and the panel that normally hid the top half of the engine was also off. Cass was pulling bits and pieces of straw off the engine’s cooling fins.

Nest on my Engine“I got a picture of it,” he told me. On his phone, he showed me a photo of the engine with hay stuffed into the area on top of it.

“Both sides?” I asked.

“Mostly this side,” he assured me. “But it’s in the oil cooler, too.”

He spent an extra half hour with a shop vac and compressed air, cleaning the nest out of the engine compartment. Mike waited until he’d gotten most of it out before pulling the plugs on that side.

As you might imagine, I was troubled by this. A preflight inspection should find problems like this. But mine hadn’t. The nest had obviously been in there for some time — perhaps a month or more. It was probably causing the warm operating temperatures I’d noticed. (With luck) it could be causing the dip in performance, too.

Fortunately, it hadn’t caused a fire.

I talked to Cass about it. He assured me that there was no way I would have spotted it on a preflight. He had to remove two panels — both of which were secured with screwdrivers — to see the nest. This is not something that’s done on any kind of standard preflight inspection. And since the temperature and performance issues I’d noticed were not substantial, there was no reason to go beyond a standard preflight inspection.

Lessons Learned

A few lessons can be learned from this experience:

  • If an aircraft is left outdoors, in an area known for bird nesting activity, a preflight inspection should include a search for any bird activity at all. Poop is a good indication of bird activity.
  • If an aircraft you’ve been flying for years suddenly shows any change in gauge readings or performance, it could indicate an issue that needs to be found. Look beyond a preflight inspection; think about what could have changed since you noticed the different readings.
  • A preflight inspection cannot uncover all problems with an aircraft. It’s limited by what you have access to when you make the inspection.

Knowing all this, would I do anything different? Yes. The next time I see a change in the helicopter’s gauges or performance, I’ll follow up with a mechanic. I may have been lucky this time; I might not be so lucky next time.

Twitter and Writing

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Some thoughts on a New Yorker essay.

Twitter LogoI read an interesting essay on the New Yorker magazine’s website yesterday: “The Ongoing Story: Twitter and Writing.” It was one of those pieces that, as you read it, you realize that you and the author are sharing the same thoughts about something that you thought you were alone in thinking. As I read through the piece, I found myself wanting to highlight different passages of it — the parts of it where the author put into words what I’d been thinking or feeling for a long time.

So I figured I’d blog a little about it to store those thoughts here.

For example, the author of the piece, Thomas Beller, writes:

Most great writers could, if they wanted to, be very good at Twitter, because it is a medium of words and also of form. Its built-in limitation corresponds to the sense of rhythm and proportion that writers apply to each line.

And that’s the challenge of Twitter. Sharing a complete thought in 140 characters. I wrote about that back in October 2010 (was it really that long ago?) in my blog post titled “How Twitter Can Help You Become a More Concise Writer.” After all, anyone can write a string of tweets to tell a story. But how many people can convey that story in just 140 characters? How many people can be interesting, funny, provocative, witty, sarcastic, ironic, or insightful?

Yes, it’s true: I do tweet photos of some of my meals. (Don’t we all?) But occasionally I get more serious. Occasionally I dig deeper and come up with something witty or profound, something that other people find worthy of retweeting or, better yet, favoriting.

(Ever wonder how the word favorite became a verb? I did, too. Then I asked all-knowing Google and it pointed me to this article that explains it. It shouldn’t surprise you that Twitter is involved. But once again, I digress.)

And sometimes — just sometimes — I can paint a visual picture with those 140 characters that’s as clear as a glacial stream on a spring day.

Two more passages touch upon why and how I use Twitter:

Does a piece of writing that is never seen by anyone other than its author even exist? Does a thought need to be shared to exist? What happens to the stray thought that drifts into view, is pondered, and then drifts away? Perhaps you jot it down in a note before it vanishes, so that you can mull it over in the future. It’s like a seed that, when you return to it, may have grown into something visible. Or perhaps you put it in a tweet, making the note public. But does the fact that it is public diminish the chances that it will grow into something sturdy and lasting? Does articulating a thought in public freeze it in place somehow, making it not part of a thought process but rather a tiny little finished sculpture? Is tweeting the same as publishing?

And:

I had always thought of Twitter as being a good place to work out ideas: a place to mull things over in public, and a way of documenting a thought to make it more likely that I would remember it. But is it like a conversation or is it “talking it out?” Is it a note to oneself that everyone can see, or is it, like iPhone photos, an attempt to offload the responsibilities of memory onto an apparatus that feels like an extension of ourselves because it is always in our hands? I sometimes wonder if I might ever be accused of stealing my own idea.

And that’s how I use Twitter: as a sort of running list of my thoughts and the things going on in my life. (That might explain why I’ve tweeted more than 44,000 times since I joined Twitter back in 2007. I think a lot and keep pretty busy.) It’s easy to whip out my phone or iPad and tweet something that’s on my mind — or to save a picture of what’s in front of me in a place where it’ll be forever (or at least a long time). It is an offloading of information so I don’t have to remember things.

Mr Beller wonders whether articulating a thought in public freezes it in place somehow. It does. It freezes it in the Twitter archive, which I can download for my account and search at any time. (How do you think it was so easy for me to come up with the tweets you see here? Imagine that archive in the hands of a paranoid and delusional stalker!) That makes it possible for me to go back in time, to see what I was thinking and doing on a specific date since my first tweet in March 2007.

I can’t think of any easier way to make life notes. Stray thoughts can be captured before they drift away, to be pondered at my leisure. And sometimes — just sometimes — they become the seeds for blog posts or conversations with friends.

Twitter was introduced as a “microblogging” service and that’s exactly how I use it. I assume other writers do the same.

But is tweeting the same as publishing? I don’t think so. It’s more like standing on a soapbox in a crowded park, making random remarks. Some folks who know you’re there and find you interesting might be there to listen. But otherwise, your words go mostly unheard. You can argue that the same can be said for publishing, but publishing seems to be a more legitimate form of communication. Or maybe that’s just old-fashioned thinking on my part.

Managing the anxiety of composition is an essential part of writing. One must master the process of shepherding the private into public. There are bound to be false starts, excursions that turn out to be dead ends. But these ephemera—notes, journals, drafts—are all composed in a kind of psychic antechamber whose main feature is a sense of aloneness. They are the literary equivalent of muttering to yourself in a state of melancholy, or of dancing in front of the mirror with music blasting when you are alone in your room. Both of these are best done when no one is home.

I’ve never found it difficult to write; there is no anxiety for me. That’s not to say that I don’t have false starts and wander down to dead ends. Or, more often than I’d like to admit, write crap.

There is an aloneness to all writing, including Twitter. And yes, tweets are like talking to yourself, but with the very real possibility that (in my case) 1600+ people are listening and may respond. No one is home here except me — I’ve been alone for a long time, even when I supposedly wasn’t.

Almost everybody who is a writer these days gets, at some point, a lecture on the necessity of being “on” Twitter and Facebook. It’s a tool of selling and career building. It is, for writers of all ages and stages, not so much required reading as required writing.

I also got this lecture from one of my publishers. I didn’t need to be sold on Twitter — I took to that like a bird takes to the sky. It was Facebook that I avoided for as long as I could. So long, in fact, that I lost a contract because I wasn’t involved enough in social media. Imagine that! An early adopter of Twitter with tens of thousands of tweets not being involved enough in social media.

Twitter gives writers the ability to put ourselves out there for the world to see. Does it help my writing career? Perhaps — to a point. It certainly helps attract blog readers and give me a steady stream of intelligent people to communicate with.

After five years and more than 44,000 tweets, I know one thing for certain: Twitter has become a part of my writing life.

Courage

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I never thought I’d quote Oprah, but here it is.

I was wasting time yesterday, surfing the web for interesting things, when I came upon an NPR piece about one-liners. In it was a one-liner from Oprah Winfrey:

Having the courage to stand up and pursue your dreams will give you life’s greatest reward and life’s greatest adventure.

And I truly believe this. To me, life is continuous quest to do and learn and see new things. To pursue my dreams.

The Status Quo Trap

It’s easy to sit back and settle in for the long haul in a comfortable home with a comfortable job, doing the same things every day with the same people around you. You know what every day will bring; there are no surprises. Easy, no?

But maybe you dream of doing other things. Maybe you’ve dreamed about some of these things for your entire life, things like starting a business based on one of your hobbies or interests, patenting the inventions of your creativity and imagination, or even just learning a new but difficult skill. Everyone has dreams.

But pursuing these dreams takes courage — the courage to work hard and smart, the courage to face difficult challenges, the courage to accept that the only alternative to success is failure.

So you sit back and relax in your comfy status quo, letting your life slip away with every day, month, and year, letting your dreams slip away with them.

That’s the way a lot of people think. I know — I was married to one of them.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Live

But I don’t think that way.

To me, there’s nothing to life without challenges. There’s always something new to do, something new to learn, something new to see. I’m smart enough to understand that I can’t make these things part of my life without leaving my comfort zone to go after them. And I’m brave enough to do it.

The past year has been a challenge for me — one I did not choose and did not want to face. But I faced it and I got through it. And I’ve emerged on the other side, a better, stronger, and freer person with more self esteem and better health.

And now I face new challenges — some a result of my husband’s betrayal and others of my own choosing. I have the courage to face them. I have the strength to persevere.

As for the events of the past year, well, I look at them as a setback. I expect to be back on track for the semi-retired life with fun and travel that I’d planned (that was well within reach last summer) within a few years. Best of all, I won’t have to drag around the dead weight that was holding me back in recent years.

Oprah is right. I know from experience that pursuing and achieving my dreams is life’s greatest reward. And my life will be an adventure until the end.

How about yours?

Me and My Traeger

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I enjoy my first rack of ribs, smoked to perfection on my new grill.

Grilling has been a part of my life for the past 30 or so years. I had a grill in Queens (New York), New Jersey, and Arizona. Even when I lived just three months in Yarnell, AZ back in 1995, I bought a little hibachi and used it almost every evening to grill up some meat and vegetables over charcoals for dinner. My old RV had a built-in gas grill and when I got my new RV, the “mobile mansion” back in 2010, I bought a small gas grill to satisfy my craving for grilled food.

I grill year-round, several times a week.

About 10 years ago, I attended a cookout at Prescott’s Love Field airport. My host was cooking on a Traeger Grill. The benefit of the grill was clear: it was fed wood pellets — not gas or charcoal — and it automatically maintained any temperature you set it at. The fact that it was also capable of smoking meat made it something I wanted. Badly.

Time passed. I wasn’t in charge of procuring grills for my home. Someone else was. And he liked gas.

Whatever.

I did have a smoker for a while. I got it from a friend about eight to ten years ago, right before she moved to Colorado. I traded an old bird perch — she has a parrot, too — for it. It was a good-sized traditional smoker with an external firebox and smokestack. It worked well — on the few instances I took the time to use it. Smoking, you see, was all about time — time preparing the wood, time starting the fire, time getting it up to temperature, time checking the temperature, time adding the wood, time checking the temperature, time adding the wood, time checking the temperature — well, you get the idea. When I smoked something, I had to hang around and tend to the smoker. Getting a remote thermometer helped — at least I could monitor the temperature without going outside. But it was still a pain in the butt.

I gave away the smoker. I traded it for a new heating element installed on my hot tub. (Ironically, I gave away the hot tub, too. I traded it for some help moving furniture out of my house last month.)

I’m living in my RV again this summer, prepping to build a custom home on 10 acres of view property in Malaga, WA. That home is going to need a new grill. And this time, I’m in charge.

My Traeger GrillSo I bought the grill I’ve been wanting for the past 10 years. A Traeger.

I bought the “Junior.” It’s the second smallest model and it now comes with the same digital LED thermostat previously available only on the larger, more costly models. Not that the grill was cheap — it wasn’t. But the $50 rebate did help convince me to buy now.

After all, why the hell not?

I bought it at Stan’s Merry Mart in Wenatchee. (I love that store. It’s so funky-weird. Hell, just look at its sign.) Just the day before, a young sales guy had almost talked me into it. I left, thought about it some more, and came back to buy it. They loaded it into the back of my truck with a big bag of mesquite pellets and I drove it back to the Mobile Mansion.

The next day, I assembled it. (If you watch the time-lapse video here, see if you can see the mistake I made and fixed.) But I couldn’t use it that day — I was going to Wenatchee to meet someone new and watch him play softball. Over dinner, I told my new friend about my new grill. I invited him over for the christening celebration: two racks of ribs, smoked. We’d go for a helicopter ride while we waited for the ribs to finish cooking.

And that’s what we did.

Before he came, I prepped the meat by covering it with a mesquite rub. I prepped the Traeger by doing its initial start and seasoning the porcelain grill. Then I turned the thermostat to 250, which brought the cooking chamber up to around 225 — the recommended temperature. I put the ribs on the grill, closed the lid, and went about my business without having to check the temperature or add fuel even once.

Amazing RibsWhen we got back from our flight, the ribs were nearly done. They looked amazing. I made us some salad and corn on the cob, then brushed the smaller of the two racks with BBQ sauce and threw it on my old grill, set to high, to caramelize the sauce onto them.

The finished product was perfect.

What’s next? I’ve been thinking about salmon…