The message was:
"Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later."
Picking apples. 
Going outside and doing stuff.
OK... that is on our end. It can happen when the server gets overloaded. We are exploring increasing our server capacity, mostly because when people are parked in the chat system, it causes a big CPU drain on the server. Usually these issues resolve in a few minutes, but if this was going on for hours, I'm concerned about that.
Yes... Rochester is seeing one of the rainiest years EVER recorded so on those days when the weather is actually tolerable, I want to be outside. It's remarkable that our temperatures have been fairly comparable to Riverton (although they are warmer than us today), but Wyoming is much drier. I decided since the weather was rather blah yesterday and it rained all night last night that I would get out of the house today. Western NY is very well known for its apples. NY is the second largest apple producer in the country. Washington state delivers more eating apples, but western NY is especially well known for its cooking and storing apples.
The other big crops here are cabbage, grapes (mostly for wine from the Finger Lakes region), and corn.
