I had childhood friends living way out in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They had electricity and telephone service. On a pole at the bottom of their pasture

I had childhood friends living way out in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They had electricity and telephone service. On a pole at the bottom of their pasture was a directional antenna connected to a cordless telephone base station. One time we took a hike down the mountain, along the creek and up the other side. There was the homestead of the family who's telephone that was. They lived in a hexagonal treehouse and an old school bus. They had solar power and the handset connected to another home-made antenna pointing across the valley. The father was a programmer. He wrote software for parking meters and used a hand-held GPS receiver to keep track of the ginseng he had planted in the National Forest.