Thank you. That's very helpful and certainly solves one issue. However, what I'm trying to accomplish is having backups done while I'm not using my computer. Between, say, 3am and 6am. Is there a way to schedule the time machine drive to mount every day at 3am?You might try adding the remote hard drive as a login item. Go to SystemPreferences/Users&Groups/ (your login name) /LoginItems ... then click the "+" button to add and select the disk from the pull-down list.
The drive should appear on your desktop each time you login.