Search Results for: photo channel trail
Not the Old Erie Canal
A lot of the trail, especially through the notch south of Grand Gorge reminds me of the Old Erie Canal, although it never was a canal -- it's just the East Branch Delaware River is channeled between the old rail grade and state highway.
Taken on Saturday September 11, 2021 at Perkins Clearing and Speculator Tree Farm Conservation Easement Lands.Saint Lawerence River Channel
This is a channel of the Saint Lawrence River, from a trail at the Robert Moses State Park.
Taken on Wednesday August 19, 2009 at Robert Moses State Park (Massena).That craving for the hills I get some times … ๐
I am a country boy at heart. I might live in the city, work downtown and take the bus every day but that’s not where my heart is.
Seeing those mountains in the distance, the forested hills and the little farms and homesteads carved out of the mountains just touches something inside me. The rundown trailers, the old tractors, the pigs, goats and cattle. The rusting away junk cars, the burn barrels and the brush / debris pile some day soon to be burned.
A lot of people call them ignorant hicks and hillbillies. But I don’t know, I think anybody who can scrape together a living either partially or entirety off the land is pretty damn smart and educated, even if it’s not through traditional channels.
They call it rural poverty. A lack of material stuff. Although I don’t think one can really call homesteading cheap when you look at the cost of machinery and feed. And many of rural people live a life much richer than city folk.
August 15, 2020 Afternoon
Good afternoon! Cloudy, โ๏ธ a few rain drops ๐ง and 84 degrees at Rock Cut Road in Watkins Glen. There is a southeast breeze at 9 mph. ๐. The dew point is 63 degrees. The skies will clear around 4 pm.
Final full day in the Finger Lakes. ๐ I know I shouldn’t be labor that point as it is only going to make the time go by faster. โณBut truth be told this has been the most odd trip, trying to keep a lower profile and avoid crowded spots with the pandemic smoldering all around. I tried to maintain social distancing and wear a mask ๐ท – well a hillbilly mask that is so popular in these small towns of a banada tied around the face. If it works for dusty hay barns and ATV riders it should work for ol Corona. ๐ค
Started out the day laying in the hammock, finally enjoying my coffee โ and muffins. I have to say I’m very glad I had coffee this morning. โ And I bought more blueberry muffins from Wally World to go with it. I’ll go back to healthier eating when I get home, as calories don’t count on vacation.๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฝ
Truth be told ๐ค the reason why the days go by so quickly is I’ve hardly been very motivated to get an early start. I stay up late and then sleep in and then spend a good portion of the morning laying back in hammock most day relaxing before I get out and doing things, returning only around dusk. ๐ But I like lazy mornings on vacation, I enjoy a good book. โ
Started reading ๐ that book on hog farming ๐ continuing to further my education on livestock raising for my future homestead. ๐ It was totally Cam Edwards podcast that got me into pigs, than furthered by the North Country Off Grid YouTube channel. It poured after lunch so I ended up cutting back my ambitious plans for the day and reading ๐ from the truck cap.
Now I’m out exploring Catherine Marsh trails and Rock Cut Road I missed previously when I was in Watkins Glen. ๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฆ๐ก๐ฆ The Marsh looks so inviting when your heading down to Watkins Glen on NY 79. I just wish they had better maps of the area. I could probably make my own ๐บ๏ธ and post them to the blog.
This afternoon will have isolated showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny , with a high of 85 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 63 at 3pm. Southeast wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became rain by afternoon. It became humid as the day progressed. The high last year was 83 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1959.
Solar noon ๐ is at 1:13 pm with sun having an altitude of 61.5ยฐ from the due south horizon (-9.4ยฐ vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour ๐ starts at 7:31 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (283ยฐ). ๐ธ The sunset is in the west-northwest (290ยฐ) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:10 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 3 seconds with dusk around 8:38 pm, which is one minute and 27 seconds earlier than yesterday. ๐ The best time to look at the stars is after 9:17 pm. At sunset, look for rain ๐ง and thunderstorms ๐ฉ and temperatures around 74 degrees. The dew point will be 62 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 52 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 31 seconds over yesterday.
I am thinking maybe a final swim ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ at the Watkins Glen pool this afternoon late after the crowds filter out. Always very quiet at the pool after 5 pm when most folks are eating dinner. ๐ฒ It all depends on how long my hike goes. I might instead try to do some paddling on the marsh ๐ถ especially if thunderstorms close the pool โ but aren’t nearby.
Tonight will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 9pm. Mostly cloudy ๐ง, with a low of 65 degrees at 6am. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 64 at 10pm. South wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It was humid. It got down to 63 degrees. The record low of 41 occurred back in 1972.
How safe has the trip been? ๐พ Gawd, I don’t know. I did wash my hands the best I could ๐๐ป. Certainly Watkins Glen brings people from throughout the world and you certainly did see license plates from Texas and Ohio but probably less than you would have seen on an ordinary year. But I needed a vacation ๐, a chance to truly get away from it all for a week. Hopefully it won’t end up on a respirator or dead. โ ๏ธ I still have a lot of life to live, a lot of guns to buy, a lot of land, livestock and toys to own – so yeah I don’t want to die for many more years. ๐ด๐ป So I’m doing everything I can to stay safe while enjoying life.
Maybe someday when I own my off-grid homestead ๐ I’ll have much less desire to travel but with my moldy apartment in city ๐ and all the problems of urban living it’s good to get away. Plus it’s going to be a busy next three 3โฃ months at work, ๐ผ even if it is remote work, I’m supervising and moving forward a lot of different campaigns.
In 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival Opens on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in Bethel, ๐ธ much to the distaste of his neighbors and fellow community members. ๐ถ Yasgur operated the largest dairy farm in Sullivan County ๐ฎ, he was forced out of the business a few years later in part because of people refusing to buy his milk ๐ฅ but also because he suffered enormous crop losses ๐ฝ during 1969 and 1970 when the droughts of earlier years turned into enormous flooding and soggy farm fields. Plus he had the mess to clean up from Woodstock that was left over.
On this day in 1970, President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold ๐ฅ by foreign investors. People said that laid to inflation ๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฒand a growing gap between the rich and the poor but I think all the evidence suggests the Gold Bugs are wrong. The end of the pegging was a result of existing inflationary pressures and a rapidly growing economy.
There are 2 months until Average High is 60 ๐ when the sun will be setting at 6:24 pm with dusk at 6:53 pm. The average high temperature is 32 degrees, with a record high of 61 in 1895.
Muddy Roads
As somebody who often ventures in the backcountry during the spring time, I am well aware that many state truck trails are closed in spring time, and those that are open tend to be a muddy mess. Watching my favorite off-grid Youtube channels got me thinking about how problematic mud and muck really is, especially if you don’t have a well built road.
These folks in Idaho are all but stuck …
NB888 tries to chop away at the snow banks to try to dry out his road sooner …
50 acres and a Cabin doesn’t struggle so much with mud, but he has a lot of problems with erosion on the last part of his road to his cabin in West Virginia…
And so on. A four-wheeler or UTV might be less likely to get stuck and easier to winch out, and indeed there is more solitude to living somewhere an ordinary motor-vehicle can’t get to, although it makes it harder to haul large loads, and an open-four wheeler can mean you get quite muddy, smelling like gasoline before you make it to work or off the mountain where your land is.
Plus the issue of leaving your truck, unattended down by the road, means you risk it getting damaged or vandalized without you knowing, although certainly many people to enjoy the privacy and quite of living someplace without a full motor-vehicle road, and all the problems easy access to a homestead can cause.
The Smells of October Road Trip
The Smells of the October Road Trip
What can I say, life is full of smells, some good, some a little more offensive.
Mike Pence on his dairy farm channel often jokes about smell-o-vision, so one can enjoy the good and bad smells of life on a dairy farm from freshly chopped silage and hay to manure to sour silage. No smell-a-vision here either, only words.
Diesel Exhaust
Driving down along Interstate 88 you could smell the semi-trucks and diesel fuel and exhaust. Trucks certainly can smell although with the cleaner diesels not so much.
Chopping Silage
Silage has a very sweet smell when it’s freshly chopped. It’s a very farm-like smell but a nice smell.
Cow Manure
Hard to go many places in Upstate New York or Pennsylvania in good farm country and not smell cows and the even more pungent smell of cow manure.
Paper Plant
Paper plants have a distinctive sulfur smell. It’s really obnoxious if your not used to it, almost makes your eyes want to water and wonder when it.
Burning Garbage
Lots of folks in rural Pennsylvania burn their garbage. It’s a pungent, sharp smell, chemical but in some ways depending what folks are burning on a particular day, not that pungent.
Oil Wells
Oil wells in the Allegheny National Forest have a distinctive oil-smell like you might smell during an oil change, only sweeter. Sweet crude has a very distinctive smell.
Oil Refinery
Oil refineries smell a lot like the oil wells, although maybe a lot stronger and sweeter. I wouldn’t say oil or oil refinery exactly smells bad but it sure is pungent.
Chicken and Turkey Farms
Some of the chicken and turkey farms have a particularly earthy smell. Maybe not that pungent but what you might normally smell in a chicken barn.
Coal Stove
Anthracite coal and especially bituminous coal has a very distinctive smell. It smells like coal, somewhat like burning garbage or kerosene but not as strong or acrid.
Kerosene Heat
A lot of trailers and rural households use kerosene because it’s can be purchased and transported in a regular gas can, and works in both portable heaters and some small heaters in mobile homes. Kind of pungent sulfurly smell, but very different then coal.
Coal Fired Power Plant
Coal power plants have a coal smell, a bit of a sulfury, mechanical smell. A smell like old machinery and coal.
Chicken Processing Plants
Moorefield and Keyser West Viriginia are home to many large chicken and turkey processing plants. Depending on the breeze, they can be pungent, reminding me a lot of smell of raw meat you might get at the store.
Landfills
Landfills have a methane smell that is more chemical, more bleachy or toxic smelling from the landfill methane. Definately a lot more sour and less sweet then what you might smell on a farm or from sweet crude oil
Wood Smoke
A lot of households in rural Pennsylvania also heat with wood. Generally wood is a pretty pleasant smell although it depends on the concentration and what exactly folks are burning.