Since hiking around the Greenport Conservation Area last weekend I've been quite intereted in the Greenport Brickyards and what one can discover from the Digital Surface Model of the ground from LIDAR surveys.
I can almost taste the pungent smell of manure in this picture and most of the trip I spent exploring Madison County. As the Love of the Land Youtube channel once put it, "Manure and hay spread makes more manure and hay." And probably some co-benefits like healthy soil and healthy calves and cows that produce delicouus milk, cheese and beef.
Honestly, the way I look at it, I can justify in my mind buying a Ford SuperDuty truck if I only go three months without being a driver and not owning a car. After all, don’t you know urbanists love the life without a vehicle, and I’ve always heard the praises of life without a car – you save so much money, you loose so much weight, and you are so healthier both physically and mentally. At least if you are middle class, I am not sure if the ghetto people who can’t afford to drive or the severely disabled would agree.
There is something to brag about in middle class liberal circles to say you don’t own a car and you ride your bike and take the city bus to work. I should sign up for one of those ride-share clubs, that let you rent the CDTA Electric car by the hour for a few bucks, because that is an essential part of life in the liberal car-free urbanist circles. I also should find a good bar to hang out in, after all I don’t have to worry about getting a DUI, not that I ever really drove home from bars, because what fun is going out to an open bar reception if you have to drive. And no roadside cops waiting to insert their penises in your mouth for going through the yellow light. I’ve also been saying now is the time to take advantage of the free museum passes the library loans, and visit some of the museums on weekends, because I don’t have a vehicle to drive out on frigid cold winter days and look at ramshakle goat farms on the ice-encrusted dirt roads when I’m bored out of my mind in the winter. You know good liberal things.
As I need justification of my liberal credentials because let’s be honest, a regular-cab long-bed Ford SuperDuty 4×4 truck only looks in it’s place with TRUMP or ALBERTA PROUD bumper sticker on it’s bumper. Conservatives drive SuperDuty trucks, shit shovelers, hog farmers and oil men. Not that the SuperDuty’s with the 6.8L are that bad on gas, I tell myself, at least in the real world if I’m not spending my days driving around the city or sitting traffic but are out on the back roads of Bum Fuck Egypt. I don’t drive to the Maul very often, it’s not going to be daily driver, like so many of the suburbanite do as they crowd the Arterial Highways at rush hour, on their way from the cinder-block office building to the shop mauling to their plastic house in suburbs. I’ll be camping and traveling, and if I have to pay a few extra bucks for the truck I actually want, it beats owning a Honda Crapper in which I couldn’t be bothered to change the oil as I would hate my life so much driving between the plastic house and the acres of parking.
I keep repeating the words, "this is the end" at least in my brain. I knew this day would come, and indeed I could feel it come step by step, that last time I drove to the office, that last time I started the engine, that last drive out to Reedsville.
After nearly a quarter million miles, and 22 years I'll be surrendering these plates to the DMV and no longer be a driver. Seems so strange to think about it not that I ever drove much in the winter. I remember the day when I got these plates back at the Catskill DMV. Doesn't seem that long ago honestly. But then again the 14 years I've had Big Red went by so quickly.
I've actually been told it may be possible for the DMV to hold the plates for a number of months so I can transfer for them to the new truck. Maybe that's a good option as I have many memories with these plates, but regardless I don't want to pay for three months of car insurance for a vehicle that is now off the road in the road, plus I want a clean start with sensible deductibles and limits on my auto insurance which has only changed slightly since I inherited the policy from my parents in 2001.
