Balsam Swamp is a sprawling state forest that stretches almost 5.5 miles east-west across 4 towns. The area is very rural, and the landscape surrounding the State Forest is predominantly forested. Balsam Swamp State Forest is comprised of a mix of native hardwood forests, hemlock swamps, and conifer plantations. There are no designated recreational trails on the forest, but there is ample opportunity for self-guided day hikes to explore the diversity of habitats represented on this State Forest. Additionally, the western section of Balsam Swamp State Forest is adjacent to Five Streams State Forest to the south.
The main attraction of this forest is Balsam Pond. The impoundment is approximately 152 acres and is a popular destination for fishing and paddle boat sports. Balsam Pond is a warm water fishery that contains a mix of largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, chain pickerel, yellow perch, brown bullhead and sunfish. Tiger muskellunge have been stocked in the past with the last stocking occurring in 1995. However, there have been very few reports of anglers catching any of the adult tiger muskies. A shallow gravel boat launch is suitable for launching small fishing boats.
A small rustic camp ground is also located at Balsam Pond. Camping spaces are available at no cost on a first-come, first-serve basis and there is no running water or electricity. A fire ring, outhouse, and picnic table are provided for each camping space. A sign on Balsam-Tyler Road in Pharsalia designates the entrance to the boat launch and camping facility. This is a carry-in carry-out facility. Please do not litter.
I do remember that song from a quarter century, well actually 30 years ago now, and how those old cars with their then new-fangled computer controlled transmissions would “fail” into second year so you could drive them to junkyard and the auto dumping grounds yourself. I know that music is newer then what I usually listen to but it’s songs for my childhood, some three decades ago.
The sun is rising on this very cold February morning. 🌄 Clear but very cold. I doubt I’ll catch the earlier express in this morning, as I am kind of in a haze from that sleeping pill last night but I’m well rested and coffee and caffeine pills are kind of making me snappy even if my head is still in a haze. I know I should quit my pill popping habit, but I would never get any sleep in winter between those long periods not spent up in wilderness next to a fire. 🔥 I am sure that cold waiting for the bus this morning will really wake me up. I didn’t turn the heat up above 50 degrees last night but it was fine, as while it was windy for a while and cold, it wasn’t that extreme cold and I kept the cabinets open under the sink as the old landlord always reminded me, not that I’ve had problems with drain pipe freezing in 2009 when I lost power for three days in an ice storm. ❄️ That was a long time ago now though.
Icy this morning outside for sure. Need to be extra careful walking down to the express bus into the city. Big hunks of ice all around, and the black top except for the very well salted roads is a mess. I do wish I could wash the salt off my truck but it wasn’t worth it trying to get home from the car wash last night as it would already be encrusted with salt. Going to walk laps in the Plaza this evening. Big Red is parked for the week, though potentially Thursday or Friday after work I might go Tractor Supply to get propane and any extra food I might want if I decide to get out and spend a night in wilderness. I need to burn things and sing along with the Dire Wolf to restore my sleep.
Wearing that werid magent shirt that I got at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I like the colors and look of it on my and it was only $6 bucks but rather then having buttons it has magnets, which means sometimes the sleeves and shirt can pop open unexpectly. I am sure it was previously owned by an old dude or an autistic kid who couldn’t handle buttons but I liked the look and I figured it’s not that bad. Of course, I guess the advertisers have decided I’m looking for dress clothes, so now I get so many ads for the Men’s Warehouse and other dress shirt manufacturers, even though in my current position I just have to look professional but don’t need a suit and tie, and thrift stores are good for that. Plus it’s not buying more garbage for $40, saving of money that can some day used for hog feed or million other uses when I eventually own my own land. Money saved now will grow to be more money when invested. It’s kind of hay, cattle and manure.
Maybe I can ride in on Wednesday, but it has to be a bit warmer. Not sure how the bike trail will be, probably icy but the bigger issue is how pock marked it will be from the hikers. 🚲 That said, it was so slick on Saturday but I tend to think it will be better now as we got some snow on top of ice over the weekend. Today though I’m bussing it as I need to bring my laptop into the office 🖥️ and don’t want to beat shit out of it, it’s already on it’s last legs. Plus I have a Save the Pine Bush zoom at 5:30 PM and I figure I can participate while getting my steps walking laps 🚶 in the Concourse after hours, as I avoid the homeless and schizophrenic individuals. 🤪 Then I’ll take the later local bus home and do some reading 📖.
Eggs, spinach, onions, broccoli and beans for breakfast. 🫘 🥦 🧅 🥚 While I didn’t buy eggs this week I did see those “inexpensive” white 18 pack eggs in the Styrofoam trays that burn so black and are pungent are now up to $8.65 at Walmart. If I’m going to buy eggs at the store, I might as well get commodity eggs in my book as they’re all about the same. I don’t believe any of those “greenie” labels — i.e. organic free range and hugged by the farmer — at the supermarket. 🏷️ In my mind, they’re all the same thing as the label gets charred in the fire 🔥. That said, I was seeing one of my neighbors growing up is selling her own eggs for $5 a dozen and with spring coming she has a bunch to sell. It’s tempting as it would be good to establish a business relationship with her as she also sells hay and if some day I do end up with land out that way, I’ll probably need a hay supplier. 🌾 🐐
That electric toothbrush 🪥 seems to do a good job, especially polishing up the back of the teeth. though I do just think it’s another thing to wear out and break. It’s not like it was expensive but it still just more plastic crap that will eventually get tossed into the fire. And I’ll have to pick out the windings and metal parts out of the ash. Still having good teeth is so important 🦷as I’ve learned from my now fairly elderly parents. It’s kind of horrifying what can happen if you don’t take care of yourself and eat the crap 🎂 they are selling on the television 📺. My dad is dying from diabetes and he’s got holes rotting into his feet. 🦶But their house is always full of candy 🍬 and, every meal 🍴 has meat cooked in fat 🍖with dozens of processed foods. These days I only really eat meat when I’m there or out somewhere but all that saturated fats not only plug your sink but also your arteries. 🫀
The thing about meat is it’s good but I’m not convinced it should be an everyday thing. I do like some of that $13 bacon from For the Love of Bacon, but it’s a treat, something I enjoy when I’m up at camp over several days usually fried up with a load of vegetables. Asparagus in spring time, fried in bacon fat and bacon is so good. Lots of saturated fat, nitrates and salt but also delicious. Meat is something you can also enjoy in the winter when there isn’t as many fresh fruit and vegetables that you can grow or purchase locally. Livestock such as pigs and chickens are such good organics recyclers, turning things like apple cores and banana peels into high quality fertilizer in the form of manure. Plus all that grain you run through them not only becomes meat, eggs and milk, it also become manure. It’s a great way to rebuild soil. As that Youtuber, For the Love of the Land points out, you run hay through cattle which produces manure, which produces more hay, which produces more cattle. It’s a bit more complex then that but it’s how it works in general. My sister has long been a vegetarian, and into all the weird PETA crap, but I don’t have any problem about putting a bullet through the head of a cute animal but I do think a lot about those saturated fats that are literally killing yourself.
One of the hardest things I’ve been thinking about is what it will be like once I leave behind the life I’ve lived over the past decade and a half since I graduated college. One of regular trips in the wilderness, spent camping under the stars, biking and swimming in the Potholers. Big Red and the many trips I’ve taken with him over the years. Trips to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes. I knew that some day those days would be coming to an end, and it really started to set in last year. I’m not only bored with travel, I’m ready for some persistence in life, not three night adventures that serve as escape from reality.
Escapism in life has its thrills. I mean that’s why people take vacations. But when you base your life around escape, is it really a life? If things are so awful in your every day situation that you’re only focus is maximizing investments and retirement funding towards a better tomorrow, is that really a way to live a life? When all you really care about is the next time you can get out of town, as you hate your dumpy apartment and being stuck in the city. I want to live a life based on reality rather than escape.
The truth is camping isn’t as much fun as it is once was since I quit the hard drinking and the unhealthy eating of junk food like hot dogs and cookies. Since I’ve run out of new places to explore and new things to do. The sameness of things has proven incredibly boring as they aren’t making much new state land. Things don’t change that much as you go to the same state forest over and over. The roads remain the same, even if they are more built up now with more solar facilities and housing built up along the shoulders.
If you think of the average high subtracted by the average high for the year in Albany as a sine wave, the phase goes positive around April 17th. ☀
The earth acts as a giant inductor for solar radiation as it takes time for the earth to heat or cold, which means that the average high temperature in Albany is 22 days out of sync with the position of the sun, making the high temperature departure curve is roughly 21.6 degrees out of phase from the sun although that’s not quite accurate around autumn as the sine wave that measures temperature departure is flatter than the position of the sun, because of the inductance of the earth and because not all heat from the earth is radiated back to space.
I have to work and I don’t get out every day. Many times things haven’t changed enough to be worth photographing a second time, especially if earlier shots really are good photos. That said, I still want to share my memories with you even if some of them are quite old.
First snowstorm of the week, I guess. Little one this evening, maybe an inch or two of snow and freezing rain and ice. That could improve conditions for riding on the Rail Trail, though I think I’m done riding to work for now.
The snow and I was was really too deep yesterday for good riding on the Rail Trail. 🚴 But despite my best sense getting to me, I did it both ways. The snow was so deep that it was a complete slog to go through it, on the way back up through the gorge I got stuck multiple times, and ended up pushing my bike most of the way from the bridge over the Norman’s Kill to above Rockefeller Road due to snow being too deep on the way home. 🦵 It was 6:30 PM by the time I got home, it was pitch black 🌃 by the time I reached Delmar and was back on the roads. I avoided using the light on my bike on the trail, lest I draw attention that I was riding after dark on the trail, as you’re not supposed to do that. I didn’t really expect to be pushing my bike home in the dark in the snow ☃️ though I should have, as it was bad going in and somehow I expect it not to be so bad going up hill, due to non-existent snow melt and packing of hikers.
It was kind of gross, I was completely covered in sweat 😅 and I was a half hour late to work, even though I left the normal time when I ride or maybe a minute or two later because it was such bad riding conditions on the trail. It literally meant I was bumping along at 3 or 4 miles per hour versus the 15 mph or so I do flying down the hill when the pavement is bare. There had to been close to a foot of snow on the trail. It was so hard peddling through all that snow.🐢 I get it, I’m the director, and nobody but myself to yell at for being late, though if I was much later I would have let staff know and maybe the executive directors lest they needed some kind of rush data job. 🖥️
Truth is I really hate winter. 🌨️ Not that I particularly hate the season, but it’s tough in the cold. I had so hoped to get out and have that much needed campfire this weekend, 🔥 burn up some of the paper and burnables, giggle with some grass and listen to the music. I wish had that little cabin with the wood stove, so I could be warm, and not be stuck in my 50 degree drafty apartment that I refuse to turn the heat up on 🏠 because I want to save whatever pennies 🪙 I have for that future place in woods where I can not only heat with woods but have bonfires whenever I want to get rid of all that crap. But we are getting a foot of snow this weekend. 🌬️ Sucks.
Just got to make it through two weeks more of February. ❄️ It really is the cruelest month, as I was reminded slogging through the snow yesterday on my mountain bike. I really should have taken the road in if I was going to bike and bus back home. I mean the have the racks on the bus for a reason. 🚍 But I hate riding the bus, even though today I’m back on the bus. I guess it’s depression, though what you can say, it’s all in your mind. All I know, is I just got to push through this month, when I can be back up in the woods, doing the fun stuff. And riding back and forth to work, not in the deep snow. That was so awful yesterday, not only was I dripped in sweat at work, when I got home I was also soaked from all the sweat. 🏕️ I so wish I could get up to the woods this weekend 🎄 and have that fire but it’s going to snow so much this weekend on top of the foot plus they already have in Rennselaerville. I get that the road is plowed but it would be a lot of digging out then with another foot coming, it would be a challenge to camp even with a roaring fire. 🔥 It’s though.
Of course, because of the articles I clicked on social media, 🖱️ all these days I see is ads about schizophrenia, depression and mental health. 🤪 We have pills for you! We have support! Call 988 for help now! 💊 They’ll even tell you how to live your life, how wonderful life in suburbs is in your plastic house heated with fracked natural gas and a TV set in a every room. Truth is I’ve been interested in mental health, because I want to live a healthy life, and because so many of those issues are intertwined with smoking pot, which I like thinking about much more then doing. It’s good to look back fondly on giggling next to a waterfall last year’s. 🧠 Psychosis and paranoia are always risks of cannabis, though I think a bigger risk is eating too many apples and sweet corn while laughing my head off floating down the East Canada Creek singing along with the Dire Wolf. Yet, I always wonder why I feel the way I do. Why do I value certain things, and don’t care about others? How can I maximize my relationships with others in mutually beneficial ways? How can I be a better person. Plus, I know if I’m better at working people and connections I can make more money 💰 which puts me closer to owning my own land, with that wood stove and burn barrel out back. 🔥 And goats 🐐 and hogs. 🐽 Four wheeler, big black scary rifles and anything else I want in a little town that smells like silage. 🐄
I’ve been avoiding it but I need to talk to the head programmer about deleting some of data I’ve created at work, 💾 as I realized I’ve gotten a bit carried away. While it was at first just an issue of storage and capacity, I realized some of sets I linked and tagged will never get used and it was just a complete waste of disk space and resources. I would delete it myself but it’s a couple of million records, and it would be better if database administrator did such a big delete without the journaling being turned on, to avoid excess journal entries being done. 🎩 I’ll have to do that today, hat in hand. Yesterday, I had an excuse, I was kind of busy getting in late and then I was completely disgusting 🤢 as a sweaty pig 🐖 from riding to work.
The other day I was hearing that some people think a gay man,like Pete Buttiegeig might not be able to win the presidency. That might be a concern of the older generation, but there are fewer and fewer of those people left around in this world. Religious conservatives who remain opposed to gay marriage, are already backing whoever the leading Republican will be in 2028, so they aren’t going to back any Democrat that runs. Moreover, gay relationships are so mainstream nowadays, and are hardly the “dirty little secret” of yesteryear. Same-sex marriages today aren’t primarily about what people do in their bedroom, it’s about love and a bonded relationship.
Need to be extra careful walking down to the express bus into the city. Big hunks of ice all around, and the black top except for the very well salted roads is a mess. I do wish I could wash the salt off my truck but it wasn’t worth it trying to get home from the car wash last night as it would already be encrusted with salt. Going to walk laps in the Plaza this evening. Big Red is parked for the week, though potentially Thursday or Friday after work I might go Tractor Supply to get propane and any extra food I might want if I decide to get out and spend a night in wilderness. 
I need to burn things and sing along with the Dire Wolf to restore my sleep. 
I like the colors and look of it on my and it was only $6 bucks but rather then having buttons it has magnets, which means sometimes the sleeves and shirt can pop open unexpectly. I am sure it was previously owned by an old dude or an autistic kid who couldn’t handle buttons but I liked the look and I figured it’s not that bad. Of course, I guess the advertisers have decided I’m looking for dress clothes, so now I get so many ads for the Men’s Warehouse and other dress shirt manufacturers, even though in my current position I just have to look professional but don’t need a suit and tie, and thrift stores are good for that. 
Plus it’s not buying more garbage for $40, saving of money that can some day used for hog feed or million other uses when I eventually own my own land. Money saved now will grow to be more money when invested. It’s kind of hay, cattle and manure.
I do like some of that $13 bacon from For the Love of Bacon, but it’s a treat, something I enjoy when I’m up at camp over several days usually fried up with a load of vegetables. Asparagus in spring time, fried in bacon fat and bacon is so good. Lots of saturated fat, nitrates and salt but also delicious. 
Meat is something you can also enjoy in the winter when there isn’t as many fresh fruit and vegetables that you can grow or purchase locally. 
Livestock such as pigs and chickens are such good organics recyclers, turning things like apple cores and banana peels into high quality fertilizer in the form of manure. 
Plus all that grain you run through them not only becomes meat, eggs and milk, it also become manure. 
It’s a great way to rebuild soil. As that Youtuber, For the Love of the Land points out, you run hay through cattle which produces manure, which produces more hay, which produces more cattle. It’s a bit more complex then that but it’s how it works in general. My sister has long been a vegetarian, and into all the weird PETA crap, but I don’t have any problem about putting a bullet through the head of a cute animal 
but I do think a lot about those saturated fats that are literally killing yourself. 
