Snow is possible after 6:30 PM 🌨️
The false warning on my phone said on it screen, false in the sense that any snow we get in Delmar won’t stick or make the roads slick as it’s 39 degrees out. I got home from my parents house around 6 PM, took in a deep breath of air, tasted the silage, the cows at Preska’s Dairy must have gotten their Thanksgiving Dinner.
I was fun seeing the family all together for Thanksgiving Dinner, my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and neice, mom and dad. 👨👨👦 Who knows if we will ever have another get together like this again. Mom and Dad insisted on doing all the cooking, though more then a few ingredients were store-bought pre-made but the different dishes they made were over two dozen. 🍽️ I eat modestly, but it helped that I had a bunch of pea soup before heading over, so my stomach was pretty full – and I skipped desert in part because of paper plates, but also because I felt full and didn’t reveal in the idea of all junk in apple pie or ice cream after all fats and salts in Thanksgiving dinner.
It was nice, as you just never know how long this all will last. ⌛ Old age and ultimately death seem impossibly far off until it happens. Time is like that. I know from watching the passing of John Wolcott, and before then Frank Skartados. I dumped my compost bucket full of two weeks of scraps in my parents pile, 🍏 and walked past the old goat barn and shed full of junk, dreamed what it would be like if I some day took over the operation. It’s not much land, but I could see adding solar, livestock, garden, have fires within reason but nothing too stinky or nasty, it’s New York and a residential neighborhoods. ☀️ 🐐 I don’t know if I really want it, but I doubt my sister wants it with her house and family in Saratoga, and I got to live somewhere, even if I’d to eventually want to move out to the wilderness, in an open carry state with relaxed burn laws and no near neighbors. 🔥
Getting home, I decided to crack open a beer and smoke some weed. 🍻 Not like me to do at home, but I used Thanksgiving as an excuse. I kind of wanted to clear my mind. Ithought it it would make me more creative ont he blog, and I have most of the stuff done needed for tonight. 💼 And I had a lot to think about, with this potentially being one of the last full family get together, not that anyone wait such a word. Got my clothes unpacked after washing at my parents house, even though in my stupidity I was there longer then expected 👚 as I forgot to turn on the washing machine. Water containers are full and loaded, as is my camera, snow shovel, road salt and other essentials. I checked the oil yesterday, fixed the license plate light, and other things. I also plan to shortly start packing the clothes, but I’ll wait for morning to do pots and pans as I might use them for cooking in the morning. Same thing with my other personal gear.
Truth is I am a bit concerned about the winter storm 🌨️ and Lake Effect that keeps on the models. 3-5 inches isn’t a deal breaker, even with a few inches of snow on the ground with my big jacked up truck. And indeed some forecasts show less. I am planning on camping near a state highway, and I have a snow shovel and salt, axe and saw, and despite being in the remote Adirondack wilderness, I should be fine once I’m up to camp. Little worried about snow squals driving up, but I’ll get there early, and set up, so if necessary I can drive slow or abandoned the trip if there is too much snow already on the ground, or the roads. Come Sunday, the way I look at iot’s not the first snowstorm I’ve camped in, and if it’s windy, 🌬️ it might be a cold and less then pleasant night, but come Monday the state highway should be cleared with the road salt and it should be a fine ride home, especially with temperatures at or above freezing. If the forecast gets dramatically worse for Sunday, I’ll come home on Saturday after hiking and biking, but I’d rather camp through the snow storm. I certainly don’t want to be on the roads on Sunday.
It will be good to be away from it all. I don’t think I’ll have cell service up there, 📱 and I don’t have a radio except in my truck. But I have podcasts, audio books, and Youtube videos to listen to up at camp. I’m trying to stay off Facebook to no more then 30 minutes a day, I intentionally set that limit so to force myself to read and think more. Even if it’s just thumbing through news and other magazines on Libby or Hoopla, I think it’s far less brain 🧠 rot then Facebook causes. Even reading the NY Times at unhealthy levels, is far better then social media. Doesn’t make me so angry or want to start a flame war in the comments. ✊ Got to control my anger at the shit our country is going through. Likewise, I think watching YouTube videos on things like homesteading or farming – especially full length ones – or even technical topics such as programming or how things work, 📺 is far less bad for my mind then what social media has become. I may make this a permanent habit to limit my Facebook use to less then 30 minutes a day.
On many levels I’m so upset about the West Virigina National Guard Shooting
Why the hell did it have to happen, except for the ego of the nation’s president? The National Guardsman could have been safely home in West Virginia, there is no crisis in Washington DC exception the delusions of one man who sits the nation’s highest office. Of course, similar things could have been said about other war mongering presidents, such as Lyndon Johnson or George W. Bush. Maybe not delusions in the strictest sense, but certainly motivated reason.
War messes with people’s minds, especially those who are sent overseas to fight and kill. Murdering your fellow citizen, even for what is called a just cause, is anti-human, it messes with your brain, accepting terrible things are normal and neccessary. We can only think that Afghan Veteran who worked with the US in fighting the Taliban, not only was a person of great valour but had his sense of good and evil warped the evil of war. Who knows what he was thinking, but he had to be horrified as many Americans seeing the National Guard marching on our streets, as seeing the Taliban march on the streets of Afghanistan. A confused hero brought back in flashbacks to a troubled land, as our own country is very troubled by our current nation’s leaders.
Let us not forget how unnecessary the war on Afghanistan really was – or at least the extent we fought it for over two decades – at the cost of thousands of American lives. Maybe we needed to shutdown and disrupt or at least reduce the threat of Al Queada attacks, as September 11th was horrific, but we took many more lives then were necessary, and fought far more of an extensive war when we should have been mission-driven, and in and out quickly without the war lingering on for decades. The National Guardsman who were likely fatally injured in DC, weren’t even born when the War in Afghanistan started, they would have had no idea that a quarter century later they would end up as victims, in the most horrible string of events.
The National Guard primarily provides assistance in times of natural disaster, along with other disasters such as the pandemic or on the off-chance America was attacked or significant civil disorder exists on our streets. They aren’t local police forces, though previous presidents have sent them overseas to support combat troops, as they became stretched thin with the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. But with those wars now in our nation’s past, who would have thought some young and women, stepping up to serve their communities would land up in the path of a bullet in Washington DC from a deranged Afghanistan Veteran?
There aren’t a lot of good choices for people who want to live in rural or small town communites. Even with a trade or an advanced degree, people don’t have a lot of money in much of Appalachia to hire you. At this writing, we don’t know where the young man or women hailed from, but if it’s like most of West Virginia, it’s likely a poor and remote hollar, a rag-tag farm or homestead, or a dialopated old coal-mining village. All with few job prospects, and even fewer jobs that pay a wage able to produce anything beyond poverty living. The National Guard seemed like a good way to make some money, support your community. Appalachia often suffers terrible tragies from floods and other disasters, and it’s National Guard who steps in to help those in dire need. Maybe the Guardsman saw hope in Trump’s message of rural pride, a change and hope of breaking the cycles of rural poverty, when all seemed so hopeless. But because of choice of foolish man in White House, it all had to play out very differently.
I often romanticize rural life, the simple, natural life of farmer and homesteaders. Or the great beauty that places like West Virginia really are. It’s an amazing place if you love outdoor activities. But that ignores how tough life really in Appalachia or having a life closely tied to the land more generally – where it’s mining coal, cutting timber, or raise beef cattle. But there are only a handful of jobs in those industries, which themselves are deeply competitive with poor wages, and for most people they don’t even have an opportunity to sustain themselves doing that. There are auxiliary jobs that support a community, but those jobs such as retail clerks or nursing, aren’t exactly well paid or plentiful either. It’s just tough all around.
And the deaths in such a rural community just hit harder, as small towns there are fewer people, and connections are much stronger, as you are more likely to run into a person and their family members. It’s just tragic for all involved, except maybe for the President, who got us into this mess and is the most responsible person for the shooting and the pain that will be inflicted on these close-nit small towns.
Happy Thanksgiving EXCEPTING ALICE ! 🦃
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant, exceptin Alice. Don’t get caught driving garbage around town, but at least have a big bonfire to burn up all those wrappers and stay warm while cooking the turkey.
I am in the process of getting things cleaned up and organized prior to heading up to the wilderness tomorrow. 🧼 Soaking some pinto beans so I can enjoy them at camp. 🫘 I keep watching to see if the forecast won’t be a disaster with a ton of blowing snow, but whatever. ☃️ Honestly, it doesn’t look like there is that much snow in the Eastern Adirondacks and I don’t plan to camp that far from the state highway, and I will bring my snow shovel, road salt and plastic sled 🛷 and should be good. Worse comes to worse, I will have to drag gear back to camp. But I don’t think there is that much snow where I’m heading tomorrow.
Doing a bit more listening to Alice’s Restaurant then heading out for a bike ride, 🚲 probably the one I promised to do to Voorheeesville yesterday but didn’t happen because it was cloudy and gray and the work project took ten times longer then necessary as I had to code it on my phone as I left my laptop charger 💻🔌 at work. I want leave early tomorrow, I might do a hike on the way up but I’m a little nervous about snow, so I want to almost get to camp earlier and get set up and then ride and hike from there most likely. Maybe I could do a quick hike on the way up, 🚶 I am a bit undecided. 🤷♂️ I have some nice hikes and bike rides planned once I’m up at camp, especially on Saturday, though Sunday I think with the snow coming I will stay at camp and not venture out until Monday when it should be warm enough that roads are decent by midday. 🌬️ I am hoping it won’t be windy. The different models have very different ideas on how snowy and cold Sunday will be. I have propane heater and the tank is fairly full, so it should be good.
Then it’s showering and the family Thanksgiving dinner at two o’clock. 🦃 First time I’ve been my neice and nephew since July along with my sister and her partner. 🍴 🥧 Should be good to be together, and because it’s mid-day I hopefully won’t have to drive home in the dark, though I don’t mind as my night vision is so much better since LASIK. I am going to donate my unopened boxes contact lens 👀 to the Lions Club box the next time I’m at the library, I feel that’s probably better then just tossing them into the fire 🔥 and having to fish out all of those metal backing plates. It will be good to get together with the whole family, 👨👨👦 as who knows how many more chances we’ll all be together, I realize in a few weeks my dad will by 79 and my mom 77. I’m actually impressed they’re doing all the cooking themselves. 🧑🍳 Full traditional Thanksgiving dinner, probably not what I would make myself, I’d probably keep it simpler. Maybe raise my own turkey some day. 🍗 🥫 Who knows. I’m actually reading another one of Gale Damerow’s book, this one her tome on Raising Backyard Farm Animals. Assuming it actually downloads and loads properly without internet service, that may be a lot of what I read when I’m up camping in the Adirondack Wilderness 🌲 the next few days.
