I am a little on the fence but I think I’ll ride in. While I put fares onto my phone to use on the bus now that my card is expired, I think I’d rather ride and burn some calories from Easter dinner and it’s not that cold, being it’s the second week of April.
Driving Old Smokey yesterday was nice, 🛻 those SuperDuties drive really nice. I also took Big Red out for a little drive around the yard, just to see if he would start up and run, started up with no issue. People are asking again when I plan to sell, it’s a matter of first getting a truck cap and my gear moved over. I plan to order the cap this weekend, after studying my options this week. 📶 Pulled the CB Radio, seems like it will mount easily with the bolts on the center dashboard counsole with no issues, and it doesn’t block my vision much. Still need to figure out the upfitter switch wiring, where to run the antenna wire, and order a CB antenna mount that will fit SuperDuty and also an ampflied PA speaker to mount under the hoot when I install the antenna.
Pay week this week, which is good 😀 because it’s been an expensive past few weeks. And the cap is another major expense, but after that it should be fairly small for a while. Not planning to drive Old Smokey much until I get a cap and head out camping, both due to gas prices ⛽ and to keep it new as long as possible. Honestly I’m not expected to get the cap until May or June but I’ll have to order and pay for it next weekend. Going to be cold and maybe snow 🌨️ showers to start out the week, but very spring like by Friday. 🌸 Going to hike or ride in the Pine Bush next weekend when I go to Ruth’s to order the cap and also do some thrifting for work clothes. Got to be frugal somewhere. 👚
It was nice visiting the family for Easter. 🐰 Mom got me a smokey the bear 🐻 stuffed animal to stick in the back glass on my truck. He’s cute. Ham for dinner. It was fun driving the big truck, it rides so nicely on the open road. Gas milage wasn’t great with the hills, but I’m sure it would be better on the open highway. It is a big block. I guess it doesn’t matter, I got the truck to drive recreationally, it wouldn’t be a great commuter vehicle regardless. The remote start from anywhere in the world from my phone is fantastic, especially as I leave it parked so much and want to give the engine time to circulate fluids before driving. Nice to step into a car that is already warmed up and outputing heat or air conditioning. The key chain also has remote start, which is good for when I’m in the woods without cell service 📱 or if Ford decides to discontinue the Ford Pass app or starts to charge for it. I doubt they will, as long as 5G cell service remains avaliable, as they get a lot of valuable information on customers and how they use their products for marketing purposes – and selling repairs at dealerships. But you know time marches on, the OnStar on my Chevy Silverado even if they service had been paid up would have stopped working several years ago when 3G cell service went away.
Back to work on this Monday morning. 🏢 Should otherwise be a pretty ordinary week, keep plugging away at the database update, 💾 and all the usual crap that happens around that office, including enjoying all that flavored coffee ☕ as it was only a one cup day in the office. Listening to more of Ezra Klein’s Abundance audio book on Libby, as I ride in. 🚌 Al’so need to call CDTA World Headquarters and have them move the $16.50 on my now expired CDTA Navigator Card 💳 to the phone app, but I also plan to get another card, as in many ways they are far more convenient to use, and aren’t likely to fail like the phone app, but the phone app will work fine for now until I can get another card. Next weekend should very spring like!
Everyone tells me my truck bed is too short. It isn’t; at 6′ 8″, it’s actually longer than “Big Red” and plenty comfortable to sleep in. The bed only looks small because it’s sitting on a one-ton chassis, which typically sports a long bed and a quad cab. While a long bed might be nice, I don’t miss the headache of parking or turning a truck that size.
This specific configuration is perfect for the backcountry. The one-ton straight axle is nearly impossible to knock out of alignment, which is exactly why the Forest Service and DEC rely on them. The shorter wheelbase also makes it much easier to navigate tight forest roads and small campsites. Plus, the higher cab height allows me to use a streamlined, flat-roof camper shell without hitting my head. To top it off, the 410-amp dual alternators can handle a heavy electrical load and extra batteries without breaking a sweat.
“This cute and realistic bunny robot toy is perfect for Easter.“
That’s what the advertising seen on my blog and other websites like New York Times wants to let me know about. It’s a cheap, likely Chinese-made with slave labor, robot toy controlled by an inexpensive microcontrollers and DC brushed motors designed to give a child a few hours of joy before quickly tossed into a garbage can, crushed and hauled to the local garbage heap on the outskirts of town. Found based on scam advertising sites you can pay upwards of $60 for a toy that can be found on AliExpress for about $4.50 in bulk.
Many parents might think this is a wonderful gift compared to giving a live rabbit to a child. At least in popular press, it is reported that animal shelters are flooded with unwanted pet rabbits after the Easter holiday. The press also reports extensively on how children and their parents are burdened to feed, water, and empty manure out of the rabbit’s cage for years after the gift of a live rabbit, as if it’s their moral obligation to keep the pet alive.
This is a prime example of what is wrong with society today.
The truth is domestic rabbits are prolific breeders, they are not endangered species. They are easily dispatched by dislocation of the neck or a blow to skull. They provide quality meat that is extremely low fat and nutritious and are easy to gut and dress. The carcass can be fed to chickens or pigs or buried and quickly will rot away, providing valuable nutrition to the soil. Compared to being a lump of toxic chemicals and plastic, it will not harm the environment while providing a meal.
But instead, too people have this cute, radical animals rights notion about livestock and nature that they would rather buy a polluting plastic rabbit robot then something they can kill and cook.
As they say, Christ has risen after Pontus Pilas declared him a menace to God and man, nailed him to a cross in what he said was a just persuit, buried him a cave, until he pushed the stone away and either he went to heaven or was grave robbed with his body dumped in a municipal landfill somewhere. But yeah, the story about the labor leader buried in a mound of garbage on the outskirts of town, isn’t the story the teach in church with the Easter bunny and colored eggs. At least they’re affordable now.
Or so the story goes. 🍫 Kids everywhere are looking forward to their Easter baskets with candy and the plastic grass that is fun to watch melt and burn when tossed on the trash fire. 🔥 All that sugar is good, though I stay away from it a lot more now that I am into getting healthy, though this morning I did have pancakes with so-called wild blueberries, lemon, and lots of shredded carrots. 🥕 Stocked up at Market 32, which was swamped yesterday, 🛒 with people buying shit before the Easter Holiday. 🐰 Definately some signs of spring at the Pine Hollow Arboretum, more to come soon. Also rode out Five Rivers 🐸 via Meads Lane so I could ride past the moo-moos 🐮 and smell that farm dirt. Spring peepers are loud.
Spring is definately coming. 📐 Yesterday, besides recreating in the woods, 🌲 I also spent some time trying to figure out the ins and outs of designing my new camping rig, 🚚 doing some measurements and sitting in the bed of the truck, deciding I can get away with a flat-roof cap on my truck, as the cab height is so much higher – and the bed deeper on a SuperDuty then a half ton truck.
Also discovered the bolts on center dash, 🔩 that I can safely mount the CB radio bracket too. Don’t love how it blocks my windshield view a bit, but I think it’s the best place for the CB. Will need to get some longer bolts and drill new holes in mount, and maybe some washers for spacers, but it should fit close to stock. Wire it to upfitter switch for power. Will need to get a new hood mount for antenna, as it’s different then on Silverado but I should be able to reuse most other components. Also going to order a water-proof amplified speaker so I can use the PA function on CB radio. 📻 Makes a lot of sense if you want to add a PA Speaker to install it in the same run in antenna wire.
As far as the electrical for camp, 🔋 going to mount the two deep-cycle lead acid batteries in the bed of the truck. Will need a plastic battery box for the one currently under the hood of Silverado, but they are inexpensive at Albany Wally World. I want eventually to switch one of batteries over to Lithium Ion Phosphate, but the problem is they can’t charge in cold, which is a problem for winter camping, and LiPo requires a DC-to-DC charge controller, while lead acid can live with being charged in an unregulated fashion from either the solar or alternator. ☀️ Probably always keep at least one of accessory batteries lead acid for that reason. For isolation between the starting batteries and house batteries in the cap, going to use the voltage switch I use for charging the starting batteries from solar on old truck, but will use a diode to monitor the voltage on both sides of relay – and connect the batteries whenever the solar or alternator is producing sufficient voltage. Mounting all the hardware in the bed, on the shelf I built for camping.
Going to order the truck cap next weekend, 🏕️ probably go for an ARE Cap purchased through Ruth’s in Albany Pine Bush, but I could also see if there is a local LEER dealer. ARE certainly offers the most options, and while their build quality is so-so and price not the cheapest, it is nice how you can get a cap built exactly as you want it. I am thinking the flat cap, with the roof tracks, the side windows that slide open and open-out, slide open front window and boot between the cab and cap, to allow air to flow between the two, while keeping out most of rain, moisture, dust. Then I can also run an extension cord into the cab when I want to work on my laptop plugged into the inverter. 🔌 I will move the solar panel and racks to the new truck, I want to add a second solar panel to double the output, probably just do another 100 watt Renology panel. I think my inexpensive PWM charger controller can handle two in parallel. If I have to, I’ll bump up to a MPPT controller, it would certainly improve panel outputs.
So yeah, at least in my head, I’m building out my new rig. ⏰ A lot depends on how long it takes to get my new truck cap, I am thinking 10 weeks, just knowing how these things go, but hopefully that’s a pessimistic number. I don’t remember how long my old cap took to build, I know it was a few weeks or months, but also it will be second week of April soon, certainly the busy season from camper shell manufacturers, and things just take longer now then it used to be. I can’t really do much electrical or move things over until I get the new cap, as I am mounting things primarily in the bed, to avoid cutting or modifying thing too much on the new truck. And that will keep wire runs much shorter, reducing voltage drop and wiring costs. ⚡ I am just trying to keep things much neater, much professionally done, and organized unlike some of mistakes I made when I was younger, and how the old rig evolved over time, as my needs grew and changed.
So I have a lot to plan out, but I will do it better this time, I tell myself. 👨👨👦 Today in the mean time, it’s off to visit Mom and Dad and visit with the family for Easter. It will be nice to be able to drive on my own for once. Try out driving the big truck, now that I got the mirrors and seat properly adjusted, and I’m figuring out all the controls. In many ways, it’s a chance to build my rig correctly for camping, after years of things being less then perfect 👌 on the old set up. Nobody can predict gas prices ⛽ – the futures markets are calling for a price crash by late summer into autumn and a recession – but only time will tell as the Iran situation is still very fluid. I kind of want to also try out hill descent control, I thought about hiking Bennett Hill 🚶 and after that just playing around on the backroad to see how it works in practice. I bet it would be awesome for some of those dirt roads I drive, especially those long twisty hills in West Virginia. I don’t know though, it’s going to be a rather rainy day. ☔ And there are many nice summer days ahead.
As winter’s grip begins to loosen, one of nature’s most distinctive and endearing signs of life emerges: the pussy willow. Belonging to the Salix genus, these hardy shrubs and trees are celebrated not for vibrant petals or heavy scents, but for their soft, silvery-gray catkins. More than just a seasonal decoration, the pussy willow is a biological marvel, a cultural icon, and a resilient survivor of the landscape.
Biological Adaptation and Early Bloom
The pussy willow’s most famous feature—its “fur”—is a sophisticated survival mechanism. These fuzzy catkins are actually the plant’s flower clusters, appearing in late winter or early spring before the leaves even unfurl. The dense, silk-like hairs act as insulation, trapping heat and protecting the delicate reproductive organs from the biting frost of a transitional season.
Biologically, pussy willows are dioecious, meaning individual plants are either male or female. The male plants are typically the stars of the garden, producing the large, plush catkins that eventually turn a dusty yellow as they release pollen. The female catkins are generally smaller and more utilitarian in appearance, eventually producing seeds that drift away on the wind like tiny tufts of cotton.
A Global Cultural Icon
Beyond the swampy thickets where they naturally thrive, pussy willows hold deep symbolic meaning across various cultures. In many Eastern European traditions, particularly in Poland and Ukraine, pussy willow branches serve as a substitute for palm fronds on Palm Sunday, representing spiritual renewal and protection.
In East Asian cultures, particularly during the Lunar New Year, the plant is a staple of festive decor. The budding branches symbolize the coming of prosperity and growth, often adorned with red and gold ornaments to invite good fortune into the home. Whether used as a religious token or a secular symbol of luck, the pussy willow universally signals the end of dormancy and the triumph of life over winter.
Environmental Utility and Gardening
For the gardener, the pussy willow is a study in contrasts: it is remarkably easy to grow but requires strategic placement. These plants are “water-seekers,” thriving in damp, poorly drained soils where other species might suffer from root rot. This makes them excellent tools for erosion control near riverbanks and ponds.
However, their thirst is legendary. The root systems of a pussy willow are aggressive and extensive, known to infiltrate sewer pipes and septic lines in their quest for moisture. When managed correctly through “coppicing”—cutting the shrub back to the ground every few years—the plant remains a manageable and productive source of decorative branches.
Conclusion
The pussy willow remains a beloved fixture of the early spring landscape. It bridges the gap between the bleakness of winter and the lushness of summer, offering a tactile and visual reminder that life persists even in the cold. From its specialized biological “fur” to its storied place in human tradition, the pussy willow is far more than a simple shrub; it is a resilient ambassador of the changing seasons.
The other day when I was walking up Ravine Road I passed that off grid homestead where they live in a trailer… 🏡
Well actually a mobile home is the proper term for these low cost, usually low income form of housing commonly seen in rural communities. They are kind of looked down upon, kind of seen as a home for people who can’t afford better. Most have very little residual value, much of their value isn’t the trailer but the land they reside upon.
So what exactly is a mobile home?
Typically it’s a prefabricated structure with a rectangular steel steel base where wheels are initially mountained on for towing, with 2×6 wooden floor joists and 2×4 wall joists. The walls are typically insulated with fiberglass insulation like most houses, although often thinner than code requires for modern houses.
The outside is weatherized with a plastic vapor barrier and then protected from the elements by thin aluminum sheeting that is nailed onto the beams and caulked to prevent water intrusion. The inside typically uses thin sheets of lightweight and thin pressed board made of wood chips and a binder material, some of which is covered by plastic resin to improve its waterproof nature. Appliances and plumbing are typically lighter weight to reduce the weight when towing onto the site and compensate for the smaller footprint of the building.
The problems that mobile homes face is multi-fold. One is the structure is lightweight and it can be difficult to upgrade to heavier materials like sheet rock or hardwood flooring can poses excessive weight on the floor joists, requiring extensive bracing to the ground. Insulation is another issue, as the thin beams don’t allow for the thicker insulation called for in the building codes for more modern buildings.
Why would I consider it?
Money is a big reason and what properties are available. I’d rather have more land and less house. 40 acres and a junk trailer beats 2 acres and a fancy suburbanite house. An off grid cabin, made from wood or more durable material would be better but sometimes that’s not an option. A junkey old trailer could be demolished with useful parts salvaged for other purposes.
Why might I not consider it?
Getting rid of a nasty old structure can be a lot of work. Even if you can burn a lot of the debris, scrap the metal pieces, your still left with a lot of junk that doesn’t burn that has to hauled off to the landfill or used as back fill on your property. Moreover, some of that rubber and plastic stuff used in mobile homes is really nasty to burn even if you are in a fairly unregulated area that let’s you burn what you want after notifying the fire department. It might seem like a good deal on paper but how good of a deal really is it?
Honestly though…
The videos on YouTube are quite fascinating to watch on this topic. While I certainly grew up in rural area where a lot of people lived in trailers I didn’t know much about the structures and the tear downs, repairs and demolitions on YouTube are fascinating – along with learning how all the different materials go together are used and interact in the structures.
