Big Red made one of his usual noises and had a regularly rough ride on the bumpy pavement around my house. And it just triggered another round of anxiety in my mind. I realize it’s all in my head, triggered by the rough week at work and not driving for a week. I could take it to the shop for an inspection but I gave nothing to point to. Things are fine but not in my head. I was Googling old car driving anxiety techniques and now I’m sure every web and podcast ad for the next four weeks will be for the Better Help scam.
Wash didn’t get fully done and I forgot to empty the compost container but it’s fine. I’ll empty it outside and I can either bury or burn it up in the wilderness. Or save it for a future week to take out there. And the clothes will dry at home on the line. It’s stupid things. I honestly don’t care that much about the slop bucket or clothes drying on the line.
More sheet metal is rotting away on that truck as it’s fourteenth birthday approaches in October. I want to replace him come spring with a Toyota Tacoma with a cap before my trip next summer to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Wisconsin. I mentioned to my parents that this is likely my last trip to the Finger Lakes – next year I’m planning to replace my truck – in preparation for the UP trip, I don’t know if I ever got that far in the conversation before packing up and grabbing my wash to head home. I think she thought I was implying giving up motoring which I’ve considered from time to time to save more and get closer to life goals.
Decided to go for a walk this evening at Hollyhock Preserve mainly figuring it was an excuse to wade in the Onesqathaw Creek. Not much water in it at all. I don’t want to stay too late as I should get to bed early. Maybe go for a morning bike ride if I’m up early. It’s been so hot this weekend, muggy and at times with a constant threat of thunderstorms I’ve stayed home laying on the book reading. I didn’t get out to Schoharie but maybe there is next week. I’d love to hit up the farm stands.
Tomorrow I’m driving in as I’m going to a public hearing on Monday about a development in the Pine Bush and Tuesday I’m going to the hearing on the Guilderland Comphrensive Plan but that one I’m going with Lynne with. Tomorrow I’ll probably do a late evening or night hike in the Albany Pine Bush. Tuesday I’ll bus in and then walk over to Lynne’s house.
I’m getting ready in some ways mentally for yet another summer vacation in the Finger Lakes. I told mom it’s the last, I’m tired of the Finger Lakes and I want to see other parts of the country. This year I might spend some time in historic Elmira and see the Corning Museum of Glass. Also want to do a day trip to Pennsylvania – Wellsboro to ride more of the gorge trail and see those dirty old farms and homesteads with their burn barrels out back. Truth is that would put a smile on my face. I do like fire.
Am I really that surprised? No not really. I spent most of the day home, laying the by fan, reading Mark Kulinsky’s Milk!about everybody’s favorite moo drink and history throughout time. Every time I wanted to go out, I’d look out west and the skies would be dark and radar would have a giant blob of yellow and red on it.
For a while I was thinking I could go for a bike ride 🚲 but it was so ungodly hot – especially the few times the sun came out. No nature bus to Thacher Park this week so that wasn’t an option. I had thought about driving down to Henry Hudson Park and reading in my hammock next to the river of the same name, and indeed with the breeze at times that would have been nice, 😀 but downpours seemed to always be five minutes away. Truth is we didn’t get a lot of rain but when we did, we certainly did for a few minutes at time. Southern Schoharie got even more rain. I kind of wanted to see the Blenheim Power Plant Car Show 🚘 this morning and I heard Shauls now has sweet corn 🌽 but oh well. Maybe next weekend for the sweet corn, though what I really want is summer squash and zucchuni more then corn.
It was just a day of heat and milky dreams. 😰 🐄 I spent a lot of hours learning how Ancient Greeks and Middle Ages liked their milky beverages and cheese 🧀 and kept dosing off in the heat, occasionally flipping through and trolling Facebook advertisers and watching dumb videos of farmers doing farmer shit 🚜 and rednecks burning garbage. 🛢️🔥 It would have been fun to have a fire last night up in the woods but it would have probably been a smokey wet fire with all the rain ☔ they had last night. I’m hoping vacation has much nicer weather.
73 more days of wearing contacts. 👀 Remember it’s my decision to delay LASIK but I have contacts to use up, I want to be able to swim in the summer, and anticipation is better then doing. But it sure will be nice not to have to deal with glasses and contacts after all these years. Countdowns are kind of fun. That said, the feeling of welders blindness 👁️ that following week and no bike riding 🚳 doesn’t seem great but I’ll get through it.
Showering and then off to Walmart. 🚿 🛒 I wanted to do this last night but I didn’t. I want to try to get there before the crowds, and then come home, read 📖 or I don’t know maybe go down to the park for a while before going out to see the folks. 🏞️ Need to get some clothes put in the crawl space and taken out before it gets too hot 👿 and do some leaning today. Big thing I need at Walmart is floss but also just the regular groceries as I’ve pretty much eaten everything left in my pantry. 🍏
I’m hoping this week will be more sane, 🤪 and maybe next weekend I can get out to Schoharie if it’s nice. 🌽 I’d love to get the farm stands, maybe do some riding along NY 30 🚲, float on the Schoharie Creek by Towpath Mountain in those swimming holes ⭕ and maybe pratice up on swimming 🏊 before summer vacation a week from Friday. Do one final check of my camping gear 🏕️ you know before summer vacation.
Hanging out at camp I’ve been watching several videos about the National Forests in Northern Michigan – both the lands Upper Peninsula and Huron National Forest. Honestly, I am quite excited about the possibilities of that road trip next year.
While I do think I want a smaller, more reliable truck, there is a lot that excites me about dispersed camping in the National Forests of Northern Michigan. The miles and miles of dirt and gravel roads, the informal campsites with nothing more then a driveway and fire ring along the roads. The sweeping views of the Great Lakes, the great expanses of nothingness.
The places I most crave in travels are not those heavily promoted in the tourist brochures. I’d much rather travel along dirt roads – hopefully none too rough – to simple basic roadside campsites far away from anyone else. Where I can have a fire, relax, get out my mountain bike and ride. Listen to music, watch the stars at night. Far away from cities and developed areas.
It’s not that I would never stop at a designated park or tourist location – I’m sure there are some epic lakeshores and other must visit places. Maybe poke around a little town for a bit. But not necessarily dewell in such places for long, as I seek our remote, dirt roads in wilderness.
One of the nice things about Michigan – and the Midwest in general – is even in the great forests much of it is relatively flat so many of them most likely have cell service. Which is nice to be connected to the outside world at times, share my experiences and find out things nearby to explore. It’s always good to be able to stream audio and in case of an emergency summon help. But mostly because it’s something to pass time at night keep connected, especially in an unfamiliar land.
It will be quite the adventure – if I can pull it off next year – which I do have to consider work and timing for getting a new truck and truck cap, installing needed accessories and moving the solar power over to it. Getting a rack for my bike and kayak. But it also could be a real epic adventure. And who knows how many more years I’ll have an opportunity, with my parents getting old and some day probably soon settling down to a homestead with hogs and goats to feed.
There has been a lot of talk about the proposal to have NYC commission healthy grocery stores in food desserts in the city. It is particularly an unpopular with convient store and bodaga owners in such areas who are afraid that the government with it’s tax exemptions and inheritant ability to subsidize will push them out of business. That’s always a risk.
Yet, there is a real need in many communities to have a source of healthy groceries. A public benefit corporation to sell healthy groceries chartered by the government could do just that – sell healthy groceries in neighborhoods where others have no found it profitable. Such a corporation while set up by city government, would be largely independent though likely get some subsidies that are inherit with government agencies like tax exempt buildings and profits. The assumption is such profits would go back into the community, allow for future store development.
Such a concept is not that far out – many communities have subsidized farmers and green markets of various sources which already bring healthy produce. But few are open week and year round. But maybe the bigger issue such a retailer would face is education. It’s great to have healthy food but people need to know the benefits of eating it and how to cook it. While evident to people who already are healthy and educated in cooking, many people aren’t familiar with the basics of food having grown up in the world of packaged food. They may have vague notions of the benefits of eating healthy food but have no education on the pros and cons of different dishes. They need to develop a taste for healthy food.
A government run supermarket could do just that. They could offer free samples and recipe advice. They could avidly promote the real, science-based health pros and cons of each item they sell. Simple, easy to follow recipes with cooking advice for each product should be made avaliable. The key is make unprocessed foods are simple and easy as the the things you get wrapped in plastic from a bodega. They could also be a collection point for food waste for composting.
Earlier in the week I ran the mid-month label jobs. I actually cheated this timeand exported the list through the first half of September and put it 74 more days of wearing contacts I will note.
The morning is starting out cloudy, humid and damp but the sun is expected to come out later on ⛅ though the risk of thunderstorms remains throughout the day, though the chances of a good afternoon soaker as the day goes on. That said, the latest forecasts have been downplaying the risk.
It was a shitty week, where I got wrapped up in my delusions. 🤪 It’s just the times we live in and I so wanted to go back to those days of working remote and being able to work from camp. Whatever, at least I don’t have to dress up for work and work 9-5 PM most days. Next summer maybe I’ll still have the chance to work remote some of the time when I’m spending some of my time working for campaign committee. I’ll keep pushing for that. The bike tire has been good after going flat earlier in the week,
I need to put my contacts in 👀 and get going. Only 74 days of having to do that as two days before the surgery is glasses only. 👓 I’ll be glad when that’s done. I could have had the surgery next week but it would mean no swimming essentially for the rest of summer. That doesn’t sound like much fun. ☹️ But I do hate dealing with the glasses and contact lens. Plus let’s be honest, I like anticipation better then actually engauging in activities. Waiting for Christmas is always much more fun Christmas Day. 🎁 🎅
People are like you act like $4,200 to get LASIK is like nothing, 💸 when you bemoan when you have to spend a buck thirty to ride the city bus when it rains ☔ or my bike breaks down. But my eyes are something that is unlikely to break down or need repairs and parts, at least until I’m really old 👴🏻 and need cataract surgery. I figure out $4,200 over thirty years is $140 or $11.66 a month. Plus $4.2k seems so little when I’m looking at homestead properties at closer to $300k, complete off-grid solar systems at $15k-$20k, new trucks at $35-50k, etc. Shit is expensive but unlike your eyes you don’t have to throw it away in 10 or 15 years. 🗑️ Solar is kind of like that as is owning a house but there are still components to fix. I guess there are still biyearly eye check ups and I may eventually need cheap drug store ⚕️ reading glasses but it’s not like the endless stream of contacts, contact cleaner, lens cases and glasses.
I actually saw some houses I kind of liked at Zillow 🏡 yesterday, but I don’t want to buy at this point. Really, I’m okay with my dumpy apartment but I do still worry at some point it will get too expensive. Maybe I can downsize to a studio apartment or an old motel in the city where it’s cheaper if necessary. That said, wherever I move would certainly be more expensive then my dumpy old apartment where I ride my bike to work.
The thing is properties I like are too far from work for easy commuting, plus New York State sucks on so many levels – from the burn ban to the gun laws to permitting. There is a neat off-grid cabin in Gilboa 🎄 which was great but much too far from work, a house in Nassau on ten acres I sort of liked but still much too suburban with electric heat but a fire places and a pretty generic you know suburban interior and no barns or infrastructure for livestock. 🐐 Truth is I still want to travel and not be feeding pigs and goats in this heat and breaking ice in water troughs at this point in my life. It’s good though I’m learning what’s out there, and are many interesting living arrangements mostly outside of commuting range cities, it’s not just fantsy land of YouTube. 📺
I am thinking and actually packing to go out to Schoharie today. 🏕️ Just a quick overnight but the weather forecast and clouds this morning 🌫️ give me pause as I’m not sure how nice of a day it will be with the real possibility of downpours and thunderstorms ⛈️ all afternoon meaning Mine Kill Pool is closed. With the current sky conditions and forecast I’m inclined to call it off 🙅but tomorrow is the Auto Show at the Power Project and that’s always fun to go. I started to pack but I think I might change my mind and just catch the bus to Thacher Park later. Maybe next week, they’ll have more produce then at the farm stands.
