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Your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast 🌇

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As that awful Steely Dan song goes, that decades ago said wasn’t real oldies because it was released less then 10 years before I was born.

Evenings really get short quickly when you get to the second half of August. But it was good walking in the Pine Bush even if didn’t repeat my points at the meeting last night.

Every time I go for walk in the Pine Bush 🌲 and listen to the roar of cars it really fucks with my sleep. 🛏️ All that commericialism, the traffic, the garbage dump. Didn’t help that at 5:30 AM I had to get up to get the pot of beans on the stove, and they’re still not done. 🍲 I need to get in the shower so I’m not in too late. I do regret not speaking 🙊 up at the meeting last night, I should be more assertive but I did speak up. I threw the notes I wrote up in garbage, soon enough I’ll burn them up with the rest of packaging. 🔥 I used to separate out the paper, but it’s dumb, they got rid of free paper recycling, so it burns with the rest of crap up in woods. I can say I am not part of all that crazy car commuting world, the city dump, or that consumerism thing but I did drive to Pine Bush and Guilderland Town Hall in my creaky, big jacked up truck, and just because I burn shit to get rid of it doesn’t mean it goes away – it just blackens up and becomes smoke – and there is always things that don’t burn that some point I’ll have to take to dump. 🗑️

Doesn’t look like a lot of rain this week, ☔ it looks like fire risk is elevated in much of Vermont due to the lack of rain and parts of Western NY are in a drought, though mostly in the area around Niagara Falls. I am sure things will change for that last week when I’m summer vacation and it will be 13 days of rain. ⛈️ I guess if it looks truly wet, I could pack the propane heater. I do worry about hurricanes this time of year, though it’s been pretty quiet and it’s rare the Finger Lakes get that much hurricane 🌀 rains.

I should commit to leaving next Wednesday through Labor Day and actually take the time off for vacation, 🏖️ still it feels difficult to plan it out or even think of summer coming to it’s logical conclusion. Then it will be September and I’ll get LASIK and not have to deal with the irrated eyes  👀 anymore. I need to talk to the bank 🏦 about seeing if I can get a credit limit boost so I can put it on my card for the rewards. 💳 Still need to figure out what I am going to do on summer vacation, besides reading in the hammock, fishing, swimming, kayaking. I’ve been fascinated by Big Flats and Mount Steige, and nature preserves out that way and checking out the deep, somewhat developed but also fertile agricultural valley. 📸 I also kind of want to poke around Elmira. And get down to Pennsylvania to see  redneck burn barrels, 🛢️ and maybe one other day ride more of the Pine Creek Gorge Trail. 🚲 I don’t know if I would start down in Blackwell and go farther south, or if I can would do that new section by Wellsboro. 🐮 / 🏞️

I got my test results back from the doctor 🧪 and my salt levels were right at normal level and the triglycerides were slightly elevated. Probably all that damn beer 🍻 I was drinking two weekends ago when I was up at Burnt-Rossman, all anxious and stressed out about the truck as I tried to get back and enjoy the normal life of travel again. I think what bothered me the most was that my triglycerides levels were right at the normal level and salt levels were slightly below normal last time, because of healthy eating. I put on six lbs compared to the year before. 🤰 Maybe it was the junk-food French toast I had my parents house that Monday before. And I have been adding more salt when cooking lately, 🧂though being that I don’t eat processed food, nothing contains added salt. I only eat fresh or frozen raw fruits and vegatables, and really the only time I ever eat meat is when I visit my parents or when I’m out. Other then that, it’s that occasional slice or half a slice of Mariaville Farm Bacon 🥓 that I like with my zucchuni and other veggies fried up.

Truth is that I got cold feet and didn’t speak at the Guilderland Conservation Committee meeting tonight 👣

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I totally should have but I got listening to the developer and then they sort of moved on to the next project. I could have spoken up and had my opportunity to make public comment but I remained silent. I spoke on this project the last meeting and the Pine Bush Commission technical committee pretty much said what I was thinking. And it’s just an advisory commission I told myself.

Something about the developer’s counsel pushed me off to, made me flustered to respond. He was a snake but also acted like he didn’t know or understand the Pine Bush while the Conservation Committee members seemed to be strong advocates. He had such a thick Appalachian accent, a working man like those hillbillies I was smoking with this past weekend. While I was opposing more vinyl houses in the Pine Bush, it felt different to speak after him and nobody from the public was there to bridge me in.

I wasted gas and my time driving all the way out to Guilderland to remain silent. But the room was crowded but no one else in the public wanted to talk about the Pine Bush. I was also flustered as on my way leaving the Rapp Road parking area on the Pine Bush I hit the edge of the pavement hard, felt like I loosened up something in my suspension and then felt every bump on the road and heard every noise. I was like I’m not going to make it home and there goes vacation again. Not as many wildflowers or blackberries in the Pine Bush this evening though I saw a Red Tail Hawk up close.

Truth is that I get pushed around too much, to scared of public speaking and reading my inevitable quotes in the Altamont Enterprise. I’m quotable because not only I’m a conservationist and a Democrat – I really conservative, unscripted and in many people’s minds awful views. I’ve been listening to Dr. Robert Lover’s Dating Advice for Men and the truth is that I need to not be afraid to be rejected, ask questions and listen. Be authentic. You will never get a girl friend if you don’t ask lots of girls – many who may seem less than perfect at first glance.

As long as I’m not too anxious I’ll make it home safely after shopping at Hannaford in Voorheeesville. I wish I had struck up a conversation with that guy I ran into up at the Potholers when I fell – just to learn what he was about – see if he has seen any wildlife or other interesting things while up there. I can’t live my life in fear just because a girl is pretty or a developer speaks in a deep accent and wears a hipster beard.

Money and junk 💰

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“Don’t expect all that much when you trade in Big Red next year for a new truck.” Somehow those words struck me as odd, as I never thought of an automobile as having any resale value whatsoever. I mean I knew at one level autos have a value, you pay money to buy them but then you use them up and they become trash just like the countless other things you buy. Automobiles are widely known as a depreciating asset, though I’ve always thought of them as something for personal transportation and enjoyment – not something for resale value.

“Owning a house means you are building equity.” Likewise, I often think those words are odd because while it’s true housing prices often rise, you are betting a lot of money on a single asset in a single location. Insurance can protect you from certain risks like fire but many financial risks of homeownership like a failed roof or furnace – or that a neighborhood slides downhill – are not protected. Houses aren’t like buying stock or bonds, you most constantly be maintaining them and spending money on them if you want them to retain their value. But alas we all have to live somewhere. Housing is not free if you rent or buy. Housing can build equity but it’s a fairly trivial side benefit, it’s mostly a consumer expense like a car, maybe you’ll come out ahead when you sell your old house or maybe not. There are no guarantees in life.

Some people are really into putting a value on things they own, quickly selling unneeded and unwanted possessions at tag sales and on Ebay. I’ve never done that as I find it hard to know where to start – what to value – and I don’t really know how to sell things. I generally think of stuff as things you buy, you use up all value and throw away. I guess I have a hard time in my mind putting a value on physical things that I own as they are paid for and the money is gone. Physical things just don’t seem like money to me even if they aren’t all garbage with a resale or scap value.

Another type of asset people often refer to is education and work experience. Yet, at one level I know they are valuable but they also don’t seem real because they’re not a number you can point to and aren’t that valuable unless you are seeking a new job. Friends and social connections are other assets I should do more to develop. It’s something I have not spent enough time on admittedly. Probably far more valuable than investable assets.

They call monetary assets like stocks and bonds or even cash investable assets. Those are the only assets that I see as having any real value. Truth is though I’ve never sold a stock or bond so while they have a paper value, it’s really hard to value them either. Markets go up and down each day and there are capital gains taxes to consider. A good accountant could probably spit out a number – or maybe my brokerage website – but I’m quite happy to just keep adding to them and let them grow.

Maybe I just find money to be rather confusing like so many things in this world today.

Harmful Algea Bloom in Lake Myosotis

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In the news … “The Lake Myosotis Beach is closed because of a possible harmful algal bloom.”

I was surprised about this news as the Lake Myostis watershed doesn’t seem like it would have much excess nitrogen or phosphorous in it. The 4,252 acre watershed for the lake is according to the 2024 National Land Cover Dataset, 76.5% forested with only 5.8% of it developed most of which is Developed Open space 5.1%. Pasture/Hay accounts for 10.6% land cover and there is no Cultivated Crop land shown on the NLCD. But it has been a warm summer.

Here is the acreages and percent land cover for the 4,252 acre Myosotis Lake Watershed based on the 2024 National Land Cover Dataset.

ID Class Acres Percent
11 Open Water 100 2.4%
21 Developed, Open Space 216 5.1%
22 Developed, Low Intensity 30 0.7%
23 Developed, Medium Intensity 2 0.0%
31 Barren Land (Rock/Sand/Clay) 0 0.0%
41 Deciduous Forest 2,364 55.6%
42 Evergreen Forest 167 3.9%
43 Mixed Forest 725 17.0%
52 Shrub/Scrub 7 0.2%
71 Grassland/Herbaceous 6 0.2%
81 Pasture/Hay 451 10.6%
90 Woody Wetlands 157 3.7%
95 Emergent Herbaceous Wetlands 28 0.7%

The longest camping trip 🏕️

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If I leave on Wednesday August 20 through Labor Day it will be my longest camping trip of my life. 13 days and 12 nights which works out to be the federal limit for camping in the National Forest. It’s free and I’ve not taken any time off since July 3rd so it makes a lot of sense. Why not? I’m not planning a trip to West Virginia and honestly the additional days at camp are not likely to add much cost to the trip. And it just more days to hang out at camp.tt

I’ll probably have to go to the laundromat mid trip and maybe get more propane but also it can be an extraordinarily lazy not having to rush through vacation to explore all that I want to do in a limited time. Lots of time for fishing and floating, riding trail and just hanging out around camp with a good book and a cold beer.