I had a bit of a boo-boo at the Potholers yesterday, slipped while walking across them falling and cracking my arm good and hard. Don’t think I broke my arm but I did pull a muscle or something, as I can feel it when I crimp down my hands or lift something. Not sure if I need to go to the doctor but it’s still painful. To boot my other hand has a sore finger, as I got a splinter next to one of my nails and it’s slowly but surely recovering but slowly.
Andy’s got a boo-boo! 🚴 Let’s be honest I’m not that crippled from the slip and fall as I rode my mountain bike, something like 20 miles from Canajaoharie out to St. Johnsville down to the historic lock and the old St. Johnsville town dump. Those duroc hogs on that beautiful homestead in St. Johnsville are getting big. 🐽 Didn’t see them at first because they were wallowing in the mud and hiding in the weeds to avoid the heat, and wind was blowing the other way. But that burn barrel along the trail was pungent. 🛢️ I can’t complain much though as there hasn’t been a piece of burnable trash that I’ve sent to the landfill since April nor have have I saved anything but flattened, burnt-out cans for recycling ♻️ from fires I’ve had. 🔥 I think though I prefer my fires much hotter, plastic makes an excellent fire starter to a bonfire, with less stink and toxins. ☠️ You know I like the country hillbilly life with all the smells but also the reality of dirt, mud, manure and fire. 🐮 It was fun hanging out with those dudes form Utica this weekend. I’m actually surprised how little trash I’ve had lately during farmers market season due to all the fresh vegatables 🍆 I’ve been eating and composting the cores, but also having a lot of fires helps keep trash from accumulating.
The Shady Acres Drive proposed development is on the Guilderland Conservation Committee agenda again tonight, 🚧 so I’m driving in. I also need groceries – going to stop at Walmart and get bananas 🍌 and a bag of beans to soak tonight, 🫘 and I’m cooking rice up this morning. I should get some onions too. On the drive home, I’ll stop at the Voorheeesville Hannaford rather then Woke Market32 in Guilderland for hopefully some reasonably affordable perishables like frozen fruit and Greek yogurt. Also plan to do a hike in the Pine Bush 🌲 after the meeting to enjoy the sunset, and eat lots of blackberries. Just because I was foolish and did not go up to White House for the wild blueberries 🫐 this weekend – I thought it was going to be ungodly hot 😰 though it didn’t turn out that way – but the blackberries along Willow Road in the Pine Bush are likely to be amazing this evening if the early crop suggests.
Next weekend I may head out to Schoharie to swim in the pool 🏊 and maybe float in the Schoharie Creek by Mine Kill. Going to be definately warm enough for both of those activities. If I take 990V and head through the hill towns, rather then the Thruway, I won’t be so tired from the horrific rush hour traffic – it was bad last Friday. Last night looked Ike the Thruway had very heavy volume too – but I took NY 162 through Rural Grove and then US 20 home. 🍦 The Sharon Dairy Bar wasn’t so crowded last night but I decided against it after a weekend of drinking and smoking, preferring to just chomp down on a banana and have a few glasses of Cider-Vingar water once I got home. A week from Wednesday is when I’m thinking of leaving for the Finger Lakes but I want to wait until mid-week to get a better read on the weather and officially take those days off. 🏖️ Let’s sing along folks, Beach, baby, beach!
It’s as far as I have to go to before heading back. Sunset is coming fast and I don’t drive home when it’s too dark. The ol pigs at the homestead along the Canalway but you couldn’t really smell them. They’re smart putting their hog yard to the east of their homestead. I do like bacon. But I could smell a redneck along the way burning some plastics. Yeap, I can smell the burn barrel. Good ol country living, how life should be. And lots of noise from the Thruway. Hot but beautiful evening on the Canalway and basically zero traffic riding it.
I see your flags. Your Andy Arthur, the one with that blog with all the maps, right? That was what the boys in the pickup truck hooting and hollaring said passing by last night. It was I think 4:30 AM before I got back to my campsite after hanging out all night, passing around the pipe, drinking beer and watching pallets and other shit burn in their fire last night.
I honestly had no expection of doing an all-nighter last night with the boys, but that’s how it worked out. 🔥 We chatted for hours on end, they were from the Utica area. They said that’s a pretty sweet truck, and I was like, it’s kind of old and crumbly with 14 winters under it’s belt. 🛻They were from the Utica area, living out in country, and I had to admit I was pretty jealous of them🧑🌾But of course, they said I’m fortunate to live in the big city and have the big director’s job at Data Services. It’s kind of weird how jealous we are of each other lives. We got talking about how they have families and I have none, and how I dream about owning my own land 🚜 and having livestock. 🐐 Or was it just a really strange trip? I should learn to talk to people less and listen more 👂 they often have interesting stories to tell.
Yesterday turned out to a be pretty beautiful day, but I was just kind of tired both from the grass and because I also stayed up super late on Friday night because it was a beautiful evening and I had a big cup of office coffee ☕ late in the afternoon before heading up to camp to make sure I had the energy to drive up after such an exhausting week at work. Amazing how strong office coffee is compared to my percolator pot I use a home. Spent all of the morning yesterday reading, then napping, 😴 then after a good lunch with lots of fried summer squash, bacon, tomatoes, and shallots I got last week at Shauls, I spent the next three hours floating on the East Canada Creek. 🏊 Terribly lazy but I needed it after the week that was.
I wanted to get Campsite 5 but I ended up at House Pond Campsite for the weekend. It’s fine, I liked being able to bike over to the Potholers last night. 🚲 I should have brought my swimming trunks when I rode up there, it actually got hotter and more humid as the evening progressed. By the time I was riding back to camp at 4 AM it was kind of cool, but sitting by that rip roaring fire, it was warm enough. 🔥 I don’t think riding my bike back to camp was the most dangerous thing ever, as it was a 4 AM on a dirt road in middle of nowhere, only a 1/2 mile or so, but I fully admit it was a sloppy ride back. I know I probably just curled up with that sloppy German Shepard and spent the night up at their camp rather then retiring back to my truck.
Yesterday was so beautiful, I am kicking myself for not going up to White House and picking blueberries, 🫐and doing some hiking along the Northville Placid Trail. 🚶 Today is already getting hot, but if I had been there, I could have just taken camp down relatively early, and spent all afternoon at the swimming beach at that state campground on the Great Sacandaga Lake outside of Northville. 🏊 The store bought blueberries I had were pretty good, as were the wild blackberries I picked earlier in the week in the Albany Pine Bush. I’m going to need more groceries on Monday, so maybe I should ride down to Norman’s Kill Preserve to pick some more after work. 🛒 Then shop. Really don’t think there is enough daylight left in the evenings now to go out to Five Rivers 🐸 after work but it was fun while the days lasted to read books up there. That one Libby book I have on homesteading stopped working so I ended up finishing up the Ansel Adam’s autobiography I had, and then while floating on the East Canada Creek I was listening to a history of Dairy Farming in Wisconsin. Dairy is somewhat different in Wisconsin then New York as it’s farther away from many big cities and cheese 🧀 production has always been a much bigger part of the industry. Also been reading this ebook that showcases southern cabin architecture – how people have turned chinked old-fashioned logged cabins once common in rural south and turned the into beautiful, modern homes. 📚 I got to admit it was a very lazy day, ☀️ but I really needed it after such an admitly rough work week.
The plan is to swim 🏊 and float for the morning, probably first do the East Canada Creek swimming hole by the House Pond Campsite, ⭕then I’ll ride up to the Potholers for the balance of the day. I’d like to get back to the truck by around 3:30-4 PM so I can drive down Canajaoharie and ride until around 7 PM tonight then head home while there is still some light. As it was only a two night trip, I packed fairly light 💼 so take down should be fairly easy once I get home. 🏡 It’s going to be a hot day, and after the wild night last night 🌃 I’m sure I’ll just want to collapse into bed 🛏️ and sleep soundly next to fan. Maybe I’ll do a hike up to House Pond first though. 🚶
I put the hub caps back on Red. 🛻 They really enhance the appearance of the wheels. It’s funny to think this very well will be my last trip up to Piseco-Powley for the year and that soon the road will be closed for winter. Probably the last time I will ever have Red up here. Big Red has been good but he’s getting long in the tooth. I’m kind sad to see Red go – my new truck next year will be a lot smaller – but also better on gas ⛽ and reliability 🛠️ so my hope it next year to do many more adventures. Trading in or selling Big Red will be like many a man selling his late 1960s Mustang or GTO in the late 1970s or early 1980s. A lot of regret all around but there will be the pictures and the memories.
One more weekend then summer vacation. 🏖️ I could do White House next weekend but I’m leaning more towards Shauls and Mine Kill and then visit with the family. Probably a week from Wednesday I’ll head out to the Finger Lakes through Labor Day. 🏕️ That works out to be 14 days, the maximum stay per 30 days in the National Forest. I have the vacation time and I should use it, though I do want to roll over the maximum into next year and want to take a long weekend up to the Saint Regis Canoe Area around early October 🍂 once I’m recovered from the LASIK.
“Mr. Green, He’s So Serene, He’s Got a TV in Every Room” – Pleasant Valley Sunday, the Monkees!
Being in my forties now and researching buying houses and land, I am struck by how many consumer ads I am flooded with. I get that I am in my prime purchasing years in my life, and once I own a home, I will need to make repairs and get at least some furnishings and appliances, but the endless advertisements for dinning room sets, roof replacements, insulation and building systems, solar panels and especially those gutter leaf guards. As apparently leaf-filled gutters are the biggest menace ever to the suburban house-owner. I get it — leafs plug gutters, they rot, make gutters heavy and overflow, rotting the boards near them, then eventually the gutters fall from the building if not cleaned. Just like vinyl siding is convenient, even if it’s often poorly applied and accelerates underlying rot, as is case in one house I looked at earlier in the summer.
There are first the endless seeming ads for heat pumps and grid-tied solar. I swear NYSERDA with their promotion of Heat Pumps is always one of the top targeted ads on my blog, at least for me. Since I’ve started advertising on my blog it’s usually the first ad I see. I am not saying that that a heat pump won’t necessarily be a choice when I build my off-grid homestead, but I think I would much rather use a woodstove and locally-harvested source of wood for heat and open the windows in the summer. I’ve never had air conditioning nor do I have much interest in it.
Maybe I am particularly annoyed by the web and podcast advertising as I don’t own a television so I’m not bombarded with television messages all day long, and I’ve cut back dramatically on listening to NPR as it’s mostly stories about how Donald Trump is a dark cloud over the nation. And maybe it’s a good change over what was the advertising I got a few years back, which all way praising the benefits of Better Help and Mental Health Therapy, then weight loss and meal plans, then financial advisors. I get targeted advertising is just trying to sell to interested customers.
But it makes the whole idea of owning a home all the more repulsive. Buying a new house — you’ll want to consider renting a dumpster for all that shit you’ll inevitably rip out and not want to bring into your new life and instead send to that growing mound of toxic filth on the outskirts of the city. Don’t forget the convenience of garbage service, as the advertiser remind you. You can toss it one bin for pretend recycling! Don’t even think of burning it, that’s illegal even out in the country. And you’ll want home internet, because nobody can live without high-speed internet in every room. Got to recycle the paint, that you inevitably won’t use up, because they’re is lots of state money now for paint take-back programs. And so forth. Even thinking of buying a home, or expressing any kind of interest, fills you feed with so much repulsive advertising crap on all the things you will want to buy.
There is the assumption in the popular culture that the good times will go on forever — low unemployment, cheap gasoline — and that our parks and highways will remain crowded. But that assumption is dangerously foolish.
Everybody knows that the next recession is around the corner, and that only one big upset in the Middle East could put world oil markets into a tailspin. We could have gas lines or prices over $5 a gallon in six months.
We really don’t know. The economy is white hot right now, and gasoline is super cheap, but just because things are really good now, doesn’t mean things won’t change.
