Personal

Well I won’t be riding in the next few days 🚳

|

Discovered a broken spoke on my bike, fortunately early enough to catch the bus downtown. Tonight I’ll pull the wheel and the tire, take to Steiner’s at lunch time tomorrow and hopefully they can replace the spoke right away. I’ll put the new rear tire I bought last month but didn’t install on. It was worn and needed to be done especially before the next time I was riding trail. Then hopefully be able to ride to Five Rivers Tuesday evening and Wednesday and Thursday to work and whatever I decide for the weekend.

Morning folks, cool start to the week ☀

|

Almost feels like a autumn or early spring morning out there this morning with temperatures in the fifties and only expected to reach the upper fifties later on. 🌥 Some blue sky earlier but clouds pushing in. At least it’s not raining currently, none of those downpours we had on Sunday or Thursday and Friday last week. ☔

Back to work today, but first coffee ☕ and carrot pancakes. When shopping yesterday morning, got a big 5-lb bag of carrots 🥕 so I had to start pulverizing them and putting them to good use. They make good hardy pancakes with shredded oatmeal, whole-wheat flour, egg, baking powder and lots of cinnamon. Topped with mango and strawberries.

It was a great evening out at Bender Mellon Farm Preserve 🍉 yesterday, though the sky did open up for a few minutes when I was out there, 🌧️ but it was sheltered enough that I did not get soaked under the trees. 🌲I got RStudio installed on my work laptop so I’ll be ready now for whatever data jobs come over the weekend, as the work laptop 🖥 is always on me even when I don’t have my personal laptop. Speedometer on my bike is still drying out after getting soaked this past weekend.

This upcoming weekend I’m watching the weather, ⛈ as the forecast keeps changing, not as hot for the weekend but also stormy on Friday. I kind of want to roadside camp ⛺ to have a big fire and not haul all the gear back into the woods, but on the other hand if Friday is shit, I might just camp in the back country Saturday night in Northern Schoharie County, ride some roads or trails around, and go to the Gas Up on Sunday to spend more time there. 🚜 I’m also considering going to Burnt-Rossman if the weather looks good on Friday night, or maybe Prospect Mountain Road in Vermont, especially the later if it seems like I’ll be working remote during part of the weekend, as I got good reception there.

Congestion

|

I don’t have a dog in the fight, and with my position in government I can’t really take one but I don’t think we need fewer smoking bletching, public maiming automobiles in our cities.

It’s not to say everybody should persue an urban life or live downtown but transit is the best way to move people in cities either to their homes or suburban park and rides where they can drive or bike to their homes.

One of the kinds of property I’ve been looking at …

|

Is an old mobile home on a large acreage in a rural town.

I think that would be an excellent start to building what would eventually be my dream homestead — not necessarily because I would want to keep the run-down trailer — it would probably be best scrapped but could greatly reduce infrastructure costs (water well, driveway, septic) compared to building on raw land. Plus if it was not in complete disrepair, it could provide immediate shelter to live in until I could build a more permanent and desirable structure. Not to mention, at least in my mind, it’s not as bad as tearing down the woods to build a new home site. I bet it would be fun to tear one down — scrap the metal, either reuse or burn the 2x4s and landfill any unusable debris. But I’d probably try to reuse a lot in creative ways in my off-grid home.

That said, I’ve come to realize such properties are probably exceptionally rare, because most properties that come with a mobile home are very small acerage, because people who typically can afford a mobile home, can’t afford much land. But I do examine every piece of acerage I do see with a mobile home coming up for sale. And those who do, often are kind of odd characters, and as such those properties are exceptionally rare. It’s not like I’m the only one with such a thought, and I’m sure many others in market are looking for similar properties. Yet, it never hurts to look.

Another option that is somewhat common on raw and minimally developed properties is people living in campers until they can develop their land. In the hilltowns this isn’t uncommon, and it’s an option. Certainly then I wouldn’t have to pay rent, and I could carefully watch what is happening at the construction site. Used campers aren’t that expensive, and my tastes certainly aren’t fancy. But they probably are cold and very energy inefficent in the winter, even if I don’t need or want much space. Indeed, when my off-grid house is done, I doubt it would be all that much larger then some of those campers you see at the RV parks. My grandfather years ago had one of them at a park in Warrensburg. Maybe not peak living, but I could see one as a decent temporary arrangement.

I am not convinced that building in New York is right for me. I have a lot of reservations about the state’s laws, even if I do like my job and for now my family is located in state. I do want to get back to the country. But buying land with a run-down mobile home on acerage is an idea I’ve discussed with friends and they agree that would be a good potential start from building a homestead without an existing house, allowing me to implement more green-building and off-grid techniques.