That’s the song that Brooks and Dunn made famous about 20 years ago. And that’s the advice of my counselor to help me find more order and contentment on my life. It’s actually not a bad plan. I have to say I agree with a lot of his idea.
I can go alone for the rest of my life with the freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want. I do like my freedom. But there is a lot of benefit to living together with someone and having a relationship and shared responsibilities. Stools are more steady with more than one legs.
The truth is my off-grid dream or owning a homestead really isn’t super practical to do it all alone. It is nice to have money and invest it, with a dream but it’s hard to make it a reality alone. Plus it seems like all my friends are settling down, buying houses and starting families. While I doubt I’d ever want to have kids except maybe young meat or dairy goats, certainly more hands can bring a homestead closer to reality.
Having an extra leg in the stool means both partners have somebody to fall back on and provide mutual aid. I can shovel horse manure, break ice in frozen water troughs or haul garbage to the burning barrel or slop to the pig pen in exchange for help when my truck breaks down or just needing companionship when I’m lonely or need some one to bounce ideas off of.
I am not sure that I am ready to settle down although truth be told I’m kind of bored with doing the same old trips to the Adirondacks alone. I kind of want to have land and livestock. I’d like to meet some new people and new horizons. I feel like I’ve run low on interesting unique places close to home so maybe the next best thing is new people and groups. Not looking to spend more time with Albany insiders though.
Albany is fine, it pays well and I like my work. But the suburbanite, everything is plastic isn’t the life I want to live. I want to be closer to the earth and be able to take care of myself and my family when things go wrong which are certain to happen in an era of accelerating climate change.
While I want to set down roots, I’m just as committed as ever to get out of New York State eventually, just because of the gun and open burning laws. To say nothing of what is happening to so much farm land and forest with the industrial solar farms or how humane laws and climate change restrictions might make it very hard to have a homestead in New York. I worry a lot about New York versus the kind of lifestyle I want to live eventually. It’s not homestead or rural life friendly.
After all, a lot of it is a Dead Zone from depleted oxygen from too much nitrogen and warm temperatures. In 2024, the dead zone was 6,705 square miles, which is larger than average and roughly the size of New Jersey.
Plus then they could sell Grateful Dead things at tourist shops at beaches along the shoreline.
Not to too cold and windy this morning, but gray. I don’t love taking the bus or walking laps on the Plaza. Just one way though, as I think the trail will be crap and I probably should take the road. You know I’ll be attempting the bike path.I’m crazy.
Still it beats busing it to work and walking laps in the Plaza. 🚶 I did that yesterday and it was fine but I get tired of walking laps in the Concourse with the same gray walls and sketchy people hanging around. Of course, you never know these days if somebody is schizophrenic or just talking on their cellphone. 📱 Both have been increasingly common in the Plaza. 👮 Keeps the state troopers employed. The bike ride gets me my exercise in, plus saves on the bus fare.
Made cornmeal pancakes this morning, 🥞 this time adding some oatmeal, whole wheat flour and spinach to fortify them a bit. I often use just cornmeal and eggs with baking powder and a little bit of salt, plus shredded onions and turmeric but I wanted to try to something different. Change is a good thing, even if eggs are still mad expensive 🥚 though I bought that big container of eggs a few weeks back, as they’re such a good source of protein. Apparently because I think a lot about including a lot of natural fiber in my foods my internet advertising feed is full of advertisements for Metamucil.
I am very opposed to vitamins and supplements of all types, as if you are missing something like that from diet, 💊 you really should be eating real food to get it. 🥒 If you need fiber, eat more vegatables. And maybe whole-wheat flour and oatmeal for your soluble fibers. I do use a lot of sugar substitutes though, because I think they are a way to avoid excess calories while giving a lot of sweetness to things. 🍁 But soon once maple syrup taping season is underway, I’ll switch back to real maple syrup but not in glass because I hate breakable, unburnable glass.
I was annoyed about another high heating and electric bill this month at $122, which I get the grand scheme of things with inflation isn’t much still I was hoping for two digits. 🔌 Maybe it’s because I had the heat up a bit when the landlord was over to repair the fridge and it’s been cold. Or more likely, I’ve gotten very comfortable with the heated blanket cranked up like a sweat lodge at times in bed, even though I keep the heat everywhere else at 50. ♨️ Plus I’ve been taking longer showers, which means the hot water tank works harder. Also think the landlord improved the insulation next door when he renovated that unit, plus while I’m not finding any new air leaks that I can find I am sure insulation isn’t great here, and it’s been such a windy winter, even if it’s not the coldest ever. Truth is by this weekend’s trip called off due to snow, I’ll probably save that amount just by staying home and reading. 📖
I was so hoping to get out of town this weekend 🏕️ for the holiday, but it keeps going between a ton of snow, less snow, more rain and ice, and who knows. I knew for a while Madison County was off the agenda, but I had thought Schoharie or certainly Rennselaerville could have been a possibility, but nah. And it’s going to get even colder after the snow storm, so there isn’t going to be much snow melt next week. Maybe I’ll take off next Friday and do a long weekend, but I don’t know there is a lot of snow to dig out even that campsite in Rensselearville. 🔥 I do want to have a fire though and look at the stars at some point. Maybe it won’t be until that first week of March. At some point things will warm up.
I got Valentine’sDay Candy 🍬 😍 for my employees this year. Probably have to have a meeting to hand them out today. And drop some over at the other departments for people who are such a part of my team. It’s good, I actually forgot to buy onions, mushrooms, and tofu this week when I ran over to get Valentine’s Candy but it worked out as I ended up eating other things so it’s all good. 😋 Change is not a bad thing, despite what so many people seem to think these days. I get change can be painful and uncomfortable but sometimes you got to move on.
Many people are warning that R. F. K. Jr. poses a clear and present threat to public health with his use of conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism. They are alarmed that he now oversees the federal health bureaucracy, that is going to take government in dangerous directions. He’s part of President Trump’s many initiatives to move quickly, break things, try new ideas to fix an already seriously broken system.
Lynne Jackson the other night was saying to me she can’t believe anybody voted for Donald Trump. I bit my lip and nodded along. But let’s be honest, many things have been broken for a long time in our country, people are dying prematurely from unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, while our cities get surrounded by ever growing mounds of waste, our cities smoggy, burn and flooded because of the vast amounts of energy we are dumping into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide which is changing the climate. And don’t get me started how fucked up societial institutions are with their high taxes and poor quality of services provided by government at all levels. Not to mention how blacks and others are getting the shit beat out of them by cops and robbed by the government and scammers alike.
R. F. K. Jr. is most known these days as a vaccine skeptic. But I also remember him from years ago back when he had a mid-morning progressive radio show on WPRI and other stations. Back when he was known as the crusading environmental lawyer, maybe always prone towards sueing polluters with an eye for cash but also helping to fight against some of the worse cases of dumping and abuse of the Hudson River. Our river is a lot better off because of the precedence he help set out in law.
Things are changing in America, in many ways a lot quicker then one might expect. But the old system and way of doing things was broken, and needed to change. And honestly, I think he has some interesting ideas – we should be looking more to harness the power of psychedelics both recreationally and to treat mental illness – and old thinking about fats, especially as it relates to minimally processed foods like whole milk and meats enjoyed in moderation, do need to be reconsidered based on contemporary science. Sorry Greenies, there are no healthy granola bars, even if the label says they are organic oats and cane sugar and packaging is to be recycled at least in your mind. An apple or orange is far healthier option.
A field fire, while potentially destructive and costly to a farm’s crops in a first year, usually leads to much greener fields as new grass grows into the nutrient-rich ash left by the fire. Often communities grow stronger after a fire, flood or hurricane, even if there is initially a lot of destruction and loss. Indeed, there is a lot of evidence that is what is needed.
The old way of doing things was failing. We needed a reimagination, not just an automatic rejection of all new ideas as being dangerous and foolish. Are all of the unconventional policies of the Trump administration a good idea? Probably not, but only time will tell. Yet, when an old idea fails it’s important to try a new idea, which was too often lacking in liberal society, that was too addicted to defending the status quo. If all things are failing around you, shouldn’t you try something new, even if the experts believe the new idea is risky or potentially harmful?
When you are in a hole, you really should stop digging. At least for a few minutes to see where all the digging is leading to. Even when the experts say you should continue to dig. And maybe you should reconsider the advice of the experts, as even smart, well-researched people make mistakes and get overly bought into an idea even if it turns out to be wrong. And maybe it is time to try something new.
