I had heard about the wind coming in later on, though this morning was sunny and calm a bit before dawn. But then a snow squall came roaring in with the wind. Probably lake effect.
Winter alas is not over but it seems like it has been moderating lately. I so had hoped to get away this weekend and very long range, which is a wild card, looks like rain for next weekend. I’m actually hoping for some rain mid-week to keep things from getting too dried out and nicer weather so I can get out next weekend, after the time change. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, and I should just recycle the paper and forget about camping for a while. But I really want to get my sleep back. And the best way to do that at least in my mind is by a night in wilderness.
Still working on my taxes though at this point they are mostly done. Just need to check them before submitting. That’s on the agenda this weekend, along with hopefully a bike ride before it gets too cold and windy and some reading. Sunday I’ll probably stock up on the groceries and go and visit the family if they’re feeling well enough. It will be the most miles I’ve driven in nearly three weeks – the previous two weeks I think I drove a total of 12 miles. And rode my bike over 100 miles.
I am ready to turn the heat off for the year. It’s gas heat and in the grand scheme of things isn’t expensive but I don’t like paying for it any more then absolutely neccessary to keep the pipes from freezing. I also would like to sleep with the windows open, though I’m not sure if this week will be quite warm enough. It’s still early March after all. But day by day the temperatures are getting warmer, and certainly if the days are in 60s and the nights in the upper 30s, I can probably live with having the windows open all night along, hidden under the covers maybe with the electric blanket.
Supposedly this afternoon the wind hit 60 mph a the Albany Airport and I could definately hear it roaring when I was at a meeting downtown in the Alfred Smith skyscraper and when I was riding up Washington Avenue past the EducationBuilding I found myself dropping it down into the low trail riding gears just to fight the wind. Windy definately! Maybe not 77 mph fast though.
Put 77 miles on my bike this week, mostly commuting but a few side trips since Monday. I rode in all days except Wednesday when it rained. I wasn’t sure if I would be riding in today, with the cold and wind, but it wasn’t so cold but it definately was windy by mid-afternoon when I headed downtown on the bike. Rail trail on the icy portions was still slick, which is why I took Delaware Avenue home — actually to the library where I am now working on some maps and blog content for a while. In a bit I’ll head home for a late dinner, then retire to bed. I have all that bread, butternut squash, and rice that I can eat. Left in my truck to cool off.
Such an outlaw today, rode past a stopped school bus and ran a red light or two today on my bike. When I firsted started riding again I used to be so law abiding but let’s be honest, that stupid kid was fighting with his parent for 5 minutes to get on the short bus, and it wasn’t like he was crossing, and it’s not like a car, I can stop a bike a lot quicker then a car to avoid a child. I don’t think license plate readers do facial recognition, and honestly, who cares. I get a ticket, I’ll be careful next time. Same thing with the red lights – if the coast is clear – it’s sometimes good to get ahead of traffic. Plus, it’s not like we are a culture of law abiding citizens anymore, look at the President. I think he’s the biggest criminal and law-breaker of them all. I probably should have waited, but I was on a mountain bike, and it was so dang cold.
I really was hoping to camp tomorrow night, but next weekend will be better with the time change, might due to two nights if I can get out of work early. If I’m downtown after my meeting, I could just catch the earlier express home, or maybe drive in to Menands, bike back and hop in my truck and head out after work. I would have to figure out where I would want to go but I’m kind of desperate to get back out in the woods, if only to restore my sleep and clear out my mind by the fire. Warmer weather is coming, but I do worry about it getting too try too soon. I’d like to get back out to Madison County this spring, maybe the Horse Camp and to the Adirondacks, though not Good Friday and Easter, as that’s my parents 50th wedding university. We we’re discussing it at work, I should think about what I to get them. I’d rather not buy something stuff related though – something I’ll end up having to pay to get rid of in a few years when they pass away. Maybe a gift certificate to a restaurant or something. I don’t know. I hate gifts in general.
This week I find myself at working watching more and more videos about raising and butchering livestock for food and homesteading more generally. Been eyeing all the pallets around the industrial places I work left out for the taking both for bringing up to camp this summer to burn and in the future when I own land. So many ways pallets can be used around a homestead, from firewood to corrals for small livestock and gardens. At times I wish I had moved forward and bought land, but I also still love traveling and riding my bike to work. Commuting via motor vechicle just doesn’t seem like much fun in my mind. Plus I was thinking about all that paper shreds I could get from the office, and maybe get permission to put out compost food buckets to get food waste from cafeteria. And I’ve been following this Facebook page about dumpster diving, and have thought more about all the cool things I could find searching dumpsters behind businesses, like good products businesses want to get rid off. I guess I’m a bit afraid of getting yelled at, or getting the cops called on me, but what are they going to say, knock it off, and leave, you’re tresspassing? But I also don’t really have a place to collect and clean such things. It would be nice to have even less plastic growing my own food and having more of a connection to nature then some weekends in wilderness smoking grass.
I call bullshit when people call their home their biggest investment, or say that home ownership is an investment at all.
Houses fundamentally are a consumable, they provide for a human need but are intended to be used up and discarded. While with enough money and effort they can be maintained to a high level of habitability and ultimately resold, there is no guarantee of profit even if the sale price is often higher than the initial purchase price.
When I buy my land and build my cabin, I am not seriously considering what will make me the most profit when I go to dispose of it in later years. Maybe the value of my house won’t ever even be a relevant question — if I build what I like and live there the rest of my life — then it really doesn’t matter if the property goes to a negative million dollars in value. Once I’m dead, it’s somebody else’s problem. Instead, I plan to build what I what, regardless of what it does to the sale value of the property in out years.
It’s not say I plan to build cheap, ugly trash that has no value at all — or that I plan to degradate the land and the property. My goal is build sustainability, on a scale that fits me. Not the next person to own my land. To use materials in a right fashion, not because they’re popular or will make appreciate in value in the future.
Modern society is not only obsessed with efficency but also saving time. Efficency is not a bad thing when it removes waste from the system and enables greater productivity, but often efficency is used exclusively for purposes of convenience – trading money, energy and waste for time savings.
The problem with convenience is it often too cheap and too relied on for dubious time saving, time that is then wasted in other ways. For example, a person buys a television dinner and eats it while watching television. No actual time is saved, but the person consumes unhealthy calories, wastes energy and fills up their garbage can with packaging that they purchased with the food.
Price is often a signal on whether or not somebody purchases an item. If it’s expensive, it gives a person some pause and forces them to consider alternatives. I am not worried if tin cans become somewhat more expensive, or for that matter electricity or automobiles. While nobody likes inflation, if it encourages better behavior it is net gain. If it forces less consumption, then it really is a net benefit to all in society.
I don’t buy pre-baked bread or any of those bread making kits. For the simple reason that while I like bread, I don’t want it to be convenient. Instead, I want to have to work to cook it, so that I don’t eat all those calories and carbs every day. It’s a weekly treat or maybe every couple of weeks. The same with cooking with dried beans – I like beans – but I don’t want to always be eating them every day, so I cook them myself. Plus who wants all those cans in the “recycle” garbage that don’t burn and have to be taken to the transfer station?
But you could save so much time not taking your cans and garbage to the transfer station! Or by driving to work! Really, almost an hour a day, compared to biking or busing it to work – especially now with the transfer to the shuttle. But what would I do with that extra time? Sit home and watch a movie or read a book? Write a blog post? I can do that on the bus. Or when I bike in, I get exercise, rather then the evening walk. The thing is that most “free” time earned by convenience is usually squandered.
One of the reasons I’ve been interested in homesteading is it’s a good way to eat better, because usually the easiest things to grow, store and cook are the healthiest – namely vegatables, especially root vegatables. You shouldn’t eat meat every day, so it should be difficult to raise, put a bullet through it’s brain, slaughter, freeze and cook. Likewise, the healthiest meats usually are the easiest to raise, butcher and cook, namely rabbit, quail and chicken. And you don’t have all that packaging trash, especially the Styrofoam that is so noxious to burn, assuming you don’t pay somebody to pile it up on outskirts of time for reasons of convenience. Instead, you compost the guts and turn it into soil that grows even more crops.
There has been a lot of push back from the health establishment regarding Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s push for consumption of fish oil for it’s Vitamin A and relative downplaying of the MMR vaccine for protecting against measles, a very contiguous disease that kills and severely injures at least some who get it, while others just feel miserable for a week or two, missing work and school – falling farther behind in life. For the vast majority of people the MMR vaccine has only a positive benefit – avoiding many potentially debilitating diseases – but like anything its not risk free. The Health Establishment is not wrong, you should get your MMR vaccine, its worth it.
That said, it is important to eat foods rich in vitamin A, especially vegetables. You can’t go wrong with increasing the amount of any of the vegatables that are loaded with vitamin A.
Sweet Potato
Carrot
Butternut Squash
Spinach
Cantaloupe
Lettuce
Red Bell Peppers
Pink Grapefruit
Broccoli
Many animal products also contain elevated levels of Vitamin A but also come along with more unhealthy fats including unsaturated fats, especially dairy and eggs. But enjoyed in moderation, they provide many health benefits and should be consumed as part of a healthy diet.
Fish Oil
Liver
Tuna
Dairy Products
Eggs
Will eating healthy foods loaded with Vitamin A keep you from getting measles? Probably not, but a health diet will pay off in many other ways to your health. You should really be getting a healthy diet rich of Vitamin A foods, even though I wouldn’t put fish oil high on the list, even if it’s a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids. Plus, lets be honest, fish oil is kind of gross, though I do like sardines that is when I’m in wilderness and they don’t stink up everything.
I haven’t heard that Beatles song in a long time. The ice isn’t just melting at the poles too, it’s actually starting to melt off the rail trail, though yesterday was as slippery as fuck part of way in and I spun out and banged up my shins. This morning is terribly windy and cold, but I’m severely mentally ill, so I’ll probably end up riding in.
Still my social media feeds are full of ads schizophrenia medication and treatment, probably because I like mocking advertisers and because honestly I’m interested in psychosis mostly because I like smoking pot up in wilderness, giggling my brains out next a waterfall, singing along with the Dire Wolf. I was disappointed that Trump didn’t mention legalizing smoking grass on federal lands and bringing it across state lines in his State of Union. It’s like burning garbage, got to be sneaky about it’s as it’s illegal you know. It’s a criminal activity, maybe you give you free college tuition for it. Oh do I hate advertising, even if helps to pay for my blog, because the algorithms are so dumb and fun to troll. Advertising feeds such bad behavior, including by the news media, and even bloggers like myself.
It’s nice that before 6 AM the sun is up , which was good when I was baking bread and making rice up on the stove, along with eggs and butternut squash. Good eats for the weekend ahead. I figure I’ll freeze my ass off and at least ride in this morning, as I will most likely have a Friday meeting to attend downtown in the afternoon, and that beats figuring out the bus and shuttle schedules. Unfortunately starting Sunday, mornings won’t be so bright, with time change though the impact on darkness in the morning is short lived in March, as we are so quickly gaining daylight especially in the morning due to spring approaching and earth wobble biasing daily light increase to them morning this time of year.
All week I’ve been heading in early. I just have so much work to do these days, and I’m trying to build up a bit more comp time for summer. Part of it is I’m trying to get the database as up to date as possible, feeding new info into it constantly, and get the records as lot cleaner then they used to be so it’s better for client use and because once something is fixed and scripted today, it makes it much easier in the future.
I so had hoped to get away this weekend and very long range, which is a wild card, looks like rain for next weekend. I’m actually hoping for some rain mid-week to keep things from getting too dried out and nicer weather so I can get out next weekend, after the time change. 
Maybe it’s wishful thinking, and I should just recycle the paper 
and forget about camping for a while. But I really want to get my sleep back. 
And the best way to do that at least in my mind is by a night in wilderness. 
though at this point they are mostly done. Just need to check them before submitting. That’s on the agenda this weekend, along with hopefully a bike ride 
before it gets too cold and windy 
and some reading. 
And rode my bike over 100 miles.
It’s gas heat and in the grand scheme of things isn’t expensive but I don’t like paying for it any more then absolutely neccessary to keep the pipes from freezing. 
I also would like to sleep with the windows open, though I’m not sure if this week will be quite warm enough. It’s still early March after all. But day by day the temperatures are getting warmer, and certainly if the days are in 60s and the nights in the upper 30s, I can probably live with having the windows open all night along, hidden under the covers maybe with the electric blanket. 
and ran a red light or two today on my bike. When I firsted started riding again I used to be so law abiding but let’s be honest, that stupid kid was fighting with his parent for 5 minutes to get on the short bus, and it wasn’t like he was crossing, and it’s not like a car, I can stop a bike a lot quicker then a car to avoid a child. I don’t think license plate readers do facial recognition, and honestly, who cares. I get a ticket, I’ll be careful next time. Same thing with the red lights – if the coast is clear – it’s sometimes good to get ahead of traffic. Plus, it’s not like we are a culture of law abiding citizens anymore, look at the President. 
I think he’s the biggest criminal and law-breaker of them all. I probably should have waited, but I was on a mountain bike, and it was so dang cold.
but next weekend will be better with the time change, might due to two nights if I can get out of work early. If I’m downtown after my meeting, I could just catch the earlier express home, or maybe drive in to Menands, bike back and hop in my truck and head out after work. I would have to figure out where I would want to go but I’m kind of desperate to get back out in the woods, 
if only to restore my sleep and clear out my mind by the fire. 
Warmer weather is coming, but I do worry about it getting too try too soon. I’d like to get back out to Madison County this spring, maybe the Horse Camp 
and to the Adirondacks, though not Good Friday and Easter, as that’s my parents 50th wedding university. 
We we’re discussing it at work, I should think about what I to get them. I’d rather not buy something stuff related though – something I’ll end up having to pay to get rid of in a few years when they pass away. Maybe a gift certificate to a restaurant or something. I don’t know. I hate gifts in general.
for food and homesteading more generally. Been eyeing all the pallets around the industrial places I work left out for the taking both for bringing up to camp this summer to burn 
So many ways pallets can be used around a homestead, from firewood to corrals for small livestock and gardens. At times I wish I had moved forward and bought land, but I also still love traveling and riding my bike to work. Commuting via motor vechicle just doesn’t seem like much fun in my mind. 
Plus I was thinking about all that paper shreds I could get from the office, and maybe get permission to put out compost food buckets to get food waste from cafeteria. 
And I’ve been following this 
or getting the cops called on me, but what are they going to say, knock it off, and leave, you’re tresspassing? But I also don’t really have a place to collect and clean such things. It would be nice to have even less plastic growing my own food and having more of a connection to nature then some weekends in wilderness smoking grass.
probably because I like mocking advertisers and because honestly I’m interested in psychosis mostly because I like smoking pot up in wilderness, giggling my brains out next a waterfall, singing along with the Dire Wolf. I was disappointed that Trump didn’t mention legalizing smoking grass on federal lands and bringing it across state lines in his State of Union. 
It’s like burning garbage, got to be sneaky about it’s as it’s illegal you know. It’s a criminal activity, maybe you give you free college tuition for it. Oh do I hate advertising, even if helps to pay for my blog, because the algorithms are so dumb and fun to troll. Advertising feeds such bad behavior, including by the news media, and even bloggers like myself. 
, which was good when I was baking bread 
and making rice up on the stove, along with eggs and butternut squash. 
Good eats for the weekend ahead. I figure I’ll freeze my ass off and at least ride in this morning, 
as I will most likely have a Friday meeting to attend downtown in the afternoon, and that beats figuring out the bus and shuttle schedules. Unfortunately starting Sunday, mornings won’t be so bright, 
with time change though the impact on darkness in the morning is short lived in March, as we are so quickly gaining daylight especially in the morning due to spring approaching and earth wobble biasing daily light increase to them morning this time of year.