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The bare trees 🍂

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Autumn has kind of come and gone in parts of the Adirondacks as witnessed by the more bare patches in the woods as the leaves have fallen. Been a dry fall so until we got the heavy rain earlier in the week, the leaves dried, turned brown and fell.

Truth is that it’s not unusual at this point on the calendar but it still seems much too early in my mind. But summer much like September was over in the blink of an eye. The days are short and the evenings cool. But I find it too soon for another winter.

Lost in the fog 🌫

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It’s a rather foggy morning to start out the day but it’s expected to warm up and be a pretty pleasant day once the sun rises and the fog burns off.

Went to bed 🛏 a little after nine o’clock so I was up at six. ⏰ Going to have some eggs 🥚 and potatoes 🥔 for breakfast that is after my coffee ☕ and take down camp and get ready for work today.

That said, everything is pretty wet this morning from the fog 🌫 so I might wait a while before taking down camp 🏕. I have plenty of bandwidth left on my phone 📱 as it expires this week. I got some of the data work done on Saturday but inevitably there will be more projects to do today. 💻 My laptop is fully charged so I should be good, though I always have the solar as need be.

So midday I’ll head down to the Speculator library 📙 and work there until five o’clock when I will head home, hopefully before dark. 🌃 Probably drive home through Schenectady rather than go down to US 20 to avoid the back roads around dusk. Tuesday it’s back in the office 🏢 as I gave in person meetings. 👥

Four days seems to go past in the blink of an eye 👁‍🗨 but let’s be honest it really was only more like two as I worked all day Friday and today Monday. Still it’s nice to be away from the city for a while. Does seem like a lot of taking down and setting up camp recently though. And who knows the weekend looks nice so maybe Friday before work I’ll be heading up to Rennselaerville State Forest. 🍁 Only time will tell.

So much money went out of the bank on Friday, 🏦 with my car insurance, rent, electric bill, retirement and investing all due at once. It’s fine, it’s money that had to be spent. While I was saving more to buy a house, I’ve gone back to investing, with interest rates being cut plus I have too much cash and it’s important to continue to put money in the markets. That said, I’m really doing more and more bonds rather then index funds, because with falling interest rates, bond funds are likely to go up, plus I’m way too overly invested in stocks, 📈 even if thing have been exceptionally good this year.

Probably my last autumn evening in the Adirondacks this year 🤠

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Maybe I should have ridden all the way to Little Otter Lake but evidently I got a late start as I was reading, giggling and enjoying a bit of cannabis. Little Otter Lake would have been a new experience but I knew Pillsbury would have more dramatic views plus it was a blast riding down the hill on Old Miliary Road all the way to the Miami River. Hardwood Hill was bitch to ride over but they’ve smoothed out the washboards with some tar.

It’s possible I do a November camping trip to the East Branch or even Piseco Powley if the snow holds off but I’m sure I’m done with Perkins Clearing for the year. The season is coming to a close and in October I’ll probably do a trip to Rennselaerville and maybe Charles Baker State Forest in Madison County to ride trail but I doubt I’ll be back here. Certainly gets dark so early this time of year, it’s 7:30 and basically pitch black.

Truth is that a year isn’t that much time and while winter will be long, I’ll survive and get through it. Maybe I’ll settle down and forget about my past traveling and spending nights in the wilderness but I have my doubts even if I do end up having to replace Big Red and move to another squalid apartment in another part of the city. But I’m so ready to have a simple, small home, heated by woods and minimal technology like so many hunting cabins up this way.

Some day I’ll have my own land – my assets are growing rapidly – and I’m learning and putting together ideas on the off-grid homestead I really want but I doubt I can implement it next year so instead I’ll find myself spending as many days as possible in the wilderness, smoking pot with my cowboy hat, singing along with the Dire Wolf. I keep learning about cabin builders and I have a vision for the future but for now I have campfires, and three night stands in the wilderness.

I wasn’t going to hike Pillsbury but somehow I ended up doing it ⛰

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I say the tower riding over to Little Otter Lake but evidently I changed my mind. Something about it captivated my mind though maybe I should have done Little Otter Lake as I hadn’t done that before. I guess that’s a nil point now, I don’t have the time before darkness as I have to hike down the mountain and ride back to camp before darkness which is certain to come not much after seven o’clock. At least I’m working remotely tomorrow so I don’t have to drive home tonight and can head home tomorrow at my leisure.

Environmental protection didn’t start in 1970 🌎

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The US EPA was created as an administrative agency in 1970 by the Richard Nixon administration as a compromise against creating an executive level environmental agency. While conservation, pollution and public health agencies have been around for some time, uniting them under one banner was seen as a popular initiative in the 1969 into 1970 brought on by the new found interest in pollution, especially on a national sense after the blue globe photos of NASA Moon Mission, greater suburbianizatiom and professionalism of the working professionals.

The thing is conservation, public health and pollution concerns existed long before 1970, though in some ways the science and technology of the 1950s and 1960s made it much easier and practical to control pollution by the 1970s. Yet it’s not like the change was overnight, it took 55 years to get where we are today with pollution controls – which by no means are perfect. I think it’s a mistake to say nobody in society cared about pollution before 1970, and that everything was perfectly controlled there after. Societies evolve slowly.