You know one year into the journey about looking at home – actually a homestead – I often think a lot about what I really want in being a landowner which obviously has to include a house. I want land and a burning barrel out back, or at least some kind of incinerator that I can take care of my own burnable waste.
It would be so nice to only have to go to the transfer station once a year with a few bags of tin cans and glass for recycling, some scrap metal and a few other broken things that can’t be burnt. To not have to clean out or sort those inevitably discarded plastic yogurt cups and milk jugs, the junk mail and plastic wrappers that frozen fruit and vegatables that are just plain garbage with not even a possibility of being recycled.
I get tired of looking at the endless mounds of garbage in the city. It seems like every job I’ve had is overlooking a garbage dump, whether it’s in the sky scraper downtown, out in suburban buildings in Pine Bush or now in the data department in Menands. I really don’t want to be part of mine-buy-consume-landfill system. And I note with a burn barrel or incinerator you can break part of the cycle.
Truth is that Iike fire and it’s wonderful to be able to burn debris rather then haul it off your land. Sure is nice when you have a roaring fire up in the woods, to be able to toss that empty yogurt container or onion wrapper in the fire, and it disappears into smoke. Fire is great, it not only disposes of material, it warms you and provides light and entertainment.
But also I don’t just want land to have a burn barrel – I want to be able to homestead, produce as much of my energy and food on site without reliance on the primarily natural gas and coal-fired grid, instead primarily making electricity with solar and heating with wood.
I also want to turn my compost into chicken and hog feed, and rich soil to grow things, rather then keep buying things packaged in plastic, sending my money off-my-land and into the mound on the outskirts of town rather. And to the extent possible, return poop and urine to soil using an outhouse, composting toilet or humanure system.
Truth is I have a real problem with the buy – consume – landfill way of doing things that removes one entirely from the costs of production and disposal, which isolates you from the smells and pollution, which makes everything so fake.
But despite my best sense getting to me, I did it both ways. The snow was so deep that it was a complete slog to go through it, on the way back up through the gorge I got stuck multiple times, and ended up pushing my bike most of the way from the bridge over the Norman’s Kill to above Rockefeller Road due to snow being too deep on the way home. 
It was 6:30 PM by the time I got home, it was pitch black 
by the time I reached Delmar and was back on the roads. I avoided using the light on my bike on the trail, lest I draw attention that I was riding after dark on the trail, as you’re not supposed to do that. I didn’t really expect to be pushing my bike home in the dark in the snow 
though I should have, as it was bad going in and somehow I expect it not to be so bad going up hill, due to non-existent snow melt and packing of hikers.
and I was a half hour late to work, even though I left the normal time when I ride or maybe a minute or two later because it was such bad riding conditions on the trail. It literally meant I was bumping along at 3 or 4 miles per hour versus the 15 mph or so I do flying down the hill when the pavement is bare. There had to been close to a foot of snow on the trail. It was so hard peddling through all that snow.
I get it, I’m the director, and nobody but myself to yell at for being late, though if I was much later I would have let staff know and maybe the executive directors lest they needed some kind of rush data job. 
Not that I particularly hate the season, but it’s tough in the cold. I had so hoped to get out and have that much needed campfire this weekend, 
burn up some of the paper and burnables, giggle with some grass and listen to the music. I wish had that little cabin with the wood stove, so I could be warm, and not be stuck in my 50 degree drafty apartment that I refuse to turn the heat up on 
because I want to save whatever pennies 
I have for that future place in woods where I can not only heat with woods but have bonfires whenever I want to get rid of all that crap. But we are getting a foot of snow this weekend. 
Sucks.
It really is the cruelest month, as I was reminded slogging through the snow yesterday on my mountain bike. I really should have taken the road in if I was going to bike and bus back home. I mean the have the racks on the bus for a reason. 
But I hate riding the bus, even though today I’m back on the bus. I guess it’s depression, though what you can say, it’s all in your mind. All I know, is I just got to push through this month, when I can be back up in the woods, doing the fun stuff. And riding back and forth to work, not in the deep snow. That was so awful yesterday, not only was I dripped in sweat at work, when I got home I was also soaked from all the sweat. 
I so wish I could get up to the woods this weekend 
and have that fire but it’s going to snow so much this weekend on top of the foot plus they already have in Rennselaerville. I get that the road is plowed but it would be a lot of digging out then with another foot coming, it would be a challenge to camp even with a roaring fire. 
all these days I see is ads about schizophrenia, depression and mental health. 
We have pills for you! We have support! Call 988 for help now! 
They’ll even tell you how to live your life, how wonderful life in suburbs is in your plastic house heated with fracked natural gas and a TV set in a every room. Truth is I’ve been interested in mental health, because I want to live a healthy life, and because so many of those issues are intertwined with smoking pot, which I like thinking about much more then doing. It’s good to look back fondly on giggling next to a waterfall last year’s. 
Psychosis and paranoia are always risks of cannabis, though I think a bigger risk is eating too many apples and sweet corn while laughing my head off floating down the East Canada Creek singing along with the Dire Wolf. Yet, I always wonder why I feel the way I do. Why do I value certain things, and don’t care about others? How can I maximize my relationships with others in mutually beneficial ways? How can I be a better person. Plus, I know if I’m better at working people and connections I can make more money 
which puts me closer to owning my own land, with that wood stove and burn barrel out back. 
and hogs. 
Four wheeler, big black scary rifles and anything else I want in a little town that smells like silage. 
as I realized I’ve gotten a bit carried away. While it was at first just an issue of storage and capacity, I realized some of sets I linked and tagged will never get used and it was just a complete waste of disk space and resources. I would delete it myself but it’s a couple of million records, and it would be better if database administrator did such a big delete without the journaling being turned on, to avoid excess journal entries being done. 
I’ll have to do that today, hat in hand. Yesterday, I had an excuse, I was kind of busy getting in late and then I was completely disgusting 
as a sweaty pig 
from riding to work.
