Personal

Do I really want to be a homesteader? 🐐

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Imagine growing cannabis, eating bacon and pork you raised, fresh eggs and rabbit meat, all the zucchini and fresh summer squash you could eat. And tomatoes, lots of them. Heat with wood, have bonfires whenever.

At one level it sounds like a lot of fun. But at the same time, it would mean I would give up a lot of my opportunity to travel and go places, camp out in the woods and spend most of my free time away from Albany. The thing is as it is, I can buy most of what I need, yet spend my weekends in the wilderness, burning shit and having fun. I do want to some day have a greater connection to the land, then my weekend adventures, but as things right now they are quite acceptable too in my mind.

Troubled but still desiring

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As part of my study of the rural landscape and places I’ve considered purchasing to build my off grid home was one of the parcels on Woodstock Road that has been listed but I wanted to do a drive by before potentially contacting the real estate agent. They can be persistent SOBs if you give them your contact number and inquire about a property even if you’re not interested – especially the raw land, small cabin and run down properties out in the hinder lands I’m interested in that can be hard to sell – especially if they see you have assets that you could buy with cash tomorrow.

The thing is I’m not sold on 5 acre living. It’s not a lot of land and often it is a wasteful use of land – tacky vinyl houses with massive lawns that have to be mowed with power machinery. One of the greatest threats to viable agriculture and unbroken country is the 5 acre homesteads sprawling over the landscape. You can do a lot of homesteading on five acres, but many do not. Five acre plots lead to vicious consumption of land when everybody wants their five acres. And that property isn’t even a full five acres, and there is another property inset into it. Having neighbors so close doesn’t get you the true rural experience – you still have to be concerned with smoke, noise and odor complaints that you don’t have to deal with as much on a larger piece of land.

Really my vision is having more land than that far offset from other people. I want to be able to do whatever I want on my land within reason without impacting the neighbors or them impacting me. Agriculture zoning helps but it is by no means a guarantee or protection that having sufficient buffer can guarantee. Likewise a friendly political environment and keeping a low profile can help but it’s tough when you have people in close ear and eye shot. There are many 5 acre properties near the city – or within commuting distance – but true rural land without neighbors nearby is almost exclusively far more distant away.

Inferiority complex

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I’m not a failure, I tell myself.

Yet it’s so hard not to feel that way at times, or that I’m at complete risk of loosing it all over some silly little thing. A fall so hard, that I will never recover, finding myself wandering the streets, struggling to stay alive.

I frequently will sit and stare at my business card, Andrew B. Arthur, Director of Data Services, Department of Communications and Information Services, New York State Assembly. I don’t know why I find it hard to believe but I do. I’ve worked hard to get to this position.

It was twenty years ago now that I was kicked at of the University at Albany for what was perceived to be threatening and abuse language in a passionate discussion of academic freedom. Maybe because I’m the only one who cares about freedom when most people would rather crouch in the corner, living in fear. Life would have been easier if I had said I was wrong, apologized, plead to a violation rather than he convicted of a misdemeanor crime and be forced to leave that college.

But I was resilient and able to build a better path in my life. I got myself back to school at Plattsburgh State, getting excellent grades and networking and volunteering everywhere I could. Learned a lot in Plattsburgh I would have never gotten from the big university, excelled in my internship, which I ended up with then Tourism chair Joe Morelle which connected me through with CIS. Volunteered and worked on many campaigns, and while I was passed over many times for promotions at first, eventually became an Assistant Coordinator, Coordinator, Senior Coordinator, Executive Coordinator, Deputy Director of Research Services and now the Director of Data Services. It took two decades to get here.

Yet, it doesn’t feel like much. There is so much more to do in life which is uncompleted. I still ride my bike to work most days of the week and when I’m not riding I’m taking the city bus to the shuttle to my suburban office. Still always looking to economize including on my bus fare. I don’t need to but I really don’t like driving into work, even with my office with acres of parking. I still live in that rundown moldy and drafty apartment in the suburbs, not because I’m forced to live there due to the relatively affordable rent but because it’s the life I want to live and I haven’t found the right place out in the country.

When I list things out and look at the hard numbers – what I have saved, my skills and knowledge, my work and future things really do look good. But it never feels like that. I see others who have gotten so much farther, have land and a life I’m jealous of them. I know often people live on less but I find it a struggle to get buy while investing in my future. Life is rarely simple or perfect.

Sing along with the Grateful Dead and Uncle John’s band…

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“Well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more
‘Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door
Think this through with me, let me know your mind
Wo-oh, what I want to know is, are you kind?

It’s a buck dancer’s choice my friend, better take my advice
You know all the rules by now, and the fire from the ice
Will you come with me, won’t you come with me?
Wo-oh, what I want to know, will you come with me?

God damn, well I declare, have you seen the like?
Their walls are built of cannon balls
Their motto is “don’t” tread on me”

Come hear Uncle John’s Band, playing to the tide
Come with me or go alone
He’s come to take his children home

It’s the same story the crow told me, it’s the only one he knows
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go
Ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait
Wo-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

I live in a silver mine and I call it beggar’s tomb
I got me a violin and I beg you call the tune
Anybody’s choice, I can hear your voice
Wo-oh, what I want to know, how does the song go?

Come hear Uncle John’s Band, by the river side
Got some things to talk about
Here beside the rising tide”

I was hoping in vain for clams today 🦪

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I went to Tops in Watkins Glen hoping to get clams but by the time I was there they were out. Not the end of the world, there’s always Thursday and it built in time to get wild berry cobbler ice cream rather than rushing back to Bennetsburg to get to the sweet corn stand before the rain and darkness.

Clams and sweet corn ould have been nice at the stay at camp 🏕 day, ending this month with some rain showers ☔ and hanging around camp with an e-book 📖 and maybe doing some rides 🚵 around the National Forest or floating on the tube ⭕ this afternoon. But first the rain has to stop though it’s starting to pull off but there may be thunderstorms ⛈ throughout the day.

Yesterday was a fun day and not so wet. ⛈ Anqother slow morning but I went to Watkins Glen, rode down to Pine Hill north of Horse heads via the Catharine Valley Trail. 🚲 Sprinkled a bit on the way down then we got a pretty good down pour by the time I reached the park at the end of the trail at Pine Hill. 🌧️ Then it was pretty much rain free until riding back, when I found shelter at the Montour Falls library portico. I could have gone in – it was open – but I was good on the porch. Floating on Seneca Lake ⭕at the end of the day was nice as was that wildberry cobbler ice cream 🍦.

Today is a hang out in the National Forest type day. 🏕 Tomorrow it’s back at it again, probably Pen Yann but I also am willing to consider Seneca Falls and Montezuma to kayak the Seneca River. 🛶 Friday, I am thinking Ithaca again to visit the Cornell Botanical. 🌸 Saturday back to the Glen again and maybe Sunday Trumansburg to swim. 🏊 Vacation always comes and goes so quickly. ⏳

Will things be better after the Trump generation is no more? 🧓

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Being in my early forties, I’ve come to the realization that I probably won’t have my parents around for all that much longer. The same is true with many of the baby boomers, the Vietnam generation. Those who graduated college in the early 1970s, lived through a decade of stagnation and the Reagan administration thereafter.

The loss of that generation may have a profound impact on politics, although conservatives always seem to have ways of remaining relevant as times change. I am sure my parents generation felt the same way about the Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation. When the Hoovers and even the Eisenhowers generation is gone, things will be better. Ignoring the backlash politics of Richard Nixon and his of party during the late sixties and early seventies. A lot of things did change for the better with that generation but also backlash politics of mass incarceration and hysteria over drugs came to be.

I doubt liberalism will become ascendant in the years to come but conservativism will certainly evolve to remain relevant. We are already seeing that with the remaking of the GOP under Trump. I expect it to change further just like the Democratic Party is, changing to remain relevant.