A fairly common sign you see in the Pine Bush is where the plastic trail markers have melted from past controlled burns. Generally the ground fires aren't hot enough to burn the markers on the posts, but are hot enough to melt the trail markers.
There are few terms I dislike more then “landowner”. This word got a lot of play in New York during the debate over fracking.
“Landowner” in it’s most general meaning is a farmer, a person owning a hunting camp or home in a rural area or other person to who owns land. But for many anti-natural gas activists, landowner was used to describe a greedy individual who wanted to profit and domination over their personally owned natural resources. Many in the anti-natural gas community use the term landowner as negatively as one might use “slaveholder” today.
I would argue that no farmer who works the land, and no hunter who hunts their land is doing it in domination of their land. You can’t stomp into the woods and shoot a deer, you can’t carelessly throw seed in the air and hope it to grow. Natural resources have to be carefully managed and sustainability harvested for generations to come. You can’t exploit the land without limitation and expect to keep it going on. You have to carefully understand the woods and field, observe what is going on, understand the consequences of your action.
Sitting in the woods with a shotgun watching the wildlife can teach you much. You can’t just jump into the woods, you have to prepare and think about your surroundings. You have to understand the science, the risks and rewards. You have to have a deeper connection to the land, you’re more then just a “landowner” out to exploit the land.
Pennsylvania often calls people who lease their natural resources, “farmers”. And indeed many if not most of them are. Even though not every landowner cultivates a field with a tractor or milks and feeds cows and hogs, most landowners are “farming” their land for wildlife to hunt, wood to chop or harvest, and natural resources to sustain themselves.
On the left is the bank where supposedly "Medical Waste" is illegally dumped, and would have to be removed or at least properly capped prior to a Pine Bush restoration.
Truth is that I have a very dim view of cyclists, most of them either the Spandex French brand ultralight, carefully tuned bicyclists, BMXers, or urban do gooders. But I’m none of that. Bike shops are expensive, they take a lot of time and fix things sort of but maybe not to the extent you might think for all the money they charge.
I am pretty sure it won’t be long before you can hire people to wipe your own ass at home. Truth is there is something nice about doing your own work, maintaining and fixing stuff yourself, even if you don’t do it perfectly and it takes a lot longer then shop takes. And involves a lot of swearing.
Got the replacement front derailleur shifter on and the new chain 🔗 that I had from old stock. 15 years ago I bought that chain for the old bike. Took much longer then I expected to get the derailleur aligned, for some reason the cable that it came with was sticking and not lining up right. Maybe I was doing it wrong. Then I put the new chain on the wrong way, and had to pull it.
New chain is fine, though now the cassette is jumping a bit. Maybe I should have swapped the chain sooner. I haven’t decided if I’m going to put the old chain back on or replace the cassette. Annoying after having all that struggle getting the shifter working right then having to get the chain breaker out and reinstall it a second time. I guess I’m learning.
I did manage to accidentially pull one of the drawers with equipment and junk in the kitchen out too far and smashed a light bulb and did a lot of swearing for a bit. As did I swear about chewing up the cassette too much by delaying chain replacement but I put so many miles on the bike. I really need to just buy a chain wear gauge and measure it regularly. With the quick link chains and a chain breaker, they”re super easy to replace but I hate to be throwing away chains all the time, but it might be better then having to replace the chain and cassette all the time. Road salt season is over, so that should improve things too.
I did fix the issue with the clicking rear wheel that was annoying me. The spoke guard was loose and at times banging into the crankset which was annoying .
Truth is there is something nice about doing your own work, maintaining and fixing stuff yourself, even if you don’t do it perfectly and it takes a lot longer then shop takes. 
And involves a lot of swearing.
though now the cassette is jumping a bit. Maybe I should have swapped the chain sooner. I haven’t decided if I’m going to put the old chain back on or replace the cassette. Annoying after having all that struggle getting the shifter working right then having to get the chain breaker out and reinstall it a second time. I guess I’m learning.
out too far and smashed a light bulb and did a lot of swearing for a bit. 
As did I swear about chewing up the cassette too much by delaying chain replacement but I put so many miles on the bike. I really need to just buy a chain wear gauge and measure it regularly. With the quick link chains and a chain breaker, they”re super easy to replace but I hate to be throwing away chains all the time, but it might be better then having to replace the chain and cassette all the time. Road salt season is over, so that should improve things too.