Those clouds continue to hang low overhead. The temperature is around 57 degrees now but it will head up to 70 degrees later. Just another somewhat cool-mid spring day.

Carrot pancakes for breakfast, 🥞 🥕 getting things packed and ready for the weekend as I don’t expect to be home until fairly late after the Pine Bush Hike tonight, 🚶 and I want to make sure I have sufficient sleep for a safe trip out to Schoharie tomorrow.

It’s May 16th and the 3 foot limitation on bonfires is over, 🔥 though one still have to be careful not to burn anything that is too stinky and noxious. 👃 Vinyl and rubber is nasty, I’ll leave it at that. It’s going to be a lot of fun when I get out of town this weekend, ☺ I plan to spend most of Sunday riding the Catskill Scenic Trail 🚲 – – and Saturday out riding dirt roads, looking for ramps 🧅 to eat and things to explore in the wilderness.

I’m driving 🚘 in today, mostly because I’m leading the Save the Pine Bush Hike, 🚶 and it’s just easier to drive from my office with acres of parking 🅿 to the Pine Bush for the hike. Technically, I measured the lot in my office – – it’s 9/10th of an acre plus the parking around the building for VIP people, which despite being a director, I am not. Lol! Friday I’m also driving in as I head to plan to camp right after work at 5 PM. I’d leave early but I’m saving my get out of jail early card 🎫 for Memorial Day Weekend.

Right now it seems like this weekend has improved enormously, ☀ though Saturday looks fairly cloudy with a chance of showers but early. ☔ I plan to bring my screen tent to battle the black flies, along with the hammock net, 🐜 and lots of bug spray. I plan to stay up late on Friday and Saturday night, and probably will sleep in on Saturday morning as it’s Spring Turkey 🦃 and I don’t want to bother the boys in cammo searching for breasts in the woods before noon-time. That said, I do have my mind set on a certain patch of leaks to gather when I’m out riding my mountain bike 🚵 later on in the day. I also plan to get some new e-books from Hoopla and maybe Libby to read over the weekend. Still interested in learning more about cabin building, permits, and developing a sustainable homestead. The more knowledge, the more power. There are so many ways such a program could go tragically wrong or be excessively expensive or run into permitting problems but with careful planning thing will go well.

Starting to get packed and ready for the weekend this morning. 👖 I got my clothes packed, water containers full, I found the screen tent 🎪 and have the cooler ready to load tomorrow. As I’m driving in today, I’m not going to pack my truck now, but I want to have as much gear as possible ready. Depending on how late the Save the Pine Bush Hike goes – – it depends who shows up if anybody – – we’re competing against a Pine Bush Commission lecture on the Karner Blue Butterfly 🦋 and the Corporation Challenge. 🏃 Funny thing is now that I work at the Suburban Office in Menands, I didn’t even realize tonight was the night that the Corporations challenge commuters by closing down all the streets – – won’t impact traffic in Menands. 🛑

Last night was the Save the Pine Bush Meeting, 📹 you know one of those Zoom Meetings that drags on and on for planning purposes along with an interesting lecture from Neil Gifford of the Albany Pine Bush Commission. 🎤 👤 They say they’re doing a lot of good work at restoring the ecosystem, if the developers just wouldn’t keep developing all the Pine Bush. 🏗️I know says the boy 🧒 who is thinking about building an off-grid cabin up in the woods. I got a list of things to do from them meeting – – need to create a Save the Pine Bush YouTube Channel and finish implementing scanning of Albany County Planning Board Agendas for tracking upcoming development projects. 🔎 I’ve been re-writing a lot of the code from Python to R, mainly because I’m a lot more comfortable with R these days as I use it so much. It’s wasn’t a bad evening, because it was a Zoom Meeting I could take it along on my bicycle 🚲 and participate from Five Rivers. Despite busing it in yesterday, I did get in 10,000 steps and rode my bike 9 miles.

Before the Save the Pine Bush Dinner, 🍏 I went to the hard cider night at the Legislative Office Building and got myself some drinks with buddies. The food wasn’t notable but the alcohol was good and it was convient – – the shuttle dropped me off right near the event – – and then I got my drinks 🍻 before catching the bus home. 🚍 Some of the ciders were good but I don’t recommend the Hard Tart Cider from Indian Ladder Farms. There were many other options, but I’m really not a fan of that particular drink. I don’t normally drink alcohol and by the time I got on the bus to go home and sober up before the Pine Bush Zoom, I was a bit wasted.

Still evaluating what kind of mental health services I want to invest my time and money into. 💸🥼 I am just trying to figure out what kind of counseling I need and want. What do I want to change in my life? I found last time it wasn’t that helpful to go the licensed mental health therapist, tell him I’m sick puppy 🐶 who likes to burn things 🔥 and tell him fix me. Doesn’t work that way. Mom was suggesting I do more reading, and learning about my problem, be it anxiety, pyromaniac or obsessive complosive disorder. It’s great I have so many e-books I can get for free from the library.

But maybe the biggest question 🙋 in my mind is do I stay in New York and focus on my career – – and build my off-grid home here or do I go west or maybe south – – to a place where the gun laws 🔫 are better and are fewer restrictions on open burning ? But what do I actually believe? 💭 The heck of it is I’m not sure how much use the professionals will be, as they will have their perspective and put me in a box to bill the insurance, 📜 and remind me it’s ultimately me who is in the driver’s seat for my life and I’m the one who has to choose. 🔘