Day: May 6, 2026💾

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SVGZ Graphic: The 210 mile, 3 hours, 28 minutes drive of your discarded candy wrapper

Bring back the bigger compost bucket 🪣

I need to start using one of those 5-gallon buckets again for compost at home. I’ve been using a large plastic coffee can all winter, largely because until I got the SuperDuty I had no easy way to transport a big bucket of food scraps to my parents house. But with my healthy eating, all those banana peels, egg shells, carrot tops, and apple cores quickly fill up the coffee can, plus it’s a lot easier to just drop food scrap into a bucket and it doesn’t necessarily have to be emptied every week, as it usually doesn’t smell and I have a top for it. Plus having the compost container on the counter top seems to make counter top more dirty, as sometimes I miss when flinging crap into the compost bucket.

While for a while I’ll probably keep seperating out the plastic milk jugs from the rest of burnable trash and put them in roadside bins, I am looking forward to being able to just my big trash can the way I used to – things that burn go into it and get taken care of the way us country boys do it. I might still keep the paper moslty separate a it’s good to start fires and keep it dry, and I’ll keep a separate bucket for returnable beer cans the occasional metal can or glass bottle I toss. I don’t care that much about cans, they can be pulled out of ash, but I don’t want to have to deal with too many cans up in woods, even if they do flatten good after the plastic coatings inside of them have been burnt out of them.

It’s good after that time without a truck, that winter behind us and I’ll be getting back up to woods where I can have fires. I’m not big into garbage sorting, but banana peels and apple cores don’t burn well and tin cans not at all. It would be nice to have a homestead where I can dispose of such things on-site, but at least I’ll be spending much of my summer and autumn months up in wilderness where I can have fires every night, and not watch the garbage as it piles up and accumulates before being turned into dirt, smoke, and ash.

Map: Severence Hill Trail

Kujamunk Cave

The Kunjamuk Cave, found off Pine Lakes Road in Speculator Tree Farm, is a natural rock shelter that was dug out of a hillside. The cave is a popular destination for hikers and mountain bikers exploring the dirt roads of this conservation easement.

Kunjamunk Cave

To reach the cave, hikers typically start at the Elm Lake Road entrance to the Speculator Tree Farm in village of Speculator or off Old Route 8B past the upper bridge at gated Pine Lakes Road/Kunjamunk Cave Trail. The trek is approximately 2.5 to 4 miles one way, depending on the specific starting point. The trail follows an old logging road that winds through dense hardwood forests and parallels the Kunjamuk River.

The history of the Kunjamuk Cave is inextricably linked to the legend of “French Louie” (Louis Seymour), a famous Adirondack hermit who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While Louie had more permanent camps in the West Canada Lakes region, local lore suggests he used this cave as a temporary shelter during his travels or trapping expeditions. Before the era of legendary hermits, the area served as a hunting ground for the Mohawk and Abenaki people, who likely used the rock formation for protection against the elements long before European settlers arrived.

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“View of the cave through the cutting in the roof, allowing the occupant to build a fire inside to stay warm during cold weather.

Looking Out the Kunjamunk Cave

Kunjamunk Cave