Photo of Andy Arthur

Andy Arthur

October and already the leaves are fading away in the Adirondacks. 🍂 Most shocking to me is that we are less then a month away from November, which in many ways should be a sigh of relief with the craziness of work and with the deep blue skies and crisp days of that month.

Looking at the houses, trailer and farm on Dutton Ridge

|

Deep rural living. I wonder what’s its like living in such a place, high on the ridge so far away from the city. How people make a living in such remote but prestine country. And I’m but a little bit jealous of a dream I can’t have. But I’m reminded it’s still New York State and not the land of milk and honey. With the gun and fire restrictions but at least we have legal pot. But does anybody care in such remote country.

Watching as a hawk flies overhead. Studying the green of the remote hills. I’m reminded of the time I got my truck stuck in a mud wallow up on Dutton Ridge. That was quite a time even if was some fifteen or twenty years ago when I used to explore a lot more. Now I drive less, spend more time sitting and just observing the lands from a high ridge. Listening to Cream.

Windham Area Peaks

|

Terrain Windham Area Peaks

I have put together a series of maps of the peaks in the Catskill that show elevation and contours of peaks, mostly as an experiment to develop and learn about new types of mapping.

Own a bicycle it will be great 🚲

|

I wasn’t wrong when I hesitated to buy a bicycle, knowing the inevitable range of parts it would need, the ongoing costs and visits to the repair shop. The necessary downtime for repairs. I try to be easy on my toys but I concede I do ride a lot of miles, especially commuting, and it’s a mountain bike so it does see some rougher terrain like trails and dirt roads but I try to keep it to reasonable terrain and speed. And I’m trying to keep up with the maintenance program.

But it’s a lot of work to keep stuff up and operating smoothly. I probably need to learn to wrench more of my stuff properly but its tough to know what tools I need, the right amount of torque to apply and into what is proper direction. Now I get there are places to learn these skills – be it the bike rescue or YouTube or books. But that takes time and frustration with so much conflicting advice out there.

Material things are really just a recipe for heart break. They may look fun, provide good experiences in the short run but rarely do they last very long before needing hauling to the local dumping grounds. Experiences is what matters but you need things for experiences. Many people do good with second hand things and keep them running for a long time smoothly but I find that very hard to do.