Cutting Trails

As a metaphor for cutting through the BS.

[A short read, mostly pics, too long for email.]

I spent three nights at the 80 this week. I have internet on my phone, but not for my computer, so I can keep up on news but not efficiently post here. As soon as I arrived at the 80, I found out Nordstream 1&2 were blown up. I felt like imagining this mushroom as a heat shield to protect from an Administration on pathological imperialism auto-pilot.

I spent the mornings working on my novel, and the rest of daylight cutting trails. Sometimes even after cutting trails the tall grass and the general chaos of the woods make it hard to see.

Sometimes you need more than a handsaw. Sometimes you have to cut through with a chainsaw. I’m trying to cut paths at least 4ft wide, sufficient to run a snowmobile through, to pack down trails to make snowshoeing and skiing more enjoyable. A neighbor told me he once bought a snowmobile for $20 that ran for years. That is what I am talking about, I said.

Sometimes you run into something that makes you go wow.

Golden Pholiota. Attractive, technically edible but not recommended and might give you gastro-intestinal distress, sort of like mainstream media.

Elsewhere the trails are more easily seen.

Before and after.

This is like the Democrat and Republican parties choking off growth and weakening the Republic. This is a burr oak tree.

The Republic is older than the parties, though the parties (and this deer stand frame) are older than I am, or this property and stand in my family’s hands. I should have removed this when I was old enough to recognize the stupidity of it. It is possibly too late to save this tree, but I am going to remove this anyway now that I am managing the woods. I build deer stands embracing the tree without driving any steel into it. I did sit in this stand, as it was the only stand on the property, when I was 13 and 14. There was a 10F blizzard both years and I never saw a deer. I never sat in this again.

I found some late season watermelon before I left for the 80.

Coming home to find out how much of Florida was devastated, while mainstream media mocked the grieving, because DeSantis, because Climate Change!!! I grew more reflective about why Giorgia Meloni the new Italian Premier talking about the importance of family and tradition and the dignity of every person is such a threat to the kind of people who rule America. We don’t need the parties. We don’t need most of our institutions public and private. We don’t really need to be ruled by anybody. Nothing makes our technocrats and elite more angry than proving they are not necessary.

Make some homebrew. Ferment something, Cut trails through the chaos of media and politic. Know that you are worthy. Have a great weekend.