The Outblog blog, No. 58 for the week starting February 1, 2004.
Pine Bush West Blueberry Hill & East Barriens
Boondocks is about farms, rural life, and power toys.
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Hayseeds looks at politics and life in our nation.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Transit looks at the changing ways we get around.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
A nice winter day today, but with a little bit of haze. It was great to see things clear out finally. There were many birds out, of which unfortunetly I can not really idenitify. At any rate, skiied around the big loop at the West Blueberry hill, noting that they have made some progress removing those terrible black locus trees from there (see previous notes). With the bright sun, I would not be surpised if I have some sun burn.
The skiing conditions were good, as the trails were fairly well packed down, but not too packed down to the point where they'd be slippery. The view from the top of Blueberry Hill (one of the biggest sandoons in the Pine Bush) was great—although from that angle you couldn't see the Catskills.
On top of Blueberry Hill, I spent about 5 minutes pondering what the Pine Bush really meant, with the traffic from Washington Avenue Extension and trash trucks dumping in the distance making noise—a sad reflection of this beautiful area. The heldebergs were a nice blue against the sky. It is quite beautiful out there.
Then I drove over to the East Barriens, and hiked around the Red Trail to White Trail. It again was quite nice. Could see both the Catskills and the Adirondacks, but it still was pretty hazy—the Catskills couldn't be made out except for I was wearing a snow.
I also spent a bunch of time staring at the capped part of Rapp Road Landfill from the East Barriens, along the red trail, where a tree was down. Likewise, it is hard to grasp what such a pile of garbage really means for our society, especially in the middle of the great forest. To know that society tosses first, and recycles second, just seems like such a disfunction to me. Then of course, I spent a bunch of time looking around the top of the great sand dune in the East Barriens, where you can see both the active part of the landfill (not much there right now), the Heledbergs, and so much else.
Animal-wise on this hike, I saw a bunch of deer in the East Barriens and lots of other birds in both areas—but admitly, I wasn't able to identify them, I just don't have that kind of knowledge (someday I ought to get our some bird books and study them so I can know and understand such things). It appeared that the deer were doing something dirty, like you'd see on prime time TV, or maybe more like what you'd see a bull and cow doing in a squeeze. I was kind of surpised during this time of year—but maybe they were just, well, literally screwing around.
