Odds and Ends

Moving…

113 Comments

After a couple months of camping out with my in-laws my family has finally found place to live out in the very rural hills of New York.

Posting will be sparse this week due to a number of factors — not the least of which is that I’m still trying to working out the details of how to get (some very expensive) Internet at my new place. (I was told that high-speed was available only to learn that this wasn’t strictly-speaking true).

So bear with me while I’m in the process of relocating to out to where there are actual bears. Be back soon. I hope.

113 thoughts on “Moving…”

  4. There’s a rural New York? You mean something North of Westchester? I always thought that was a myth. Seriously Enjoy the new surrounding and God Bless

    1. Most of NY is rural. Dirt roads rule. The occasional highway is done in concrete sections and you hear “clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk” as you go over each seam. Also, there are lots and lots of speed traps.

  5. It is a pretty area. I enjoyed my visit to the upstate region, and would like to return.

    God bless.

  6. That’s a very nice area of the country. Although I bet the winter will be a shock after Tampa!

    1. I did three winters in New York before I moved to Florida the first time.

      I know what I’m in for.

        1. Yeah. He also lived in Delaware a while. You know I grew up where it snows. And we have steep ass hills. People with basic intelligence and manual dexterity can adapt. Kinda like how being from the North (sorta), I learned to deal with hurricanes.

  7. Darrell, we are praying for you. Please know that you have been a blessing with your blog and insight. I hope your move goes smoothly, you family prospers, and that you can get internet with sufficient speed to allow you to do whatever you wish or need to do!

        1. Before people get offended at the she-bears reference, it was Sarah Palin who called herself and some other female right-wing politicians “mama grizzlies.”

      2. Somewhere I have a “grip and grin” handshake photo with her from a conference in Anchorage when she was gov here.

        1. I saw her open the Fairbanks ice sculpture festival during the few minutes she was governor. She spent most of the time asking if her hair looked good.

        5. If you read that blog (and many other sources) the Palin clan can sure brawl.
          #trashquake
          #ThrillafromWasilla

        6. The Palins are the gift that keeps on giving.

          The blog post by Jeanne Devon contains a revelation I hadn’t heard before, which is the most shocking of the whole incident: The Palins may NOT have been drinking when they did all that. So they don’t even have the Rob Ford defense of having been in a drunken stupor.

        7. BJG–I had read the story last week. The words “DO YOU KNOW WHO WE ARE?” never seem to have a good ending, do they. LOL

    2. You know how to keep bears off your property, don’t you?

      Put a goal post at both ends of the yard.

    2. I keep trying to tell them to keep it in their wheelhouse and really make themselves the brand.

      Unfortunately the blog “I Shit in the Woods” has already been done and redone.

    2. Since you will then be a part time
      MoG – as your special project you could suddenly claim God told you that you need really fast expensive internet and use guilt and manipulation to squeeze it out of your congregation.

      See we can help solve all of your problems!

        1. Don’t go making holes in my plans for world domination!

          I also forgot to mention the fact that he can do this TAX FREE as a Mog. Since he will be living off of handouts, I mean tithes.

    3. I’m sure there are only 1 or 2 “Bible Preaching Churches” in the whole state. (opens new tab to do google maps search…keywords: KJV1611, Bus Ministry, Ye Olde Pathes)

      1. Dude, you should know by now that you aren’t supposed to research statements like that– you make up some numbers you think will impress your marks, er, donors.

        So there are only 3 Bible-Preaching Churches in the USA north and east of the Ohio River.

        What’s the source of that data? Don’t worry, no Fundy will ever ask that.

  11. I’ve been through upstate New York several times. Beautiful country.
    Hope you and yours are happy there.

  14. Hmmmm. I didn’t know bears and internet could co-exist, but I’m a city kid. Good luck to you on moving house and settling into what looks like beautiful territory, just when it’s looking its best. We’ll be here when you get back.

  20. We have bears too. They actually do shit in the woods. And roam into town if people get careless with their garbage.

    Also, we have high speed internet here (12 mb, woo-hoo!!) But it’s sort of expensive, and bundled with our house phone which is required..its 84 bucks a mo. But it’s a great, small town company that I support gladly..lots of folks with good jobs there so I pay the bill and smile. And 12 mb is more than enough for me.

    Good luck sir. Do your cars have “plug-ins?” LOL. Upstate NY you may need these later. Plug in car when it gets “real cold.” However if you are plugging in at 30F, we will need to have a convo about what “real cold” means. 😀

    2. Grew up with Diesel pickups in the north country. You had to plug those in and set an alarm to start them up every 8-10 hours to make sure they would go in the winter. Can only dump so much fuel antifreeze in there and below a certain point it didn’t help anyway. Propane heaters pointed at the gas tank (always a sketchy solution in my mind)

        1. I know improvements in fuel delivery systems have made this less of a problem in more modern engines. Plus Diesel fuel at the pump is not the same as it was in the 80’s, used to have to use the higher refined #1 stuff in the winter, now that’s pretty much all they sell.

  21. 3G? I don’t even get 1 G here.
    I can barely update facebook from my cell phone inside my house, but apparently Al-Qaeda can live stream crap from a cave. Not sure how this works.

      1. I figured the gators and then the bears were protecting him. Not much can protect you from the almighty MOG though.

  26. My parents have bears in the woods behind them. Bears rip down their bird feeders so putting seeds out is probably not a good idea. Another relative has gotten this phone call: “This is the police. There’s garbage all over the road in front of your house and you have to clean it up.” She’d put her trash out for pickup but a bear got to it before the garbage men.

    1. Many national and state parks have “bear proof” garbage bins.
      A few bears figure out how to crack them, though.

      1. “A few bears figure out how to crack them, though.”

        –Those that are “smarter than your Av-er-age bear!”

  28. Ah, time for my standard “Life With Bears” spiel. You probably already know this, but I was taught that overlearning is better than forgetfulness.

    *Don’t leave any food outside your house on your property. This includes trash, birdseed, dog food, Halloween candy, etc. You can relax this rule in wintertime if your local bears hibernate. If you have curbside trash collection, keep a snow shovel handy even in summertime in case the bears find the trash cans first.

    *If your local services don’t include bearproof Dumpsters, agitate to get one. These are Dumpsters that can only be operated with the use of opposable thumbs. As long as the Dumpster is kept closed between uses, you won’t have a trash bear problem.

    *If your local services don’t include bear watch, agitate to get one. This is a special announcement on all local broadcast services and in the local paper when bears are spotted hanging around a neighborhood. When a bear watch is in effect, drive your kids to school unless they are picked up directly from your house, reconsider cycling, don’t take shortcuts through the woods, and be extra vigilant about securing food.

    *Unless you are trained in where exactly to shoot a bear and with what, don’t. You’ll end up with a wounded bear, which is even worse.

    *If you see a cute bear cub, back away slowly. Look and listen for its mother. You do not want to be between a cub and its mother, ever. Also note that cubs tend to come in multiples.

    Somebody hit a bear the day before yesterday just outside city limits. The bear got road rash, probable bruises and superficial cuts, and a possible broken bone, and left the scene immediately. The vehicle sustained $1,000 in damage. It was a Peterbilt, BTW.

    1. I can imagine what damage a collision with a bear would do. My brother hit a medium-large fox at 40 mph on a country road a few years ago. I saw the damage done to the front of his car, and int surprised me how bad it was. It wasn’t good for the fox either, unfortunately.

      1. Try hitting a deer when you’re traveling at 55 mph. That gets very ugly for the deer. Not so much for the land yacht you’re driving except for deer fur stuck in your headlight.

        1. Here we have only two kinds of people: those who have hit a deer, and those that will. We say it’s not a question of will you hit one, but when will you. So far, I’ve avoided them, but not for lack of effort on the deer’s part.
          One dumb buck stopped in front of me on the highway. I screeched to a halt and edged around him. He took exception to that and tried to remove my side mirror.

        2. Not too long ago there were about 5 deer together in a wooded part of an urban area. They were running beside the road. I was so startled I slowed ‘way, way down — which was good since one decided to lead the way across the road in front of my car.

          I hit it, of course. But at such a low speed there was no damage to my Prius. The deer was startled and knocked down, but got up on wobbly legs, then limped off.

        4. See, most of our deer in town tend to use the crosswalks. It’s only on the highway that they’re dumb.

        7. Here in the RGV, people are working on ocelot underpasses. But how to talk our ocelots into using them is still under discussion.

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