Saturday, July 6, 2013

Climate Change...

There are climate change fanatics, and climate change deniers, and climate change skeptics.  I have to admit that, since returning to upstate New York, I am a firm climate change fanatic.  Since we got back in mid-May, we've had rain every single day except for four.  And I'm not talking just passing showers.  I'm talking serious rain and thunderstorms, just as Al Gore predicted in An Inconvenient Truth.

Yesterday.

Gore predicted droughts in the southwest, and above average rain in the northeast.  Holy crap, he nailed it.  The Erie Canal has been closed for weeks, towns in the Mohawk Valley have been flooded out AGAIN, and any progress on working our land has been pretty much halted.

I don't believe these are isolated weather events.  They're too frequent over the past years, and too intense.  Upstate New York is suffering from flooding, and we haven't even been hit with a hurricane yet.  If and when that happens, it will be catastrophic.

We had a break from the rain on the 3rd and most of the 4th of July.  Pam and I took a road trip to the Unadilla horse auction, and we were amazed at the number of hay fields that were in the process of being cut.  Just like the old saying, "Make hay while the sun shines".  All the fields we saw were cut and raked, but not baled.  And then the skies opened.  There goes that crop.

We didn't go to the Unadilla horse auction to buy a horse.  We went for the tack sale.  Pam picked up a lot of horse stuff that I have no idea what it is, but I scored a saddle.  An old, beat up western saddle that needs some fixing.   No one else wanted it.  I bought it for $15.


In the photo above it's sitting in the back of the Kia along with all sorts of other horse stuff, and the magic pretzel can.  I figured that for $15, we can use it as is until Pam finds a good saddle, and then use it for decoration, or to let the grandkids play on.  But later, Pam's friend Kim arrived at the auction and wanted to see the saddle.  

"That's not bad at all", said Kim.  "I know an Amish guy who can fix that right up, and you'll have a great saddle at a great price."

Sounds good to me.  I love the Amish.

So it rained AGAIN last night, but I think the July heat is drying things up a bit.  Our plan is to rake rocks off our property and bring them to our rental driveway to fill the mud puddle at the bottom.  I left Bessie at our property a couple of days ago.

Bessie.

Driveway.

I'm going to unhitch the plow and drag a rake around our property.  Pam will help by shoveling small rocks into piles, which I'll pick up with the bucket, drive Bessie to our rental places, and shovel into those ruts in the pic above.   Two or three trips like that and we should be done.

Unless it rains.

1 comment:

  1. I know it's poltically incorrect, but even as a former Catholic, I find it astounding that millions can believe Pope John Paul was somehow responsible for curing a Costa Rican woman's aneurysm, but millions fail to acknowledge climate change. Including Rick "Whoops" Perry.

    For the record, I think the Amish AND Pope Francis are cool!

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