ive been thinking about how lucky i am to live where i do. i suppose ill take some pictures directly, buit for the moment i just want to remark on the noise.
there isnt any.
now that the coal mine two miles to the south has closed, there is literally no noise near me all day and all night except for the birds, frogs, and the soft sound of the wind.
quiet is incredibly important to me. ive lived in very noisy cities all over the world, and while im in pleistocene hell here during the winter, im stepping into the seasonal transition now when appalachia is actually a good place to be.
right now im typing here in the warehouse where i live (i'm on the outs with the wife again, so i live in the barn) and there is literally nothing to make noise for miles around except the wind. i hear the sound of the wind in the young elm trees outside, and the rattle of the ropes on the sides of the warehouse door. thats it. no aircraft, no traffic, no machines, nothing.
in the evening i can sit quietly and listen to the frogs about 1000 feet away in the creek bottoms. in the m ornings there are redwing blackbirds, meadowlarks, starlings, crows, woodpeckers, and so on. in the afternoon th emockingbords finally wake up. later on there will be a bobolinks, maybe. theyve been here every year for ten years now. plus the kingbirds and at night, the owls. and the hummers
i hate the wnters here, but in my current conditin there is nowhere else on earth i would rather be, and ive been a lot of places.
well, maybe i would rather be in sri lanka. but theres a lt of political crap there. still sri lanka is beautiful anyway.
id live in arizona except for all the gringos.
I live in a tract home in southern California. in a city of ~100k people. It has little industry, so it's pretty good during the day. Pretty much dead quiet at night, too. Good enough, for now. I wouldn't mind living where it rained more, but I will never live where it snows again (two winters in Idaho were entirely enough).
snow is great for people who live where the local government runs a plough.
where i iive snow means i have to pull my kids out of the road when they do stupid thing, like try to get home. . .
(https://i.imgur.com/pvhFkvcl.jpg)
mostly theyre smart, tbese days. but not always
(https://i.imgur.com/CHpWCCMl.jpg)
I live in the suburbs of Oslo, Norway. It's a quiet, well-established neighbourhood with mostly single family homes, so even though I live near one of its main access roads and the local metro station, it's pretty quiet.
A lot of hills though, so in winter, it gets difficult to get around when the conditions are icy.
I live in a small, charming town near Wiesbaden. It has however seen better days as a spa town for the rich and famous. It is in the Rhein-Taunus-Kreis, which is well known for its excellent Riesling wines. The town is very hilly, which means that in winter you'd need a SUV.
I live on the eastern edge of the Leeds suburbs. It can be noisy if the wind direction is coming from the motorway. That said there is a lot of local walking access so in 5 minutes I'm in woodland. My wife was born and brought up in the center on London. I grew up in a little country village. Where we live is a good compromise with access to town and country.
I live in a city of about 25,000 in Central Texas, about an hour north of Austin and two hours south of Dallas. Not a bad place to live.
I live in a small town, now not so small, that was once the loveliest village on the plains. I moved here in 1948. It was the friendliest town I have ever known. In the beginning the population was about 30,000. We had everything that we needed, things such as a good fire department, police department, a small but adequate hospital, Libraries,churches,our own electricity generating plant,and lots more of the well done essentials for a quiet and self sufficient municipality. Our problem was that we were mostly really nice people who would welcome strangers
Way too many outsiders discovered this little village and it now nears 200,000 population. It has expanded beyond its capacity to absorb more inhabitants. Traffic is a nightmare. The town was well planned and laid out in the past. The influx of new people has almost outrun our ability to cope with the new demands for utilities, streets, water, waste disposal, and all that sort of essential component for a viable community..
My town is still my hometown and I love it. I do wish to hell that a lot of the newcomers would go home, wherever that might be. Bless 'em all but please be kind enough to go some other place.
Hmmmm.....Billy has cleverly figured out a suitable alternative by living in the boondocks.
I live in my mind, much to my regret.
Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
- Rumi
The mind's just not godlike.
Quote from: MarcusA on April 24, 2023, 09:10:57 AMOnly from the heart can you touch the sky.
- Rumi
Or, if you have the inclanation and coinage, you can skydive. That way, the sky touches
you. (In all them inappropriate places too, one must add :unsure: )
sup, marcus?
that boondocks thing has been a lifelong plan for me, icarus. ive lived in big cities and they have nothing to offer me that can rival the boondocks.
sure, theres no indian restaurant within 75 miles, no access to public transportation
sunday i had to get up at 0200 and drive 3 hours to pick up my wife at the nearest train station
but nobody is interested in living out here for the most part. so i have peace and quiet, except for deer hunters and occasional oil field traffic.
where else can you take a walk for an hour from your front door and come back without seeing anybody else?
not in noo york citty fer sure
Quote from: billy rubin on April 24, 2023, 02:37:08 PMsup, marcus?
What's up with me, billy? What's not? Everything in life seems illusory. I am an atheist, therefore I must think.
or youre a buddhist, perhaps
Quote from: billy rubin on April 24, 2023, 11:45:24 PMor youre a buddhist, perhaps
Buddhism is but dharma and meditation. I hate rules and regulations, pomp and ceremony.
Buddha laughed when he was explaining metaphysics and was laughed at by one man in a hall full of monks. He named that man his successor.
I live on my own in an one bedroom unit which is nothing much to laugh at. Charles Darwin visited King George Sound and loathed the place, but I'll forgive him as it had been a long voyage.
Quote from: billy rubin on April 24, 2023, 02:38:21 PMthat boondocks thing has been a lifelong plan for me, icarus. ive lived in big cities and they have nothing to offer me that can rival the boondocks.
sure, theres no indian restaurant within 75 miles, no access to public transportation
sunday i had to get up at 0200 and drive 3 hours to pick up my wife at the nearest train station
but nobody is interested in living out here for the most part. so i have peace and quiet, except for deer hunters and occasional oil field traffic.
where else can you take a walk for an hour from your front door and come back without seeing anybody else?
not in noo york citty fer sure
There is something to be said in favor of your chosen lifestyle. In my case, I have become disenchanted by the tremendous growth of my former Shang ri la, a small town that had all one would want or need. It has now become hugely overdeveloped and traffic snarled and far far less Shang ri la like. In some cases "progress and growth" sucks.
At this point in life I cannot muster the courage to get away from the madness of the chamber of commerce perception of "progress".
When I was about six years old, I lived in a tiny little town in Georgia called Cuthbert. It is still a small little town in the middle of nowhere. For an unexplained reason I still have a desire to visit there where my father had a machine shop that catered to the timber trade thereabouts. That was 1936. I fell off my bicycle while returning from school one day. I broke my upper leg. I wont forget that body cast that I had to live in for about eight weeks. Somehow the local country doctor treated me with whatever skill and care that he could muster. It worked.
One of the things that I have found that people do not believe is this; In first grade I was required to memorize the multiplication tables from two to twelve. I was also encouraged to learn to factor as an essential part of multiplication and division. I did and so did the rest of the six year olds. Who would think that a backwoods little community, in backwoods Georgia,only a few miles from Alabama, would demand such academic achievement from little kids? As I recall, there was not much if any opposition from parents who might have thought that the kids were being forced to think beyond their capacity.
With the best of my recall, the people were not overly religious. Go figure.
There is something to be said for living in the boondocks Billy. I have been there and done that. a long long time ago.
Between life and death, I would choose life every time.
Then, of course, once you are dead, there is no capacity to choose, so those who choose death thereby make the last choice they ever will. Hm... Imagine that...
icarus, you should look at some of the curricula the horse and buggy amish around here provide for their kids. they all quit at the 8th grade, but their math and reading is way above public school of that level.
science, not so much.
https://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5 (https://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5)
This could be where the Asmo lives.
Quote from: Icarus on April 28, 2023, 01:56:32 AMhttps://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5 (https://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5)
This could be where the Asmo lives.
Asmo lives wherever he damn well pleases.
Quote from: MarcusA on April 28, 2023, 02:58:20 AMQuote from: Icarus on April 28, 2023, 01:56:32 AMhttps://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5 (https://imgur.com/gallery/tLmMvO5)
This could be where the Asmo lives.
Asmo lives wherever he damn well pleases.
Except Luxembourg. They have history.
Also, Smart cars. The horror!
That said, The Asmo is a city-The Asmo. While His place is at the end of a fjord, it's surrounded by processed stone rather than natural.
Quote from: MarcusA on April 25, 2023, 05:50:48 AMI live on my own in an one bedroom unit which is nothing much to laugh at. Charles Darwin visited King George Sound and loathed the place, but I'll forgive him as it had been a long voyage.
That sounds like an interesting place, as long as the fish don't get too bitey.
(https://i.imgur.com/hAplemRl.jpg)
thats my house there towards the right. it was the last house on the road for about a hundred years after the blacksmith closed up and the mill fell apart, but then a neighbor pulled a single wide in about a mile down and lives there part time
Wow! That is pretty place Billy. Maybe not so convenient when covered with snow. One of the notable positives is that there will be little or no industrial air pollution in such a place.
It looks like a remote farm from The Walking Dead!
you know wot?
ivebeen sittin g in a lawn chair on the front slab of tbe warehouse out here for an hour. drinking some bushmills.
listening to the redwings, the crows, the woodpeckers, meadowlarks mockingbirds and so on as the sun slowly sets
stark fucki g nekkid
not a single car, ute, bike, or lorry has come by to make me duck.
my kind of country. walking dead or not
This is just up the road from my place
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2f/b0/35/2fb035b7c7c680f6eb8725c21d6fb990.jpg)
Quote from: Bluenose on June 03, 2023, 03:32:59 AMThis is just up the road from my place
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2f/b0/35/2fb035b7c7c680f6eb8725c21d6fb990.jpg)
Nice! Wife and I went camping (motorhome with hookups-I've spent enough time sleeping on the ground hiking into the hinterlands to last me for a lifetime). We were surrounded by lots of oak trees and such.
beautiful
A fine example of mother natures ambition, Bluenose.
The density does not appeal to me for a hike in that forest. There may be drop bears, funnel webs, angry kangaroos, and all sorts of Antipodean hazards in there. It is beautiful nonetheless.
(https://i.imgur.com/dfGu6bcl.jpg)
my year is marked by milestones
first peepers
vernal equinox
first kingbirds
first hyla versicolor
first mowing
and so on . . .
we're at the first mowing. up until today the hayfields have been masses of agelius phoenicius, staking out territories. the sturnella neglecta have laid out their first nests in the fields days. threee ago the lightning bugs came out in force.
today the neighbors came in with the mowing machines. the hay is high enough to bale, and so the blades are coming through about 6 inches up. if youre a black bird and havent got the fledglings out, theyre dead. same with the meadowlarks. the lightnng bugs can fly, so theyll mostly be okay.
occasional mammals get chopped up by the sickle bars. possums and such. not much in the wider scheme, but a big deal to people like me who live the details. i can remember killing hundreds of small mammals before my sea change in belief. i wont kill things anymore.
but the day is still a benchmark in the year. up until now, the hayfields bseides urs have been a metre high in monocots. now theyll be turned into fodder for the milk and beef cows around here that are part of the local unsustainable variety of farming.
we're doing okay-- broadleaf nut trees, as many native fruits as i can get in the ground. if i have free space, i cver it in sunflowers, milkweed, or whatever else will support the local native insects, pollinators or not.
we only have 25 acres in th emidst of a different mindset, but in a hundred years we ll have something to show for it maybe.
Gorgeous pictures, bluenose and billy. Be mindful of those mosquitoes, billy, sitting out there in the buff. ;)
not many yet, anne.i have a big net to put over my bed when they get numerous.
ony two places in my life have ever needed a mosquito net. malindi and ohio
Quote from: Icarus on June 04, 2023, 12:51:35 AMA fine example of mother natures ambition, Bluenose.
The density does not appeal to me for a hike in that forest. There may be drop bears, funnel webs, angry kangaroos, and all sorts of Antipodean hazards in there. It is beautiful nonetheless.
The only notable wildlife I've encountered in mountain ash forest are lyrebirds, echidnas and sundry other birds. Drop bears prefer dry sclerophyll forest (LOL), you might see the occasional brush tailed wallaby, but large roos prefer open grasslands. Our lizards are generally harmless, even if they look ferocious, but again they're unlikely to be found in cool, moist mountain ash forest. Oh, and Sydney funnel-web spiders (the deadly ones) only occur within about a 100-mile radius of Sydney, so you're well out of their range down here...
I like playing the "Aussie critters will get you" game as much as the next guy, but the reality is that you're pretty safe in the bush. We don't have large predators to worry about (except estuarine crocodiles up north - but that's thousands of kilometres away), remember it's in North America that you might get eaten by a bear!
Good information Bluenose.
Indeed we might be eaten by a grizzly bear, Gored by a western bison, dismembered by a Florida or Louisiana swamp alligator, or castigated by christian nationalists. The USA is a dangerous country, more so by humans than by animals.
God, it's cold and you are to blame.
echidnas!
how common are tbey?
how big?
how close can you get?
Quote from: billy rubin on June 07, 2023, 12:37:00 PMechidnas!
how common are tbey?
how big?
how close can you get?
They're mostly couth but you get the occasion crass one.
Four to five bananas long, two to three high, twoish wide.
In my state if you get within 50 metres of an echidna you're supposed to slowly back away.
Other states differ, are either draconian or criminally lax in their protection of echidnas.
Quote from: billy rubin on June 07, 2023, 12:37:00 PMechidnas!
how common are tbey?
how big?
how close can you get?
They're reasonably common in areas around the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne where I live, not so much in built-up areas, but certainly in parks and surrounding bushland and, of course, in the bush. I think Magic Pudding must be using lady finger bananas, as I would have said that echidnas are about half that size. I have encountered plenty of them when camping or fishing, even had them come right through my camp site. They seem pretty impervious to the presence of humans in my experience. I have gotten close enough to reach out and touch one, although I wouldn't.
I took this photo on Kangaroo Island a few years ago, the echidna let me get directly overhead of it, maybe 30 cm (1 ft) away.
(https://scontent.fsyd4-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/352269592_827601518974997_8161541167582861416_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p180x540&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5cd70e&_nc_ohc=Ho6XWVxRT4UAX84LYBA&_nc_ht=scontent.fsyd4-1.fna&oh=00_AfBgyH34qtKsMTLsuakvUk05heKNsVi1aQNl6QSOde97Wg&oe=6484F96A)
that is as cool ss they can be.
we have a spiny thing here in the woods and deserts that is as big as yourveztinate, pudding. but its a big rodent and doesnt lay eggs
i have never seen a monotreme, wild, zoo, or otherwise
do platypuses really glow in the dark?
fungi?
Platypus were mistaken for a hoax when first removed to a museum in Britain.
Australia also has black swans.
Quote from: MarcusA on June 08, 2023, 02:36:40 AMAustralia also has black swans.
Swans
of colour. :smilenod:
Australia also has numbats, wombats and fruit bats.
That's a lot of bats. Some of flightless variety, even.
Although, if you put an wombat on a airplane, it could fly. :thoughtful: Hmm... Yes. A lot of bats. :smilenod:
Quote from: Asmodean on June 08, 2023, 10:48:05 AMThat's a lot of bats. Some of flightless variety, even.
Although, if you put an wombat on a airplane, it could fly. :thoughtful: Hmm... Yes. A lot of bats. :smilenod:
I had never heard of flightless bats until now, thank you.
Quote from: MarcusA on June 08, 2023, 04:45:25 PMQuote from: Asmodean on June 08, 2023, 10:48:05 AMThat's a lot of bats. Some of flightless variety, even.
Although, if you put an wombat on a airplane, it could fly. :thoughtful: Hmm... Yes. A lot of bats. :smilenod:
I had never heard of flightless bats until now, thank you.
it gets worse
That would be terrifying, if true.
imagine the amount of shit that would rain down when they took off
:lol: Exactly my thought. What with all those fish they eat, the stench would be unbelievable.
Quote from: MarcusA on June 08, 2023, 04:45:25 PMI had never heard of flightless bats until now, thank you.
Well... Why would they call an wombat an wom
bat if it wasn't? Obviously, it must be! The Asmozoology. It makes sense. :smilenod:
Where I live, you have to make your own entertainment for the most part.
Where I live, I live on tobacco smoke and coffee.
Many a good life is fueled by those particular variants of narcotics. :smilenod:
My life is full of misery. I need something to brighten me up. Why not tobacco and coffee for starters?
Where I live is lost in space.
Where I live is where my heart beats.
I live in Jurassic Park with the other dinosaurs.
(https://i.imgur.com/4WYQP2Al.jpg)
equinox in two days.
due west is somewhat north of the middle most powerline.
its about 1915 but thats meaningless as its not solar time and im not in the middle of the artificial time zone
where do you live?
Behind my eyes.
I don't get how you could think otherwise, unless you're a cephalopod or such.
Well, I experience life behind my eyes, but geographically I live wherever my body abides - in other words, wherever I occupy space on a permanent basis.
iwas wondering yesterday just where the fuck you had got to