Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   a need for landing mounds
Wednesday, May 7 2014
I salvaged so much firewood from near Funky Pond today that I could barely get to my feet once I'd strapped the pack to my back. Once on my feet, though, I could walk, though I could tell this was going to get tiring quickly. The walk home would have been about three quarters of a mile had I not taken a shortcut through the woods in a region of dense White Pine saplings and fallen trees that had to be stepped over. It might have been easier to take a longer path that didn't require walking over such uneven terrain, but it's a swath of forest I've used several times for shortcuts in the past. That part of the woods was logged maybe 20 years ago and there are a number of large stumps. Eventually I lowered myself down onto a nice wide one so I could take a much-needed break. It was at an ideal height for me to get back on my feet again with a minimum of difficulties, and I managed to walk all the rest of the way back to the woodshed without taking any more breaks. This is not to say I didn't want to take any breaks; I actually kept promising myself a second break, but I could find no raised surfaces (maybe a fallen log or a large rock) suitable for landing. (Indeed, it might be a good idea to build myself stone landing mounds periodically along the Stick Trail if I continue hauling such heavy loads.) That final "mountain goat" slope up to the woodshed was a beast, and by the time I got that pack off, I was drenched in sweat and too tired to unpack my load. Later I came back and attempted to weigh the pack, but I couldn't physically lift it high enough with my arms and the scale doesn't look too accurate once it's gone all the way around the 100 pounds of scale and has started on a second revolution. I'd say the load was on the order of 130 pounds.

This evening after work, Gretchen went into Kingston to see Larry, the real estate agent who sold us our present house eleven and a half years ago. We have a bunch of money doing nothing in our bank account and she'd like to either get an investment property in Uptown Kingston (where, she suspects, there is soon to be massive hipster gentrification) or a vacation house on a body of water. Though there aren't a lot of natural lakes in this area, there are bodies of water. Larry told Gretchen that just last year he sold a house on the shores of the confluence of the Wallkill and the Rondout. It had a great shoreline and sold for only $80,000. The house itself was a dump, but for us that wouldn't be a problem.
This evening Gretchen and I made ourselves a meal of bucatini (bought at Marshalls of all places) with red sauce and a side of green beans. (I wondered aloud several times whether the Italians make bucatini on a lathe.) Later we watched another episode of Fargo.


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