After two days of Snow clearing…

I can see the road in front of the house. It had about an inch of compressed ice on it.

The snow players, as anticipated made their appearance. Saturday wasn’t too bad, Sunday on the other hand was an absolute shit show.

They actually pulled up the stakes labeled “Reforestation” that marked where new trees had been planted. Obviously, the stakes were in the way of these people’s fun.

The police were up here at least 3 times running everyone out of the neighborhood, because they’d parked so that the roads were blocked. I do appreciate the police and they were ticketing and towing to beat the band.

One humorous incident came when a full sized expedition was backing into my driveway and about to hit the other half’s car. I stepped out onto the deck and yelled at them to stop. The vehicle was loaded with people, but the woman in the passenger seat told me they were locals trying to avoid the snow players.

When I pointed out that they must be new to the area because all the locals know there is no way to get to town except via Hwy 2 due to the bridge being under construction and the wash, she realized she’d been caught lying through her teeth. Then the driver of the expedition backed down the street. Where they went, I don’t know.

I can tell you that to a local it’s obvious you don’t live here. Your vehicle is too clean and if you look at other vehicles from around here, you’ll notice ice on the roof or muddy snow or splashed mud on the quarter panels and in the wheel wells.

My car is in the garage, and even it has evidence of having been driven in snowy conditions. During this time of year it’s pointless to wash your car except about once a month.

Then there was the neighbor next door who noticed an adult male trying all the doors on a house for sale across the street. When she asked him what he was doing he replied, “I’m here to fix the water heater.”

When she asked him where his truck and tools were, he disappeared behind the house and she called the police. We suspect that he was looking for a bathroom for his 3 children and wife who were playing all over the property.

Dude… This ain’t Disneyland and we don’t need to cater to your wishes or needs. Of course that means someone is going to find human poop in their yard come springtime.

Ugh! Those are just two of the incidents that stand out. The whole day was like that. So I spent most of the day shovel in hand chipping at the ice. It gave me a good excuse to keep an eye on the stupidity and generally keep folks off our street and out of our yards.

Today, has brought light showers and warmer weather it’s about 39° and thankfully the showers are more rain than sleet.

We’re expecting warmer temps and even sunshine later in the week. There was supposed to be another snow storm on Wednesday but it looks like that’s breaking up over the coast. That is a relief! All of the neighbors are tired and achy from the snow removal and none of us were looking forward to having to do it all again so soon.

We never had this kind of snow play problem before the county decided to widen the wash as part of an ill conceived flood control project. A project that over ten years has resulted in the county spending millions in overtime digging out the log flume they created, year round.

Finally a year or two ago, someone decided that replacing the bridge that had washed out was more cost effective.

Funny how the residents suggested that in the first place and also pointed out that the county solution would cost more in the long run and cause other unanticipated problems in the area.

The wash before the county messed with it, was a natural meandering space with trees and a lovely trail. The wash itself wasn’t a 50 foot deep straight gash in the landscape. It was obvious to everyone visiting the town that this was not a place to play in the snow.

After the county work, the wash looks very much like a ski run and tourists use it as such because they’re tired of sitting in line to get to the actual snow play areas or ski runs.

The first winter after the county work, everyone at this end of town knew we were screwed.

For 7 or 8 straight years we’ve watched the county dig out the wash year round, to keep the road open. Each spring the county shows up with saplings to plant in the devastation they created. Each winter, those saplings are trampled and destroyed by snow players looking for free winter fun, instead of using the appropriate and safe designated areas.

People fall and get hurt every single weekend playing in the wash because they have no idea there are rocks under the snow that they cannot see. Having to split the paramedics between both ends of town also means that skiers who are injured on the actual slopes have to wait for medical help or be airlifted out if their need is really great. Not to mention having to pay triple shifts to fire and police.

These are all things that I personally mentioned in the town meetings opposing the county’s wash project. They were only concerned with the official environmental impact statement and basically told me to shut up. They were unconcerned with the impact this would have on the property owners.

They kept telling us it was for erosion control.

Now the county is having to pay property owners whose property fronts the wash for loss of property and fences that are washed away.

If you hike up to the national forest property that was left alone, you’ll find that nature knows best. Beyond where the county boondoggle stops, the original wash is largely unchanged. Erosion is minimal and the natural habitat has naturally occurring pools of clear fresh water for the animals of the forest. It’s beautiful and doesn’t look like the lunar surface.

I think it was Reagan who said the most terrifying words every heard were, “We’re from the government and here to help you.

I’m going to go take the dog out for a walk. He’s been cooped up in the house all weekend. I’m thinking that we’ll start picking up the trash in the wash too. I can see from the back deck, there are hundreds of surgical masks littering the landscape. Those in addition to the food wrappers and broken plastic sleds give the wash and the one remaining trail the appearance of living in a land fill.

If the dog will be more or less calm, I’ll take some pictures and update this post with them.

Sigh…


Here’s a few pictures. The cleanup is ongoing.

We’ve got a call into the Board of Supervisors.

Apparently, their phones began ringing at 8:00 AM on Monday Morning. Folks are tired of being trapped in their homes by the chaos.

However, I know a lot of people up here don’t really expect politicians to actually do anything.

This last photo is of blood in the snow. Unfortunately, the red in the photo looks more brown. In daylight, the red was more vibrant. I think this wasn’t anything more severe than a nose bleed, caused by cold dry air.

It’s probably going to take a large patch of bloody snow to get the County’s attention. Unfortunately, that means someone is going to have to really get hurt.

The Storm

So the storm was everything the National Weather Service claimed it would be.

Wind, rain/sleet, and snow. Lots of snow. About 16 inches at my elevation.

The front deck 1/29/2021

It’s not all that unusual to get snows like this here. What is unusual is that we’ve had essentially 3 back to back over the course of a few days.

The street. which was clear down to the pavement on 1/28/2021 and is buried again on 1/29/2021

The problem with our street is that it’s not county maintained. Meaning the residents have to clear it ourselves.

So we all pull out shovels, snow blowers, and one of the neighbors has an ATV with a snow blade on the front. Unfortunately, in the last snow he broke a shear pin and is waiting for the replacement which is on it’s way from MN via the USPS. He’s thinking that he won’t get it until spring.

The snow mound that is my front yard.

So after a full day of working, resting, & working again I can see most of the driveway again. One of the neighbors is at the far end of the street running his snow blower. What usually happens is all the neighbors fire up their snow blowers at the same time and the begin a carefully choreographed series of passes on the street.

That doesn’t begin until driveways are cleared otherwise we end up losing track of the driveways and have to do more work to find ’em and clear ’em. Something you don’t find out until you’ve regularly used a snow blower is, after you’ve blown the snow with a snow blower, it tends to compress into ice. So if you bury someones driveway sometimes the only solution is a pick and standard shovel instead of the traditional snow shovel.

One other really nice thing is that if one of the neighbors is away, and there’s a snow storm those of us who are home clear their driveway so they have a place to park when they get back. It’s not something any of us have talked about or agreed upon. It’s just a nice unwritten rule of kindness.

The other rule is that if the storm was really bad and your driveway isn’t cleared yet, you park in one of the neighbors drives until we get to yours. That rule is also unwritten and one of the nice things about our street.

We also have a common bag of various sized snowblower shear pins, unfortunately, none of us had anything big enough for the neighbors ATV snow blade. Dang IT!!!!

A shot of the house after clearing the road

In the picture above, the dark streaks are where the new guy on the block ingested some of the dirt from my yard. Ooops! No matter, the yard will be fine, but his snow blower was very unhappy for a couple of minutes. This picture isn’t super pretty but it gives a good reference of ground level and the relative depth of the snow.

Fortunately, we haven’t had to contend with snowplayers today. They have a bad habit of turning onto our road then freaking out when the realize 2 important things. 1) It’s a dead end. 2) It’s very narrow and there isn’t anyplace to turn around unless there happens to be an open driveway.

Usually they end up having to back down out onto the wider county maintained road. Which is also full of snowplayers trying to get up that road to its dead end, or it’s full of those who have found out that there is no way through and turned around.

This is why we don’t like snowplayers up in the neighborhoods. There are lots of little roads that dead end. Lots of these people come up here thinking the whole town is a snow/ski area, and they refuse to read signs that are clearly posted saying that a road is a dead end, or following the larger and equally clear signs that point to the designated play areas, and ski resorts.

They get tired of crawling along on the main, and well maintained road and tend to turn onto the first side road they see. Then the police get involved and start running them out of the neighborhoods, writing tickets, and towing vehicles.

Us locals, stop with a smile and present our drivers licenses (to prove our address and get waved on through police checkpoints). Sometimes we’ll provide thermos refills for the officer on duty. Especially if we notice an officer who hasn’t had a break in many hours working in the cold.

I’m afraid that tomorrow (Saturday) will bring a ton of rude, giddy, idiots, which will make all of the neighbors weekends a pain in the ass. We tend to take turns shooing the idiots off our lawns, out of the streets, and out of the reforestation project(s).

Then we spend Monday and Tuesday picking up all the trash. Broken plastic sleds, paper, dirty diapers, gloves, shoes, face masks, and the amazing detritus of human beings.

I am amused by the irony as well. These are the same people who would scream at the top of their lungs against pulling out of the Paris climate accords, but think nothing of trashing a pristine mountain town.

After all, they don’t have to actually clean up the mess. They don’t have to call the forestry service to help sick wildlife. They don’t have to worry about anything do they? It’s someone else’s problem when they drive back down the mountain.

Following are some pictures that illustrate the point really well.

A local creek about 10 miles from home. This picture was taken 15 year ago before the road to the creek was paved.
The same area about 4 years ago.
There is a creek under these uprooted trees. People were climbing the trees and then using their weight to pull them over. Seems the people wanted a bridge so they could cross a creek that has at best 10 inches of water in it during the Summer.
Filthy Humans!

If I sound harsh about people. It’s because I see the kind of wanton destruction and disregard all too many people have for the “Natural” surroundings that I live in and appreciate.

Ironically, lots of these people come to these wilder places to, “Get away from the city,” Unfortunately, they bring all their bad habits with them and just expect it to be magically cleaned up every night.

Before anyone talks to me about Climate change, the Green New Deal, Carbon taxes, or my gas powered car. They better have a simple appreciation of what’s happening every day in their local wilderness.

Cause if they don’t… I’m going to eat them for lunch!

Sorry, I digressed…

I’m not a traditional tree hugging Eco-Warrior. I’m just a guy who likes nature and gets really mad about the hypocrisy of people who are willing to pay stupid taxes and force everyone else to do the same, terrorizing us with dire warnings about Climate Change.

Too many of these people have never in their lives spent a day carrying a big trash bag through a forest picking up other people’s trash. Or tending a trampled sapling, or scrubbing graffiti off of rocks, or looking after an animal that ingested something left behind by a thoughtless person.

I do all of these things, and for the record, I’m not part of any organization. There’s no-one taking pictures. The big garbage bag ends up in my trash or recycling bin which ever is appropriate. I do this because I believe it’s the right thing to do, and should be done for no other reason. I’m the human walking in the forest seeing all the mess. Rather than tut-tut about it, I’ve got two hands, and a backpack with at least one trash bag inside.

Leave no trace. Leave a place better than you found it. That way the next person on the trail can appreciate the beauty and hopefully they’re operating on the same philosophy.

I’m a big believer that until you tend to the local issues you can’t really address the global ones. I also believe that if everyone simply tended to their own local issues, the world would be a lot prettier and healthier.

After all anyone can write a check, or click “Like” and feel smug about it. Put some skin in the game if you’re really serious.

Just my two cents. What I’ve said may not be right. It may not be right for you in particular. But It’s right for me and given that I do have skin in the game I’m not going to apologize if what I’ve said offends anyone.

Enough Already!

That’s it! Let’s take all social media platforms down! Yeah I said it!

All podcasts, Twitter, FaceBook, Gab, and all the rest!

I’m sick of seeing yet another self righteous pundit, news organization, or whoever the hell else, BITCHING about people espousing views that they don’t agree with. We’re supposed to be a free country, we’re supposed to have freedom of speech, we’re supposed to respect people whose views are different from our own. RIGHT?

Apparently NOT!

The latest two examples of violation of free speech is this article in Breitbart. Followed by this little gem from The Washington Post.

The Breitbart piece talks about the AP, yeah, you read that right… The Associated Press making the case that Podcasts should be de-platformed due to “incitement” on these podcasts.

The Washington Post article describes Apple being sued in federal court to force Apple to de-platform Telegram. Telegram, don’t ya know is where all the Parler users went after finding out that Parler was going to be screwed over by Amazon Web Services.

Here’s a idea. Shut it all down. Our phone batteries would last longer.

That would have the benefit of keeping all the village idiots in their own villages. If you stop them from talking to each other, you’ll prevent them from gathering steam. You might also have a side benefit that if they never meet, we don’t have to worry about an every increasing number of idiots that we’ll have to put up with and take care of.

Then we have this brilliant Senior News analyst from CNN (Communist News Network) who’s trying to float a balloon about censoring OAN & Newsmax.

Both of which appear to be conservative oriented news broadcasters. I’ve not watched either of them, because by the time I learned about them, I was too disgusted by the way the country was heading after the 2020 election to give a rancid fuck.

This is so similar to the way that the NAZI party came to power I can’t stand it. If they actually taught history in schools today and didn’t sanitize the brutality of various regimes people would know this.

First control the narrative, then control the media, then censor anyone with differing beliefs, cast everyone who doesn’t agree with you as anti-(insert the noun de jour) BLM, ANTIFA, Left, Progressive, Equality, Woman, blah, blah, blah. Then take over the country. Next build the camps, then try the re-education, and finally kill EVERYONE!

But… humanity appears doomed to repeat the horrors of the past.

A couple thousand years from now, in a barren wasteland some guy will find a TESLA buried in the sand. People will oooh and ahhh and decide it’s from Aliens. One curious person in the group will recognize that it was made by humans, be curious about how we fell so far, and the whole process of a civilization crawling out of the muck will start over.

Maybe they’ll get it right the next time.

The fall of America to communism or socialism won’t destroy all civilization. But the pervasive backwards thinking cult of leftism in the world just might.

Well that’s done.

In my opinion, The United States officially died today.

There is no point in voting anymore, or being affiliated with any party. There will now forever be only the Democratic Socialist Party.

Believing as I do that we’re heading toward a communist regime. I will not be posting anymore blogs.

I’ll be deleting the 1000 or so blogs currently available.

I will also be deleting websites and social media accounts, in an effort to prevent being caught up in the inevitable purges and “re-education” camps that always come with the adoption of communism and socialism.

Time to get very small and terminate any internet footprint that could be used to locate me.

So those of you that have my cell phone number, don’t be surprised if you go straight to voicemail and I’m not responding to text messages.

Just to be clear, it’s not about Joe Biden or more properly Kamala Harris being president. This is about the fundamental issue of voter fraud, illegality, and the complete subversion of everything that this country was supposed to be.

Vaya con Dios

What? We Still don’t know who won the election?

I’ve been busy training a dog. I haven’t been paying attention to pundits, wags, news, or opinions. It’s been all I can do to keep up with the buzzsaw named Jesse.

That’s not a complaint, the distraction has been healthy and much better for my general health and well being than reading the news feeds. I’ve been outside, walking and hiking a lot and the noise and conflict of the outside world has dropped completely off my radar.

I haven’t noticed that I’m losing any of the Covid weight yet but My heart rate is much lower as is my blood pressure. Yeah, Cardio activity will do that for you in real short order.

The buzzsaw is sleeping peacefully on the deck. We had a 2 mile adventure walk bright and early this morning. He was funny, pulling moderately on the way down the mountain and criss crossing all across the path.

His mood changed considerably when we turned around to begin the long trek back up to the house. Yeah Pup, going down is always easy, the bitch is the climb. By the time we got back to the house he was walking right beside me. He’s learning albeit sometimes slowly.

As tired as I am from the sudden change in my activity level, I’m happy and enjoying the various challenges.

While he’s sleeping, I’m checking email, catching up on the job search, and scanning the news.

Ugh! I shouldn’t have bothered. The stupidity and insanity has reached the level where it actually hurts my head to process it.

Some media outlets are claiming that Biden won. But that’s not certified and apparently won’t be for a while.

Twitter says that Jan 20th they’re going to transition the POTUS twitter feed to Joe whether or not Trump has conceded. Twitter makes no mention of what they’re going to do if Trump has no need to concede. Based on their past behavior, I’m sure they’ll just censor the hell out of the POTUS feed.

An entire company appears to be going underground to avoid answering questions in the Pennsylvania house. Dominion, who makes voting machines and voting software has been called to account for apparent irregularities in the Pennsylvania election. Their behavior begs the question, “What do they have to hide?”

Recounts are ongoing, as is litigation filed by President Trump over claims of election tampering and this is all reminiscent of the Bush / Gore election.

I personally am disgusted and dismayed that our election may have been tampered with and there appears to be ample evidence that it was. Yet the same people who screamed, “Russian Collusion” for four solid years are now saying, “everything is fine there’s nothing to see here.”

At this point, I want an entirely new election. I want it in person, I want for ID to be required, and I don’t give a shit that some people think asking for ID is racist or will disenfranchise some people. Don’t care! You’re required to have ID for virtually everything, voting is no less important.

I am pissed off, not about who, or who is not, the President. I am pissed off that the results of the election are even remotely questionable.

That being said Obama saying that everything was above board, tells me the election was rigged & completely off the rails. What I’ve learned about all the corruption going on in his administration tells me that everything out of his mouth is a lie. Obama can kiss my ass, then go straight to hell!

BLM and ANTIFA are becoming more violent and yet law enforcement does nothing to curb their terrorism. After years of racism accusations and this new systemic racism bullshit.

I’m not going to worry about being called a racist anymore. I’m white, I can’t change that, and being accused of being a racist by virtue of my skin color is in fact racist.

So screw it! I’ve now got carte blanc to be as white and racist as I freakin want to be, or not depending on their actions and my mood.

BLM/ANTIFA I have zero patience left for you. When the, however many millions of pissed off people there are in the United States, start Rittenhousing your stupid asses, I’ll not shed one fucking tear.

Since it appears most of the BLM crowd are white, privileged, spoiled, self important assholes, Dropping them in the streets with hunting rifles shouldn’t be much of a racial problem. Same goes for ANTIFA.

I will turn on the TV and make popcorn when hunting season on these assholes opens.

I may even have a drinking game, one shot of fine bourbon for every headshot shown on the news. These jackasses aren’t using their brains for anything, so it’ll be no loss when their brains get spattered in the gutters.

Harsh? Yeah, maybe.

This isn’t about fearing change, these feelings are about watching my country being flushed down the toilet. BLM and ANTIFA are just the foot soldiers. The real puppet masters are still behind the curtain. I seriously want to see them all brought into the light, tried, then hung in front of the Washington Monument.

Just so we’re clear. Tried, found guilty, and summarily hung.

That includes the news media that has skewed so far left, The journalists who have not reported the news but have been spouting propaganda for decades, and the masters of big tech that have actively engaged in censorship and silencing decent people who would otherwise have engaged in healthy civil discourse.

I’m about to the point that I’d go all in, supporting a McCarthy style inquisition.

“Are you now or have you ever been a scumbag?”

Then there’s the COVID kings. COVID is 99% survivable. There was a recent study out of Finland or Denmark that actually appears to prove that facemasks are fucking useless. Twitter censored references to the report saying that there was conflicting information from experts. Uh, the people doing the study are experts… At least one major news outlet did run the story NBC or The New York Post. So that’s at least some progress.

Gavin (Dumbass) Newsom is trying to get his paws into family gatherings for the holidays, but has found out that Law Enforcement at least in Southern California is largely going to ignore his edict. OOOOpppps, Now what are you going to do Newsom? Mobilize the National Guard to make house to house searches? I’m with the LEO folks… Fuck you and fuck off Newsom!

There’s a line from Star Wars that’s appropriate. “The more you tighten your grip, the more planets slip through your fingers.”

What happens when Newsom or Garcetti are ignored completely? What happens when Biden followed by Harris (We ALL know that’s the game plan,) are ignored? Would we have a government anymore?

I’m going back to training the dog. Burn it all down you jackasses I’ve got better things to do.