Sunday October 20th 2024

All of the activity associated with buying my new base camp and getting moved in has taken my focus off of the weather. Hurricanes Helene and Milton got some of my attention, but overall the transition from summer heat and humidity to fall occurred without a lot of notice. It is the end of October and high temperatures are now in the upper seventies to mid eighties. The humidity is also in the comfortable range.

Yesterday I found a wildlife refuge within easy driving distance. It has some nice trails and a few interesting ponds along the way. I got some good exercise in walking a few of the trails, but I was disappointed that there weren’t more wildflower blossoms or animal life along the way. There weren’t any trees down, but I suspect that the high water level was caused by the hurricane. The high water level in turn caused the blossoming bushes to suffer and may have caused the animals to move to higher ground. I’ll be visiting the area a few more times over the next few weeks to see what the area is really like.

Today was a work around the house kind of day. When I bought the base camp, the house was clean and empty. I am starting from a clean slate acquiring furniture and the necessities of a house hold. The shed is the complete opposite. It wasn’t emptied out. The contents range from the very useful like a gas grill to the useless like a broken down bag of fertilizer. The task I set out on today was cleaning out the shed.

I found it very reminiscent of cleaning tasks I’ve undertaken in the past. A previous owner was using the shed as a shop. There were boxes of hand tools, little containers of leftover screws, nails and connectors along with other coffee cans filled with random stuff. I am very familiar with this pack rat behavior. It is the result of the “it might come in handy” mentality. I have that tendency and so did my dad. I brought a lot of stuff from my house and my mothers house on the road with me, because it might come in handy.

So here is the dilemma. Having a similar approach as the guy that collect all this stuff I find it hard to throw it away. After about three hours of effort I only had half a trash bag full of junk. The rest just got moved around. I’m not creating space just moving things around. I need to make room for my “it might come in handy” stuff that I’ve been keeping for years.