Picked a couple of pounds of blueberries yesterday. It was a pleasant experience. There was only one other family in the field with us, no bugs to speak of, plenty of berries and it wasn't hot. The sun was kind of intense, but there was a breeze.
The farm store offered a range of baked goods, jams and jellies. I had a cookie concoction consisting of an oatmeal cookie with white chocolate chips (Yes, I know. It's not "chocolate."), and a lemon glaze. I'm counting on the fiber and protein content of the oatmeal making it "healthy," though I know that's just wishful thinking.
We stopped by a former firehouse in Burdett, NY that has been converted to kind of an indoor farmer's market. All local or regional products. Very pricey, but it supports local agriculture. Bought some mushrooms, a steak and an onion. Dinner tonight.
ars technica has a piece on sea level rise in the southeast. The St Johns Riverkeeper, Lisa Rinamen is quoted in it. I know Lisa and I support the St Johns and Matanzas riverkeepers. None of this is really a surprise, apart perhaps from the increasing rate, though even that was anticipated by some. Historically, sea level rise occurs in pulses, periods of rapid rise.
But we keep shoveling taxpayer money into the sea. At best, it might buy time, but we waste that time and that money by doing nothing meaningful to address the risk. But Florida faces so many risks that it's doing nothing about that it's hard to single out sea level rise.
What's going to happen to the housing market when you can't get insurance, and therefore can't get a mortgage? We're one major hurricane away from an insurance industry collapse. We will learn just how "effective" those "reforms" the legislature enacted will be. They chiefly make it easier for insurance companies to deny claims, or under-compensate claims, and make it harder to sue insurance companies.
Then there's the heat, which I guess we're just going to ignore.
And the generation of Republican environmental stewardship that led to things like the Piney Point environmental disaster. There's more where that came from, as the saying goes.
They tell us they don't get much snow around here anymore. My kids and grandkids are all in Florida, or I'd seriously consider, I mean seriously consider pulling up stakes and moving up here. Taxes are higher. Prices are higher. Much of rural upstate New York can be Trump country, but it feels less rabid than Florida. The state has the opposite problem from Florida with a seemingly permanent Democratic majority in the legislature because of NYC, but the governor's office flips back and forth from time to time. This state isn't laser-focused on culture war issues and the governor's political ambitions.
And the views. I asked the guy at the blueberry farm if he kind of takes the scenery for granted. He's lived here all his life, so he allowed that he probably does. I don't know how long it'd take before I stopped being moved by it. Florida is claustrophobic, which may go some way toward explaining why it's so insane. Even in "rural" Florida, it's mostly just flat. There are no expansive vistas that can open your mind and your heart. Just the heat, the humidity, the mosquitoes, the gators and all the invasive exotic pets, and the selfish cruelty of its Republican ruling class.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 08:09 Saturday, 13 July 2024