rescued from framework

1 files changed, 83 insertions, 47 deletions

diff --git a/scratch.txt b/scratch.txt
index c007e6d..4acd138 100644
--- a/scratch.txt
+++ b/scratch.txt
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.
 
 requirements for property:
 
-at least 10 acres. Water. existing well. ability to capture water. Spectacular views. on a slope to  
+at least 6 acres. Water. existing well or drillable. ability to capture water. Spectacular views. on a slope. good sun exposure. 
 
 Pleasure in the job, puts perfection in the work -- Aristotle's prescription for excellence
 
@@ -30,6 +30,12 @@ The good and the true are convertible with being, they are fundamentally the sam
 
 The counter argument is that God should not be constrained by his own nature. Therefore something is good because god wills it. (voluntarism). But this then leads to the idea that Not the nature of a thing, its being goodness and truth, determine reality, but the sheer act of a will. e.g. Schopenhauer. The problem is overemphasis on the will leads here, where we are divorced from the world as it really is. If I decide entirely what is true, then I can decide what is true then I can weigh 600 pounds and declare myself healthy. I can say I'm a cat and force my employer to provide a litter box. 
 
+## 7 years on the Road
+
+themes: 
+
+crashing communities. the way so many places have welcomed us. excited to have outsiders take an interest in what is happening in their community.
+
 ## Seems Like a Lot of Folks Gave Up or Got Out, Except For the Truly Devote
 
 Spend a some time in the environment around you, really spend some time. Lose the headphones. Maybe put aside some of the plastic sports gear. Just walk with no plan, no goals, not for your health, your mental health any of that stuff. Find a quiet place to sit, somewhere near you. Sit with the rocks, the trees, the dirt, the sky, the plants, the animals. Then think of all of it, pretend for a moment, that these things are valuable to you like other people are valuable, and more importantly, that you matter to them. That your presence is important to the rocks, to the trees, to the sky, to all of it. Now what sort of life would you lead if you really believed that? Go live that life.
@@ -566,72 +572,47 @@ People have forgotten how important the sun is. You can die from lack of sun.
 
 # Stories to Tell
 
-## April White
-
-The mild winter of 2023-2024 gave us the opportunity to go up to Lake Superior much earlier than usual. Last year we arrived after Memorial Day. This year we headed into Wisconsin April 1. So far as I have been able to discover, there is only one Wisconsin state park that opens this early. Luckily for us, it's right where we wanted to be to visit some friends in Plover, Wisconsin.
-
-We headed north from [Ferne Clyffe](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/03/illinois-cliffs), stopped off for a night in Rockford, and made it up to Hartman Creek State Park the day it opened. The forecast called for some rain that afternoon, but on the drive in I hit a few snow flurries and the temperature dropped to unpleasant levels for driving the bus (the heater in the bus has never worked). The last few miles the "rain" alternated between sleet and snow, and by the time we pulled into camp it was steady snow. It didn't let up much in the night and was back at the next morning, continuing all through the day.
-
-We had the campground to ourselves. Two other people had brought out their rigs, but they seemed to be locals. They left their rigs and went (I assume) home. It was just us and the snow.
+## The Good Life
 
-It had been some time since I'd been a snow storm like this and Corrinne and the kids never really have. I forgot how utter silent the world is when it snows. 
+I was recently talking with my editor about my decidedly low ambitions at work. Writers often have trajectories. They start at small publications, write that one big story, then move to a larger publication, write that one big story, then move on to a larger publication, and so on. I have never had any interest in that. I've spent my entire writing "career" primarily at Wired. I've been writing for Wired in one form or another since 1999. In all that time Wired has never rejected a pitch[^1], why would I want to write for anyone else?
 
+I don't and never have felt the need to climb any ladders. At least not in a job. 
 
+But then later I was thinking, perhaps I am looking at this whole thing the wrong way. Perhaps I'm not that driven because I've already got everything I ever wanted.
 
+One of the great dangers of life is that we don't know what the good life looks like until it's in the rearview mirror.
 
-## Ferne Clyffe
-
-If you look at a map of the U.S., there's a few routes that will get you from Pensacola FL to Wisconsin. They all have one things in common: they pass through Illinois. Unfortunately, there isn't much camping in Illinois, and what camping there is... is generally not great. We've stated in [small town](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/06/prairie-notes) [city parks](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2023/05/going-up-north) the last couple times through, which were nice enough for a night, but not someplace you'd want to spend any time.
-
-But nothing is all bad either. We call the route we take Maximum Illinois since it enters at the southernmost point and exits at the northern most. Somewhere in there we knew there were great places and we were going to find them damnit. 
-
-One of the things we figured our very quickly in our travels is you should never camp within 20 miles of the border in a state where marijuana is legal. This is where every meth head from the surround states will camp when they come to get their weed. The campgrounds will be run down, trashed, sketchy, and full of meth heads. That's just how it goes these days. Cross those off the list. If you do that for Illinois (and you should because this is absolutely the case in Paducah, Rockford, and anywhere around Lake Michigan) you're not left with a lot of camping options. 
-
-We considered harvest hosts, but those are generally only for 24 hours. We needed somewhere to stay while a snow storm (hopefully the last!) dumped a foot or more where we were headed in Wisconsin. This is how we ended up at Ferne Clyffe State Park, which had never quite fallen at the right mileage point for stopping. This time we did an extra long day and made it. It's good we did because Ferne Clyffe is without a doubt the nicest place we've been in Illinois. 
 
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_144552_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3975" class="picwide caption" />
-<div class="cluster">
-    <span class="row-2">
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_120937_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3977" class="cluster pic66" />
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121141_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3976" class="cluster pic66" />
-    </span>
-</div>
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122646_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3978" class="picwide" />
 
+[^1]: That's not literally true, but it's close. Sometimes I pitch something that someone else is already doing, and sometimes I pitch something I know they don't want because it's in my contract to do so, but by and large I am fortunately to pretty much unlimited freedom. I mean, they let me write about how we have no oven and cook on waffle irons. 
 
-We pulled into a nearly empty campground, which was fortunate because we hadn't even thought about making reservations ahead of time. I can't tell you the last time we did that. I loved the place already. 
 
-It was still very much winter when we arrived the last week in March. The tree limbs were still leafless, skeleton arms scratching at the still-wintery sky. But Ferne Clyffe was lush with lichens, moss, and ferns growing in clusters wherever water leached out of the limestone cliffs and beautifully carved canyon walls.
+## April White
 
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_152848_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3981" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145021_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3979" class="picwide" />
+The mild winter of 2023-2024 brought very little snow to Wisconsin. We watched the weather for months waiting for more snow to fall, but it never did. Last year we arrived after Memorial Day and it was still cool. This year we headed up April 1 and found not a patch of snow on the ground. 
 
-After six weeks in the tightly-policed, don't-even-think-about-climbing-it "nature" of [Fort Pickens](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/01/microcosm), the kids were eager to get climbing all over Ferne Clyffe. Happily there were no signs telling them not too, and no one around to tell them otherwise. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and climb they did.
+So far as I have been able to discover, there is only one Wisconsin state park that opens this early and as luck would have it, it's right where we wanted to be to visit some friends. We headed north from [Ferne Clyffe](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/03/illinois-cliffs), stopped off for a night in Rockford, and made it up to Hartman Creek State Park the day it opened. 
 
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_121249_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3982" class="picwide" />
+The forecast called for some rain that afternoon, but on the drive in I hit a few snow flurries and the temperature dropped to unpleasant levels for driving the bus (the heater in the bus has never worked). The last few miles the "rain" alternated between sleet and snow, and by the time we pulled into camp it was steady snow. 
 
-There seems to be a fundamental human need to climb. I don't mean technical rock climbing, I mean getting to the top of things. I have no idea why. To add to Edmund Hilary's famous quote about climbing Everest, the best I can think of is, *because we're alive, and it's here*. But then asking *why?* rarely leads to interesting experiences, *why not?* is a more rewarding guide to life. 
+This was only the second time we've hit snow in our travels, though we've had plenty of days at or below freezing. But none of us were ready for ten inches of snow, which is what we got at Hartman Creek. The snow didn't let up much in the night and was back at the next morning, continuing all through the day.
 
-Whatever the case I've noticed that when there are rocks or trees to climb our kids are happy. Almost all their favorite spots, like [Valley of Fire](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/valley-fire), [Zion](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/zion), and [the place in Utah I never named](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/08/canyoneering) among others, all have rocks or trees to climb.
+We had the campground to ourselves. Two other people had brought out their rigs, but they seemed to be locals claiming a spot. They left their rigs and went (I assume) home. It was just us and the snow.
 
-Ferne Clyffe had a network of trails running through the various canyons (one main canyon with a couple of offshoots). It's not a huge place, but it was enough to keep our days filled with hiking and climbing and birding.
+I forgot how utter silent the world is when it snows. Even the simple act of walk seems an unforgivable intrusion on the silence.
 
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_151148_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3980" class="picwide" />
-<div class="cluster">
-    <span class="row-2">
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145656_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3984" class="cluster pic66" />
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122605_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3988" class="cluster pic66" />
-    </span>
+<div class="self-embed-container embedwide">
+	<video poster="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/spring-snow-fall-poster.jpg" controls="true" loop="false" preload="auto" id="28" class="vidautovid">
+		<source src="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/Spring_Snow_Fall.webm" type="video/webm">
+		<source src="https://luxagraf.net/media/images/videos/2024/Spring_Snow_Fall.mp4" type="video/mp4">
+		Your browser does not support video playback via HTML5.
+	</video>
 </div>
 
-I got the kids loupes as part of [a larger project](https://www.theprivateeyestore.com), for observation and sketching. The endless moss and lichens of Ferne Clyffe gave them a chance to use them. Studying moss through a loupe you quickly discover that the form of the surrounding forest is repeated in the carpet of moss. What we call moss is in fact tiny forests living on the rocks and fallen trees, living at a different scale, but nearly identical means.
-
-"Learning to see mosses is more like listening than looking," writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book [<cite>Gathering Moss</cite>](https://bookshop.org/p/books/gathering-moss-a-natural-and-cultural-history-of-mosses-robin-wall-kimmerer/8632077?ean=9780870714993). "A cursory glance will not do it. Straining to hear a faraway voice or catch a nuance in the quiet subtext of a conversation requires attentiveness, a filtering of all the noise, to catch the music. Mosses are not elevator music; they are the intertwined threads of a Beethoven quartet."
+I have no way to photograph it, but we put the snow under the loupes to see the fractal patterns, the tiny geometric order scattered about in the chaos of wind, often blowing out of my hand before I could even focus on it. I can't help thinking there's a lesson in that, but I'm not sure what it means.
 
-We looked and listened, hiked and climbed. 
+The heavy wet snows of spring never last long though and it was soon gone, leaving behind 
 
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121551_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3986" class="picwide" />
-<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121543_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3985" class="picwide" />
 
 
 ## Growing 
@@ -975,6 +956,61 @@ https://www.vagabondjourney.com/you-cant-get-lost-anymore/
 
 # jrnl
 
+## Ferne Clyffe
+
+If you look at a map of the U.S., there's a few routes that will get you from Pensacola FL to Wisconsin. They all have one things in common: they pass through Illinois. Unfortunately, there isn't much camping in Illinois, and what camping there is... is generally not great. We've stated in [small town](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2022/06/prairie-notes) [city parks](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2023/05/going-up-north) the last couple times through, which were nice enough for a night, but not someplace you'd want to spend any time.
+
+But nothing is all bad either. We call the route we take Maximum Illinois since it enters at the southernmost point and exits at the northern most. Somewhere in there we knew there were great places and we were going to find them damnit. 
+
+One of the things we figured our very quickly in our travels is you should never camp within 20 miles of the border in a state where marijuana is legal. This is where every meth head from the surround states will camp when they come to get their weed. The campgrounds will be run down, trashed, sketchy, and full of meth heads. That's just how it goes these days. Cross those off the list. If you do that for Illinois (and you should because this is absolutely the case in Paducah, Rockford, and anywhere around Lake Michigan) you're not left with a lot of camping options. 
+
+We considered harvest hosts, but those are generally only for 24 hours. We needed somewhere to stay while a snow storm (hopefully the last!) dumped a foot or more where we were headed in Wisconsin. This is how we ended up at Ferne Clyffe State Park, which had never quite fallen at the right mileage point for stopping. This time we did an extra long day and made it. It's good we did because Ferne Clyffe is without a doubt the nicest place we've been in Illinois. 
+
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_144552_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3975" class="picwide caption" />
+<div class="cluster">
+    <span class="row-2">
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_120937_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3977" class="cluster pic66" />
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121141_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3976" class="cluster pic66" />
+    </span>
+</div>
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122646_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3978" class="picwide" />
+
+
+We pulled into a nearly empty campground, which was fortunate because we hadn't even thought about making reservations ahead of time. I can't tell you the last time we did that. I loved the place already. 
+
+It was still very much winter when we arrived the last week in March. The tree limbs were still leafless, skeleton arms scratching at the still-wintery sky. But Ferne Clyffe was lush with lichens, moss, and ferns growing in clusters wherever water leached out of the limestone cliffs and beautifully carved canyon walls.
+
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_152848_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3981" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145021_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3979" class="picwide" />
+
+After six weeks in the tightly-policed, don't-even-think-about-climbing-it "nature" of [Fort Pickens](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2024/01/microcosm), the kids were eager to get climbing all over Ferne Clyffe. Happily there were no signs telling them not too, and no one around to tell them otherwise. We pretty much had the place to ourselves and climb they did.
+
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_121249_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3982" class="picwide" />
+
+There seems to be a fundamental human need to climb. I don't mean technical rock climbing, I mean getting to the top of things. I have no idea why. To add to Edmund Hilary's famous quote about climbing Everest, the best I can think of is, *because we're alive, and it's here*. But then asking *why?* rarely leads to interesting experiences, *why not?* is a more rewarding guide to life. 
+
+Whatever the case I've noticed that when there are rocks or trees to climb our kids are happy. Almost all their favorite spots, like [Valley of Fire](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/valley-fire), [Zion](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/09/zion), and [the place in Utah I never named](https://luxagraf.net/jrnl/2017/08/canyoneering) among others, all have rocks or trees to climb.
+
+Ferne Clyffe had a network of trails running through the various canyons (one main canyon with a couple of offshoots). It's not a huge place, but it was enough to keep our days filled with hiking and climbing and birding.
+
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_151148_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3980" class="picwide" />
+<div class="cluster">
+    <span class="row-2">
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-24_145656_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3984" class="cluster pic66" />
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-26_122605_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3988" class="cluster pic66" />
+    </span>
+</div>
+
+I got the kids loupes as part of [a larger project](https://www.theprivateeyestore.com), for observation and sketching. The endless moss and lichens of Ferne Clyffe gave them a chance to use them. Studying moss through a loupe you quickly discover that the form of the surrounding forest is repeated in the carpet of moss. What we call moss is in fact tiny forests living on the rocks and fallen trees, living at a different scale, but nearly identical means.
+
+"Learning to see mosses is more like listening than looking," writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book [<cite>Gathering Moss</cite>](https://bookshop.org/p/books/gathering-moss-a-natural-and-cultural-history-of-mosses-robin-wall-kimmerer/8632077?ean=9780870714993). "A cursory glance will not do it. Straining to hear a faraway voice or catch a nuance in the quiet subtext of a conversation requires attentiveness, a filtering of all the noise, to catch the music. Mosses are not elevator music; they are the intertwined threads of a Beethoven quartet."
+
+We looked and listened, hiked and climbed. 
+
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121551_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3986" class="picwide" />
+<img src="images/2024/2024-03-25_121543_ferne-clyff.jpg" id="image-3985" class="picwide" />
+
+
 ## Mobile Bay