Life is good in the hills.

[donttread]

Last night we had home raised pork chops from a hog my daughter and family raised a while back. If you have never had home raised pork, try it, it literally taste like a different animal than the factory farm , super dry version offered in the grocery store.
Tonight , steak from a grass fed side of beef we bought a couple of years ago and tomorrow night goose, thanks to my brother in law's early goose season success. I didn't get to go. Damn work interferes with my recreational life! LOL

[nathanbforrest45]

I enjoy sitting on my back balcony, smoking my pipe and watching the animals feed in the corner of my property. I have about a half acre cleared and the rest is heavily wooded. I put shelled corn right at the wood line and attract deer, fox, rabbits, bears, raccoons, possum, more birds than I can name. I have my own private zoo 50 yards away from me

[Peter1469]

Last night we had home raised pork chops from a hog my daughter and family raised a while back. If you have never had home raised pork, try it, it literally taste like a different animal than the factory farm , super dry version offered in the grocery store.
Tonight , steak from a grass fed side of beef we bought a couple of years ago and tomorrow night goose, thanks to my brother in law's early goose season success. I didn't get to go. Damn work interferes with my recreational life! LOL

You are lucky you live in a pretty part of the country.

[FindersKeepers]

I enjoy sitting on my back balcony, smoking my pipe and watching the animals feed in the corner of my property. I have about a half acre cleared and the rest is heavily wooded. I put shelled corn right at the wood line and attract deer, fox, rabbits, bears, raccoons, possum, more birds than I can name. I have my own private zoo 50 yards away from me

Sounds great.

I love going outside whenever I get a break. No bears in my neck of the woods, thank goodness, but deer, pheasant, wild turkey, raccoons and rabbits. We don't hunt them -- rather offer them a little sanctuary from hunters. We put out corn and deer licks, hoping they'll stay here instead of wandering during hunting season.

And, like you, lots and lots of birds. I have a winding path through the trees, a 3/4-mile loop that I walk with the dogs. They sniff and snoop every little crevice and log, hoping for a chance to chase a rabbit.

I love living in the country. Great sunrises and sunsets, too.

[stjames1_53]

Last night we had home raised pork chops from a hog my daughter and family raised a while back. If you have never had home raised pork, try it, it literally taste like a different animal than the factory farm , super dry version offered in the grocery store.
Tonight , steak from a grass fed side of beef we bought a couple of years ago and tomorrow night goose, thanks to my brother in law's early goose season success. I didn't get to go. Damn work interferes with my recreational life! LOL

I head north once a year and load up on grain-fed beef. It's an all day event. 4 hours up, 4 hours back, then splitting it up for freezer duty. I gotta give credit to those seal-a-meals..............best investment I've made next to canning jars

[donttread]

You are lucky you live in a pretty part of the country.

It's great , but we do pay for it for a few months in the winter. Three foot snow storms, -40 with occasssional whole weekends where the the therometer stays below zero. We've already had 3 hard frost etc. But I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. Well until retirement time and then I have no intention of being here during those months!

[nathanbforrest45]

It's great , but we do pay for it for a few months in the winter. Three foot snow storms, -40 with occasssional whole weekends where the the therometer stays below zero. We've already had 3 hard frost etc. But I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. Well until retirement time and then I have no intention of being here during those months!

I know what you mean. I live in East Tennessee about 50 miles east of Knoxville. I don't have the number or amount of snow storms you experience, its usually only about 2 to 3 weeks when the temps are around the zero mark but I live so far back in the hills I can't get up or down my road when the snow is over a foot deep. So, for a week or more I move into my "winter quarters" (The local Best Western) so I can get back and forth to work.

But the other 50 weeks out of the year are what paradise must be!

[donttread]

I know what you mean. I live in East Tennessee about 50 miles east of Knoxville. I don't have the number or amount of snow storms you experience, its usually only about 2 to 3 weeks when the temps are around the zero mark but I live so far back in the hills I can't get up or down my road when the snow is over a foot deep. So, for a week or more I move into my "winter quarters" (The local Best Western) so I can get back and forth to work.

But the other 50 weeks out of the year are what paradise must be!

Interesting, what are your summers like? Our preference will be summers here in NNY and winters in Florida. But if we can't maintain two places when we are ready to retire the mid south is our likely destination. I would be willing to trade some snow ( I can shove a foot of dry snow out of my 1300 square foot driveway in my sleep for a few weeks for resonable summer temps. My wife is a golf addict so available golf 10-11 months out of the year would be a requirenent. Me I love outdoors, hunting, fishing, walking back roads and will only be discouraged by hard core winter conditions. So a 30 degree sunny February day I can esily amuse myself outdoors.
Have you though of getting an old plow truck or are you too far down the road for that

[donttread]

I enjoy sitting on my back balcony, smoking my pipe and watching the animals feed in the corner of my property. I have about a half acre cleared and the rest is heavily wooded. I put shelled corn right at the wood line and attract deer, fox, rabbits, bears, raccoons, possum, more birds than I can name. I have my own private zoo 50 yards away from me

Technically live in town, sort of in the middle of town but it's one of those little Adirondack towns and we are surrounded by wilnerness including what is probably one of the largest tracks of unbroken wilderness east of the Mississipi .
So we have deer and bear in town and I've waged garden wars with a groundhog and some squirrels and we have lots of birds ( including crows who attack the garden and garbage and woodpeckers who beat on the side of the house and are startlingly loud ) despite the fact that the neighborhood Raccoon broke by bird feeder. I live on the water so lots of ducks, geese and fish , we don't hunt in town of course but we occassionally keep a nice trout or bass for dinner. I've had fox on the green with myself and several others at the local golf course. In fact they stole golf balls. It was quite a treat until they stole a nice drive. LOL. I've heard Bobacat in town as a child ( a sound you'll never forget) I guess about the only critter that stays 100% clear of our little village is the Fisher, but that is their reputation. Solitary, very shy and bad ass mean.
It's not all good though, young people have to leave our town for work, the mills are gone and there is one adirondack town a bit over an hour away that has twice qualified employment producing projects through the almost impossible Adirondack Park Agency only to have the Sirrea Club ( who apparently lost their map, put them on hold forever.) A resort, with envinomentalism built in and a prison .
Sure we want some of this preserved for our grandchildren, but people forget we were pretty damn good stewards of the wilderness even when we had jobs that gave those grandchildren the choice to stay and way before the APA expanded in 1973. Most of the people making the restrictive rules for us don't have to live by the same set of rules and may guzzel energy in city high rises while driving Beamers and Hummers.
I feel that the same exact enviromental rules should apply statewide. What's already there is grandfathered in . We're not going to dismantle Albany . But if you want to sub divide your family land for your kids and maybe sell a lot or two , or want a commercial variance in the lightly populted area west of Albany. Sorry , no go. Fair is fair and an abubudence of birds in one place does nothing to protect there migration routes.
I apologize for the length of this post but to any who might be interested it should give you some insight into Dontread, the half social , , empathy displaying nice guy/ half bitter old man , despite the fact that he personally has it not so bad. .

[donttread]

Interesting, what are your summers like? Our preference will be summers here in NNY and winters in Florida. But if we can't maintain two places when we are ready to retire the mid south is our likely destination. I would be willing to trade some snow ( I can shove a foot of dry snow out of my 1300 square foot driveway in my sleep for a few weeks for resonable summer temps. My wife is a golf addict so available golf 10-11 months out of the year would be a requirenent. Me I love outdoors, hunting, fishing, walking back roads and will only be discouraged by hard core winter conditions. So a 30 degree sunny February day I can esily amuse myself outdoors.
Have you though of getting an old plow truck or are you too far down the road for that

You can answer NF. Our retirement is a few years away and I promise not to move in next door. LOL I was just thinging that if eastern KY got that cold in the Winter, maybe it didn't get as damn hot in the summer as other parts of the mid-south do. Are you at some elevation?