What else?

An appointment last Friday had to be re-located due to a computer outage, so we found ourselves going to the Clifton Park clinic and travelling along another River Road, here following the east bank of the Hudson toward Stillwater.

A flock of swallows or swifts took to the air. You can just see them, above.

As it happens, we’d travelled exactly this route only some 26 hours earlier. Apart from a slight increase in daylight, at first the view was much the same.

It does seem that corn grows noticeably overnight, but it is almost mature now.

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Cresting a hill, we discovered a cloud bank.

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It made for an interesting contrast. While not extraordinary, we don’t often get a chance for such immediate comparisons of like for like.

It is one of those things I tend to notice and enjoy, maybe because it emphasises how temporary everything is, in the world around us.

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Over that hill and back down the other side, we left the mist behind and took Wright’s Road.

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Wright’s Road weaves through farmland planted with corn and soy. A slight rise in the terrain afforded a view of the corn rows, always so even. I love when the fields are empty, opening up the landscape, but I have become very keen on corn fields too, especially at this stage.

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Another example of a photo taken from a different angle, and closer.

It loses the power poles and lines, as well as the perspective of the field, not to mention turkeys crossing the road, while gaining a – crane.

You can’t have everything.

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Ah, that thing is not a crane, it’s an industrial-sized power pole. They carry heavy-duty cables.

A message dropped into my email yesterday seeking my opinion about plans for a data centre in our town. How did I feel about it and would I contribute toward efforts to squash it?

Interesting. We had not heard of such a plan which I suspect even we would have and there have been a suspicious number of requests for funds recently, all using scare tactics, which gets my hackles up.

If the powers-that-be decide to construct a data centre in our little town, no doubt they will do so, no matter what any of us little folk have to say about it.

(There is, in fact, a statewide moratorium on “hyper-scale data centres” in New York, currently, which puts all of that on hold – for a year.)

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After living in Southeast Asia in the 50’s and 60’s, one thing I did not expect, coming to America, was to feel afraid, yet here we are.

The whole of 2024, I was consumed with anxiety over the election, the outcome of which filled me with dread and ever since, I’ve done no more than scan headlines, following stories I felt I ought to be aware of, all the while trusting fewer and fewer sources. It is an unpleasant situation made worse by evidence that our government is being run by fools and savages. And that they are brazenly corrupt.

We have had our share of fools, God knows, but the latter is something I did not expect. The Constitution was supposed to prevent such a shocking eventuality. Wasn’t it?

Enough!

There shall be no contributions to scoundrels.

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It had been over a year since we came along this River Road and I realised that I had missed the Hudson that we now only catch glimpses of on occasional trips to Queensbury.

It was nice that on this now mist-free morning, reflections were on offer.

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In Clifton Park I had never been inclined to take photographs because it is a minor metropolis. When we went there regularly a couple of years ago, we’d seen large condominium complexes go up where there had been remaining fields and on Friday we found that the last of those empty spaces has been turned into a business centre/shopping mall.

Urban sprawl drove me out of Washington State. Seeking to escape I had to consider how far from civilisation I could move without losing access to the few vital facilities I would need, so I settled on Washington County and we hope for the best.

What else can one do?

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