OIL PAINT RIVERRauli is working on the sign for the new campground. I learned (once again!) that oil paints are nasty, and that outdoor-grade water-based paints followed by a nice varnish would have been perfectly suitable.  With each new coat and new color, the smell of paint thinner wafts across my desk.  After wiping it on the - now flammable - wiping towel, he brings the brush to our kitchen sink, which washes the whole toxin soup down the drain into our water supply.  Mmmmmm, colors!

Not that I'm trying to be negative here, or that I want you to think about turpentine-infested waters when you finish your next hike at Onion River and go in for a big glass of water from the ground pump, but I find that the more I am connected to my land, and the closer I get to falling entirely and eternally in love with it, the more I am interested in what comes from where, and to where it thereafter travels.  What to buy, and to bring in, and what to get rid of, if anything... and with those select things that I DO indeed want to get rid of: the question of how.