Straight Outta Stone Ridge: Fall Sere

Are We Fascism Yet?

As discussed in an earlier post, Anna and I continue to weigh our options as the Trump regime makes its increasingly disastrous moves and we go on slouching toward fascism.

The optimist in me sees the possibility that Mango Mussolini’s administration will collapse under its own weight and get swept out of power in the 2026 midterms. That still leaves them another fourteen months in which they can do more terrible damage, which will take a long time and require much work to repair, but at least in that case they’d get sent into the wilderness for a stretch while political adults worked to clean up the mess and start setting things right, to the extent possible.

The pessimist side of me sees the possibility that we’ve had our last national election — that between Republican efforts to restrict access to voting and Trump’s plan for a third term we’ll end up with either the imposition of martial law and the suspension of elections or a Putinesque rigged election with a predetermined MAGA outcome.

What then? Sell everything and leave the country? For where, exactly? Western Europe — Spain, Portugal, Italy? Japan? Relocating from Staten Island to Stone Ridge three years ago took considerable effort and energy, both physical and emotional. Not sure I have what it would require to do that again so soon — or ever.

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Food (In)Security

So, while keeping a sharp eye on the political situation, we have taken some steps toward improving our personal infrastructure, so as to make us as self-sufficient as possible.

After considering the possibility of food shortages, this past spring we bought a refrigerator-sized freezer on sale direct from Frigidaire, the purchase timed both to beat the then-imminent tariff-generated price rise and to allow us to prep and store extra food as the Mango Mussolini crisis depends. Cost about $860 including tax.

We live in the Hudson Valley/Catskills, a short drive away from People’s Place in Kingston, NY, a local nonprofit that hosts a mid-May-through-October free greenmarket — a weekly bounty of veggies, fruits, and dairy, mostly from local farms. We started making use of this last year, but had just two refrigerators then, so were limited in terms of long-term food storage. Now we can stockpile. Given what we can save thereby on food expenses, we should be able to amortize the freezer cost over 3-4 years.

We have started experimenting with three food-preservation methods: freezing and dehydrating (plus vacuum-sealing for both), and pickling.

Look On the Sunny Side of Life

Per a previous post, we had a solar electricity system installed last year. Since then, instead of paying the electric company, we pay off the no-interest/low-interest loans that finance the system. It counts as a capital improvement to the property (though, alas, we’re not in a tax bracket that allows us to take advantage of some rebate incentives). In ten years we’ll own it outright. Meanwhile it powers our stove, two fridges, the new freezer, and all our other electrical demands for free. And safeguards us against the looming rises in energy costs.

This doesn’t put us off-grid. The juice we generate feeds into the grid, and we continue to draw from the grid. Any excess that we produce accrues as credit to our Central Hudson account, while we pay for whatever we consume that exceeds our production.

We’ve had this system running now for fifteen months. During that period we’ve paid CenHud roughly $450, of which $265 represents a year’s worth of a monthly charge for our connection to the grid. (The balance resulted from lower solar production during the months of February and March.)

So we’ve saved around $2400 to date. CenHud recently informed us that our income qualifies us for a $60 monthly subsidy, which should cover any excess draw-down for the coming year.

You Don’t Miss Your Water

Living on a private road, we don’t connect to the town water system; we get water from our own well for all household uses, so it’s free. But the local groundwater is extremely alkaline, which makes it undrinkable and unsuitable for cooking. It also does damage over time to our plumbing lines, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, and appliances such as our on-demand hot-water boiler and our new dishwasher.

As a result, we spend about $100 per month for bottled spring water, distilled water, and purified water for drinking and cooking. This not only requires purchasing and hauling the water in (still way cheaper than having it delivered, which we tried for a stretch when we moved here full-time) but involves us in the usage of multiple plastic bottles. While we recycle those, research implicates plastic water bottles in the distribution of PFAS.

Aquasure Harmony System

For that reason, as yet another improvement to our infrastructure, last spring we purchased the components of a discounted high-end whole-house Aquasure water softener setup that includes an under-the-sink reverse-osmosis filter for drinking water. To which we added a new, discounted Wellmate 47-gallon pressure tank, to replace the smaller tank of uncertain age that came with the house in 2018 and had reached EOL status. Then we found a team of highly qualified local plumbers to install our system. Total cost for the system and setup: $7500.

So generating our own drinking water will save us somewhere around $1200 per year, which will amortize this unit’s cost in six years or so. Softening the household water overall will also eliminate hard-water wear and tear on our water-related appliances and plumbing, making them all more efficient and longer-lasting.

Another capital improvement. And another step toward infrastructure self-sufficiency.

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Early in the spring we replaced our eight-year-old LG clothes washer and matching LG gas dryer with a new, deeply discounted GE analog washer-dryer set — the dryer electric, to run on our self-generated power.

We also pre-bought our fuel supply for the coming winter. For reasons unclear, the northern half of our house runs on propane and the southern half on oil. Last year’s pre-buy matched our consumption of both very closely, so we repeated those amounts. This protects us against any significant rise in fuel prices due to political instability and other factors.

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At least in the short term it looks like we’re in for tough times in this traumatized economy, so it seems wise to stay safe, keep a low profile, and store up some supplies for emergencies. In addition to expanding our food reserves, we steadily boost our supplies of first-aid necessities, candles and matches, paper towels, toilet tissue, and other essentials.

We’ve also started assembling the components for a set of go-bags. Not exactly at the doomsday-prepping stage yet — no firearms or other weaponry (beyond a few multi-purpose folding knives), no escape rehearsals. Just precautionary measures.

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Rendering Unto Caesar

In May Anna and I used the free AARP income-tax preparation service for the second time. Performed by local IRS-approved CPAs (seniors themselves, mostly retired, and volunteers). Automatically submitted by them, electronically. With a printed physical copy immediately handed to us. A painless process that took us less than an hour.

For some reason, they are prohibited from providing us with a digital PDF file of our return. Perhaps, once it’s uploaded to the IRS system, we can retrieve that from their records. In any case, we have proof on paper of the filing, so we can generate scans from that whenever necessary.

Just a few weeks later the IRS cashed our check for the taxes due ($78), which at least indicates receipt of our filing and, presumably, approval thereof.

Which suggests that, DOGE mayhem notwithstanding, the system still sometimes works. AARP offers this Tax-Aide service nationwide to anyone over 50 in the low to moderate income tax brackets — AARP membership not required. Highly recommended.

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Putting Us On the Map

This spring I earned the right to a small victory lap in the never-ending struggle with Big Tech. Going back even before we bought this house, Google Maps listed the name of our private lane incorrectly — treating it as an extension of the private lane just south of us.

Bing Maps had it right. So did the Maps app on my iPhone. So did the Ulster County map at the county’s website. And so did the national database that powers automotive GPS systems. Not a big deal, you might say, but occasionally visitors and delivery vehicles got confused. Irksome.

Google kept rejecting my efforts to correct this, via their in-house system. Finally, I’m not sure why, they accepted the change. And it only took me six years, and six tries, to get this fixed …

Google Maps showing Lamberti Lane, 5-23-25

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The Light at The End of The Frog

If you need some cheering up (and who doesn’t, nowadays?), spend a minute or two here. Uplift guaranteed.

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