Recycling Conundrums

This was published in the Leelanau Enterprise a couple weeks ago. This is just one example of the strange political atmosphere up here in the North Woods.

“The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners decided this week to add a $25-per-household fee to December tax bills in seven of the county’s 11 townships. Meanwhile, residents of the four townships where an annual per-household fee was voted down in the Aug. 8 Primary election will not be charged the fee, nor will the county ask residents of those townships to pay the fee “voluntarily.”Starting next year, residents of those four townships – Bingham, Cleveland, Kasson and Solon – will be guilty of “larceny by conversion” if they deposit recyclable materials at any of the county’s recycling sites.”

So now it seams that if I would like to be a good steward of this beautiful county and recycle my trash rather than dump it in Glen’s Landfill, I will now be guilty of larceny! Granted, I do live in a township that voted down the $25 a year fee (another pathetic problem…I mean really… do you people NOT have an extra $25 in your budget or did you use it to cut down the last tree that was blocking the view of the lake from your 1.5 million doller home??!!) now I have to take my recycling into Traverse City. Hell, I’ll spend $25 in gas just to get there to top it off!

Stories like this just get to me. I don’t understand the logic and I don’t get the reason this was put to a vote in the first place. You people want services, than pay the dam taxes. Don’t come crying to me when you get hit with a $50 fine for recycling your trash when you could have just paid the $25 fee for the option to do it. You loose…now you’re out $75 with a criminal record. Dip shits.

Bufka Farmstead

I figured that I needed to be like everyone else in the county today. This is a photo of the Bufka Farmstead on M-22 between Leland and Glen Arbor. This is without a doubt one of the most frequently photographed farms in the county. Each season it looks a little different but fall is by far the most colorful and beautiful. One of my projects over the next year is going to be some barn photography. There are some grand old barns in Leelanau, many of them abandoned or falling down. I’ll have to so some research on which ones I can photograph without getting permission from the owners. Lots of them are either on state land or federal land at this point so there are plenty to see without bothering anyone.

Lake Leelanau

I missed a few days for posting fall color. I do have a bunch of photos on my Flickr web site, the link is in the sidebar.

Here is one that I took today. The sun was hitting the water just right today. Everyone has their boats and docks out of the water now so the lake is wide open. I fear that today might just be the last good sunny day we will have in a while. One thing I can’t stand about living up here are the cloudy days during the winter. It depresses me. In the winter, I live for the days that are bright and sunny, even if I have to work it makes the day go that much better.

Elton’s Song

I found this on You Tube, Had to post it here. Reminds me a little of my childhood except I never showed all the emotion. The video is a little shitty, I don’t think there is a DVD out there of this song. It’s fairly rare and one of the very few that acknowledge Elton’s homosexuality in obvious terms. I’ve taken a renewed interest in some of Elton John’s earlier works lately. It seems having seen the legend in concert had an effect on me. I can remember spinning a record of his (the only one of his my dad owned) when I was little. He’s just a bloody good song writer.

Before fall goes away, I’ll be posting a few pictures each day to remind everyone how lucky they are to live in a place like this. Leelanau has it’s perks and the fall color is one of them.

Stay tuned, this blog is going to be the one-stop source for Leelanau County rants, raves and images and the premier source for truth.