The More Things Change

It has been FAR too long since I have put ‘pen to paper’ on this blog, and an immense amount has changed since those heady days in Wisconsin.    After my long hiatus, I am looking to return to this forum, and I appreciate any and all of you that continue to check back in or will get an update with this post.   More to come in the near future I hope, but as a teaser, let me say that we have moved.  Not just from Minnesota where we moved in 2013 from the home and community in Wisconsin that provided the fodder for so much of this blog, but we have now moved all the way to (and this is still insane for me to write) to the very doorstep of the Jersey Shore.

Yes, we now live in Red Bank, NJ having traded our home in a small rural town 30 miles west of Minneapolis to a packed burrough not 6 miles from the Atlantic.  No longer do we look out over my 6 cords of split firewood onto the 30 acres of natural park land to see eagles over the river dialy.  Now we live in a quaint, SMALL, 110 yr old home on a full shaded postage stamp of a lot.  Would you believe 5000 sq ft including the home and driveway.  There is no garage.   For this I paid 2x what we sold our home in MN for, and 3x what we paid for our Wisco home.  Taxes and utilities are also 2x.  Welcome to Jersey! I have built a large shed, but 3/4 of my stuff is either sold or living with friends and caretakers in MN and Wisco (thanks Drew!).  The Grillo is in good hands, but 1500 miles away.  Hells, I don’t even own a wheelbarrow.

As I said, much has changed.  But I am excited to embrace my malnourished erudite flaneur side, am reading like I haven’t in years, hope to get into some community garden plots, and I must say that I am fascinated by the ocean ecology and am working on taking up surfing.  I am positively awful.

Its good to be back.

Sincerely,

‘One Straw’ Rob