2026 Mt. Whitney: The Triumphant Return

Friends - After 8 days, 85 miles, and 23,000 feet of elevation gain (more or less), I am back.  For the second time, Mt Whitney- the highest peak in the contiguous 48 U.S. - was successfully summited.

I have vague and general notes to get together so I must once again beg your patience, both in documenting it as well as responding to your comments while I was away.  I leave you with a few pictures as a good show of faith.

Your Most Humble and Obedient (and Tired) Servant,

Toirdhealbheach Beucail

A Year Of Kindness (XXXII): Worthy

 

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There is nothing more crippling to a person that to tell them that they are not worthy and are not loved.

You do not really appreciate the depth of the issue until it has happened to you.  And likely, it has happened to all of us at some time:  a parent, a spouse, a friend, a coach, a manager, a relative, a coworker.  It can come from anywhere. 

But its impacts can last for a lifetime.

To believe that one is not worthy and not loved is to carry a burden that no human was designed to carry.

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To believe one is not worthy and not loved can manifest itself in one of two behaviours.

In one behaviour, we are always searching to make ourselves worthy and loveable.  We will go to any length, do almost anything - sometimes very foolish or even dangerous things - to prove that what we were told about ourselves was not true.

In the other behaviour, we become hardened.  We do not care if we are worthy or loved - and too often, we come to treat others as not worthy or not loveable.  After all - if I am not, I need not treat other people as they are worthy or loveable either.

Instead of being confident and coming from a place of love and strength, we come from a place of desperation or anger that tinges everything we do.

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When we are kind to another - when we offer them worth and love simply by treating them kindly, we strike back at a world that does not share such a message.

Francis Schaeffer writes often about the importance of treating people - all people - as if they matter to us, because in point of fact that matter to God.  The Bible says they do, of course - after all, God sent His Son to die for all, that all might be saved.  But often we can fall short of this:  we treat some people as they matter, just as the world does.

We should treat people as if they are worthy and loveable, just as God treated us in the same way.  And that can start by simply being kind.

2026 Garden: Mid-Autumn Edition

  Slightly after the middle of Autumn.  I remain remarkably impressed by how any of this is going at all.

The cherry tomatoes remain productive.  Sadly, I failed to take detailed pictures of the Roma tomatoes, although you can see them in the background:

However, there may or may not be spinach growing:

The spinach/leeks planted here have done nothing,

but if you look closely, you will see leeks peeking out below:

The pole beans are starting to fade,

but their pods are drying out:

The buckwheat is still blooming:

My onions are struggling a bit, but still hanging on:

Soybeans:

And I may actually get some corn this year (drying corn, but still corn)!

The volunteer potatoes continue their groove, 

As does what I believe to be my one surviving sweet potato:

For a first year, I am very pleased at the results.

On Earning A Cryptocurrency

One of things going on in the (very far) background is the fact that I continue to using Brave as my main browser (sadly, Blogger no longer works well with Brave and - begrudgingly - I use Google there).  And one of the "selling points", as you might recall, is that as part of that service, you earn cryptocurrency ("BAT") on a monthly basis as you view add notifications.

I had performed a cryptocurrency experiment that older readers may recall (Reflection, End) and at one point used some of my BAT to procure a $25 gift card for The Mother Of All Shopping Sites.  And even I had "liquidated" my general holdings, I still continued to earn my BAT every month - and every month, I get a notification of earnings.

At the time I exercised that purchase, BAT was about $1.00 a token.  It now sits at $0.07. What would have been well over $150 in value 5 years ago is now barely $12.

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If you do a quick search on Cryptocurrency, you find varying assessments on how it has performed.

For example, apparently Bitcoin (even I have heard of Bitcoin) is still a major contender, with around 50% of the total Cryptocurrency market. Certain assets - Solana, XRP - have done better than Bitcoin as an investment.  The peak of cryptocurrency ownership was 2022 (33% of the U.S. Population), with 2026 showing 30% participation (I guess I am one of that "30%).

I also tend to observe how an industry is doing by its layoff pattern - and here, cryptocurrency suggests it is an industry in transition.  My regular daily scan at Dailyjobcuts.com shows the same patterns as many other tech companies:  layoffs and consolidations, with the notes of "greater efficiencies and use of Artificial Intelligence" being used as reasons for the changes.

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If there is a lesson here for me, it is that - once again - value is truly in the eye of the beholder, and all the wishing for things to be worth more does not make it so. Value is defined as what it is worth to the buyer, be it cryptocurrency or comic books or silver coins.)

(As a note, silver in the same time frame sold at $22.39 an ounce now currently "sells" at $63.58 - but that is the spot price; a seller will not get that.)

I do not intend to change anything I am doing in this regard of course:  I continue to use Brave, the "accumulation" (a very large word for a very small amount per month; last month I earned $0.03) does me no harm, and who knows - maybe sometime I will still hit it big.  

But it is occasionally a good reminder to me that sometimes, financially speaking, I get it right.

A Year Of Haiku (XXXIII): Meowing Moon

 

Summer's moon peeking

through clouds of pre-dawn darkness:

Cat lazily sleeps. 

Travel Interlude (II): The Smallest Light

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We never know when or where our small light will make a difference.

That is why it is always important to shine.
 

Travel Interlude (I): Smile, Care, Stay, Confuse

 

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The older I get, the more something like this becomes my mantra.

"Smile More":  If there is anything I am known for in the various places I am, it is my laugh.  I am not a a quiet generator of laughter (thus my sobriquet "Beucail", or "Booming").  And laughs come with smiles.  Smiles are free and almost always returned.

"Care Less":  The older I get, the more I find is not worth the amount of care that I gave to it in times past.  Much of this life is transient and fleeting; causes that twenty years ago were worth arguing passionately over are now forgotten.  Learning to focus on what truly maters is freeing.

"Stay Weird":  "Weird" can mean a lot of things.  Just existing in time as someone that does not 100% embrace modernity makes one weird.  Layer on hobbies and habits that are long standing practices or learned important behaviors adds to the "weird".  I have seen "normal" people. I would rather stay weird.

"Confuse people":  There is a certain joy in stability.  There is also a certain joy in being slightly random in behaviour - not truly random, but just random enough to keep them wondering.  If nothing else, they will always be watching for the next thing.

Becoming My Father: Dressing Up Edition

 

One Sunday a few weeks ago prior to church, I found that I needed to take the trash out prior to leaving.  Having dressed already (but not having my shoes on), I grabbed my pseudo-Birkenstocks (plastic, $10.00 from Wal-Mart, used as "camp shoes) on hikes), grabbed the trash, and headed out.

Looking down, I suddenly realized I had become my father.

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TB The Elder had two modes of "dressing up".

The first - the one I remember most from my childhood - was him in slacks with a button up shirt and cowboy boots.  This would have been his Sunday "Going to Church" or other events that were not jeans appropriate (I can count on my two hands the number of times I remember my father wearing a suit to anything, including his children's weddings). 

Then, sometime in his mid-50's, my father discovered Birkenstocks.

How he discovered them I have no idea: I suspect 25 year old TB The Elder would have loathed them.  But 55-60 year old TB The Elder found them incredibly comfortable.

He wore them everywhere: in the house, out and about - almost everywhere.  The only time he specifically did not wear them was when he was working outside or in Winter when he had to go out to the woodshed to transport wood.  Otherwise, they were he constant walking companion.

And so - in TB The Elder 2.0 - he would often be found more or less as the picture above on Sundays:  button down short sleeved shirt, jeans, and Birkenstocks.

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It is odd, how these moments of becoming like my father strikes me.

I have related before that for many years I felt TB The Elder and I were very different people indeed:  different interests, different emotional makeups, different trajectories - really, just sort of randomly thrown together into a family by luck and genetics.  It is only over the years of adulthood - and in those, really in my 50's - that I have come to appreciate how much more similar we were than I had every thought.

The fact a random set of clothes reminds me of him no longer comes as a surprise.

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I still have a fair interest in my wardrobe, as it were.  Some of that is driven that I am still in a "professional" environment (although I am hardly "professional") and have to dress (to some extent) like I am an adult.  And to be fair, I have gotten more into vests and the associated long sleeved shirts (the climate here in New Home 2.0 is much more forgiving in that regard), mostly to accommodate my pocket watch and chain habit.  Which, as I am informed by the young people, means I have "Drip" (which I am informed is a good thing).

The vest and watch would, I think, make TB The Elder happy.  Although I suspect he would still recommend Birkenstocks.

A Year Of Kindness (XXXI): Reminding People They Matter

 

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Some of greatest kindnesses offered to me were offered by people that did not have time to spend with me but spent it with me anyway.  And some of the greatest discomforts I have had are by people who clearly indicated that they did not want to spend time with me but were doing it in a begrudging fashion.

Even the very act of stopping, listening fully, and engaging - even when we do not feel like we have the time - can have untold benefits in the lives of others.  We are showing them that are important - maybe more important than they feel they are.

We can practice kindness in the most seemingly insignificant moments - or at least, seemingly insignificant to us.

Calling Autumn

Back on 13 August, Patrice at Rural Revolution wrote a post called "Calling Fall".  It is a subject that she has written on in the past and involves the day her husband, Don, declares "Fall has started".  

In listing his methodology, it can be a much more qualitative rather than quantitative:  the smell of the air, the look of the nature, the activities that are going on around them.  But at 1005 on 13 August, "Fall" was called.

It caught my attention because - for the last two weeks - I had been on the cusp of Calling Autumn myself.

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Growing up in Old Home, I cannot clearly tell you the signs that led me to believe that Autumn had arrived.  I know it happened sometime in September with the cooling of temperatures and the turning of the leaves - even if there was a false "Second Summer" that raised temperatures some.  I know that by the end of October, Autumn had passed - and when I was older, if I did not get my garden in by the end of October, it was too late.

New Home was similar in the temperature aspect.  But what really became apparent to me was the change in sunlight.

I cannot fully describe it to you when I first noticed it or how.  I just became aware one day that the sunlight softened, faded.  The angle was "all wrong" for Summer.  That, in my mind, became the defining moment of Autumn:  when the sunlight changed.

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Obviously we have not lived terribly long in New Home 2.0.  So what would convince me to Call Autumn?

I cannot - again - really tell you for sure.  Certainly here we have seasons and plants that respond to seasons and in some cases the trees are already starting to turn.  The temperatures are slowly creeping down.  The sunlight has not turned on me - yet - but I am casting a weather eye for it.

Autumn, as they say, is coming.

Gone Hiking 2026 Edition

 Dear Friends:

As you read this missive I am somewhere in the midst of Central California on my way to a hike - a hike to Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous 48 states at 14,505 ft/4,421 m.  

Long time readers may recall that this trek was originally made in 2022 (all pictures from then).  A record of that trip is recorded here.  The hike last time was 84 miles/135 km, which I imagine will be similar this trip.

(The dreaded Colby Pass, where I had my hiking breakthrough.)

Today will drive to the trailhead and camp out; the hike will formally start tomorrow morning.  It is considered a 7 day hike, but really is a 6.5 day hike (by Day 7, we are ready to just get back).

Responses to comments will be sorely limited - and by limited, I mean "none".  We will lose Interweb sometime around 1500 today and will not see it againWuntil next Saturday.

As per usual, I have left a series of posts to pass the time - and of course, as always, do consult the fine bloggers to the right of this post.

I had some amazing breakthroughs last time.  I am looking forward to seeing what everything is like 

A Year Of Haiku (XXXII): Bzzzz!

 

Bumble bee's behind

bending beautiful blossom:

Beatific Buzz.