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pissed mama beaver
Sunday, September 5 2021
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
We slept like shit last night because Neville and Ramona kept trying to shoehorn themselves onto our futon instead of using all the room available on the nice big dog bed we'd brought. And then, many times during the night, Ramona would start whimpering as if she wanted something she was prevented from having. We'd try to make her happy by covering her with blankets and indulging her squeezing in with us on the bed, but nothing seemed to satisfy her.
We woke up late and had our usual pre-electrified-cabin breakfast of cold-pressed coffee from a can and mostly prepared foods bought in Albany. I also had a peanut butter sandwich on sourdough bread.
Later we thought we'd maybe go down to the lake and look for my glasses again. It was sprinkling at the time, and by the time we got to the lake it was pretty much raining, rendering the lake's surface completely opaque. So we didn't get in the kayaks as planned. We did, however, look out on the lake and see the loon we'd seen yesterday, who didn't seem to care about the rain at all. As for us, the dense hemlock foliage along the shoreline absorbed most of the rain, making conditions pleasant when we sat on our little merkan of lawn. Eventually we walked south along the shoreline, continuing through Shane's property (he's our neighbor to the south) all the way to Jacky & Ibrahim's property. Along the way, we heard a mighty spash about 80 feet out in the water, but when we looked, we couldn't see what had made it. Was it a kingfisher? It sounded too big to have been that. Perhaps it was a very large fish that I jumped briefly out of the water. But then we saw something swimming. At first we thought it was the loon, but there was too little of it sticking out of the water for it to have been that. Then we realized it was a beaver. She (let's assume the beaver was female) was swimming back and forth out in the water watching us, apparently upset that our dogs were now standing atop a beaver lodge on the shore, whimpering about what they could either see or smell. I went to get them off and noticed that I could look between the sticks of the lodge's roof to see a series of chambers just above the water line. I don't know if that is a normal thing to be able to see in an operational lodge, but in any case it seemed to be best to get the dogs out of there. Gretchen and I dragged them away some distance until it was clear they wouldn't immediately go back. The rain was falling from the trees now and they were eager to go back to some place with an actual roof.
Later, back at the cabin, Gretchen and I snuck away from the dogs (who were sleeping upstairs on the dog bed and futon) and drove to Joel's house to deliver a banana cake Gretchen had made in appreciation for Joel and Claudia having me over for dinner two weeks ago. We found Joel all by himself except for his two aging miniature pinschers (who warmed to us quickly) with what looked like a glass of bourbon in his hand. He's an affable guy who's excited about his projects, and he proceeded to give us a big tour of his cabin, which is full of interesting one-of-a-kind architecture made from large pieces of hemlock and white pine joined to custom pieces of glass and stone. I find it all clever and inspiring. [REDACTED]
Towards the end of our visit, Joel told us about the former owner of our parcel, and how he'd paid a lot more for it than he'd sold it to us for. He also said that our low purchase price had helped him successfully grieve his own taxes, which are for two large parcels on the east shore of the lake. His is one of the few parcels with a building site within view of the lake, but that made it about twice as expensive as our otherwise similar parcel.
On the drive back to our cabin, we had to pull over twice to let oncoming vehicles past, the first a group of teenage girls in an expensive ATV, and the second Claudia driving back from town in her beemer.
I spent not all that much time finishing the electrical work I'd begun two weeks ago. There wasn't much left to do except put a few boxes in a narrow stud bay wall and pull some wire through the bedroom and bathroom ceiling. All the step ladders from the contractors (one of which I'd borrowed two weeks ago) were gone, but fortunately the end table I'd assembled yesterday made for a high enough stool so that I could reach where I needed to. Later, though, I realized two of my outlet boxes in the bedroom are more than ten feet apart and I will have to put one between them for my wiring to pass code. But I didn't have a suitable box or any spare 12/2 AWG cable.
Rain continued all day, dashing any outdoor plans we might've had. But it's also fun to just sit around under a roof reading when it's raining, and that's what we did. (Gretchen had left the book she's been reading out in the rain this morning, but it was still perfectly readable.)
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