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loud and monotonous
Tuesday, July 4 2023
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
I had July 4th all to myself at the cabin and I was determined to make the most of it. I had the usual coffee-with-Spelling-Bee experience, but the Spelling Bee was kind of hard today, so I soon switched to other things. Eventually I brought out the weed whacker and trimmed away the plants sticking up between the flagstones on the stone walkway to the front door. I also trimmed back a large queen anne's lace near the front steps that I know Gretchen is not a big fan of (though we've agreed to let it flower before removing it entirely). Since I have a lot of stuff to do that involves the back Bilco doors and the space under the east decks, I also decided to cut off a number of tall sweet clovers that were in my way. I've been trying to work around them wherever possible, but some of them are now seven feet tall and totally in my way, and it seemed fitting to remove them. It's not much of a tragedy since none of these plants will be alive next summer.
I had a lot more sand to remove under the east decks before I could install more sheets of styrofoam against the outside of the cabin's foundation wall, and before I did more of that, I wanted to complete the electrical system I've been working on beneath the deck. All I had left to do was to install a light-with-outlet on the back side of the steps leading up to the east deck. That was a fairly easy task, since I could do the actual wiring of the box outside the cramped space where it was ending up. It might seem a little absurd to be putting in so much electrical infrastructure under a deck, but I have long-term uses for all of it, and having lots of light under the decks is going to help with the excavation.
Then I took off all my clothes and went under the south end of the east deck and began scooping away the sand within three feet of the foundation wall. I need to create a trench that wide initially so that the deeper trench I will be digging along the wall won't be through as much material. Otherwise it's likely to collapse before I can install the styrofoam sheets that will be going outside the foundation wall in those deep trenches. I was using a normal shovel whose handle had gone missing, and I worked until I had a blister on my left index finger, proving I should've been wearing gloves. (Unlike in the wire-burying project, I have no particular need to be working barehanded when shoveling sand.)
After I was good and sweaty, I made myself a boozy drink (not the first today) and went down to the lake. There, I climbed into the big inner tube, the one with cup-holders (though these cup-holders were too small for the plastic cup I'd brought) and allowed the northwest-flowing currents (it must've been currents, since there wasn't much of a breeze) to carry me towards the lake's outflow. As I rode these currents, I could hear and see humans doing various water-related activities over at the boathouse, which is owned by that guy named Pyotr.
After I got out of the water not far into the outflow bay, I hiked with the inner tube back to the dock to drop it off and then returned to the cabin.
There had been a fair number of fireworks launched nearby (by people in the Woodworth Lake homeowners' association) last night, and this had me hoping there wouldn't be many fireworks tonight. But I was wrong. They began well before dark and continued until 10:00pm, when they abruptly stopped. It's hard to imagine adults being all that excited about fireworks, which are loud and monotonous in a way that, I would think, only children and people with retarded brains would find compelling. Evidently I'm wrong, though, because children don't have the budget to stockpile hours' worth of fireworks. And they also lack the restraint to stop launching them at 10:00pm sharp.
Foodwise, mostly all that I ate today was food from Our Vegan Corner. But there was much less of that than Gretchen had thought (she'd told me it would last all week). By this evening, all I had left was the cornbread and the rench fries (now cold and flaccid). I actually had to break into some saltine crackers (which I ate with Tofurky) in order to get the sustenance I craved.
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