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gibbous moon over Woodworth Lake
Thursday, July 27 2023
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
[REDACTED]
Gretchen made crepes this morning for our overnight guests. Aumaury was working remotely again, of course, but there was time for him to eat some of those crepes. Like me, he's more into savory than sweet, so it was great that Gretchen made some cheese-broccoli crepes.
After breakfast, Gretchen and Leah had a long conversation about both Gretchen's time working as a labor organizer for low-paid hospital staff and Leah's time (these days) working as a volunteer for Planned Parenthood. Leah says things got a lot better in Virginia for abortion providers during just one brief period of Democratic control of the legislature and the governorship, when obnoxious obstacles like waiting periods were dispensed with (evidently there haven't been the votes to restore those things under the current anti-Democratic backslide.
After a little half-hearted job-related stuff conducted separately in the living room on our respective devices (by Leah and me), Gretchen shamed us into going on a walk up the Farm Road and back. This required a lot of mosquito repellant, and only Leah had stuff that seemed sufficiently powerful. We neglected to spray the dogs, who (because there were four humans walking) joined us, and they were soon of a different appearance due to the sheer number of mosquitoes sucking blood from their faces. A little repellant, though, and their faces were mosquito-free. We only made it to the farm house at the end of the Farm Road before an exhausted Aubert (who'd been running around back and forth flailing his arms in an reflexive effort to burn off energy) wanted to turn back. But all he really needed was some water, which Leah had him drink out of a spigot (like everyone used to do in the 1970s, before Big Plastic convinced everyone water not surrounded by plastic is somehow unpotable). We managed to walk as far as Georges' bluestone masterpiece, the large egg-shaped stack he completed during the pandemic (now enhanced with solar-powered spotlights).
At around noon, Leah and family packed up their Prius and headed to their next Hudson Valley destination, a friend named Rosie just across the Hudson in Rhinebeck.
I left for the cabin shortly thereafter with the dogs and some food provisions (especially a pair of frozen pizzas), leaving Gretchen to have some much-needed alone time. I too would be getting alone-time, since the dogs (very much unlike the cats) barely register when it comes to impositions. On the way up, I stopped at the Johnstown Price Chopper mostly for bread, lunch meat options (though all I could find was bacon), mushrooms, nuts, and beer. I then stopped at Spirits of the Adirondacks for cheap gin and cheap blended scotch (though Old Smuggler might be too cheap even for an unemployed software developer). Finally, as I always do when traveling to the cabin with just the dogs, I stopped at the Burger King in southeast Gloversville for an order of Impossible Whopper (with no mayo) and two large orders of fries, to be split at the cabin soon after we got there.
Nothing much had changed at the cabin. More of the invasive wildflowers had grown tall enough to collapse, though there were still plenty of flowers to keep the bees, wasps, butterflies, and numerous species of flies occupied. I did a little digging at the west end of the north wall, where I still had two sheets of styrofoam to install. The digging now was mostly in a narrow gap between the concrete footing of the Generac generator and the north foundation wall, a space only 22 inches wide. There was no way I was going to put much of my body in the trench I created in that space. The sand beneath the generator's concrete pad could suddenly give way explosively under the pressure of all the weight pressing down on it, causing it and the concrete pad to fall in on me. This was unlikely, but I did what I could to dig the trench (and it had to be at least forty inches deep) using tools such as long-handled shovels. When I was down to around 48 inches, I figured that was good enough, and it had become nearly impossible to make the trench any deeper. So I took a piece of existing two inch styrofoam that I'd cut to only about 72 inches in height for some reason and installed that. To do this, I had to make cuts for both the house's five-inch sewage output pipe and the generator's two-inch electrical connection to the house. I didn't have to be all that accurate with any of this because I immediately used spray foam to fill any gaps.
When all that was done, I hiked down to the lake all by myself. It was already approaching twilight, and a gibbous moon hung in the southeast, one of the crater walls in the dark part lit up in a tiny loop. I lounged in the hammock-like floater near the dock while drinking some sort of alcoholic beverage. Unfortunately, there were no critters to entertain me.
By the time I returned to the cabin, I had to hike up through the woods in near-darkness, with just a little moonlight and barely-evident sunset to light my way.
The moon tonight, viewed over Woodworth Lake.
Click to enlarge.
The moon with the lake.
Click to enlarge.
The moon over some treetops, seen from north of the cabin near the top of the trail to the dock.
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