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propane wicket
Friday, August 11 2023
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
After having my morning coffee and sourdough toast, I resumed work on the foundation insulation project. Normally for entertainment, I listen to an FM radio station (lately it's been WFNY, the oldies station that plays a mix of bubblegum, psychedelic, and 80s music), but today instead I listened to various streaming audio (some of which was actually YouTube) from my phone to bluetooth. I was concerned that, since I'd burned through my monthly quota of hotspot data, that was all about to stop. But my phone has no data limits and does work (though somtimes haltingly) from the loft of the cabin. Doing this, I was able, to, for example, listen to a good episode of the Josh Marshall podcast while digging out the spot where the third sheet of stryrofoam would go on the foundation wall's west side. This spot was also where the line from the propane tank (a fat piece of flexible grey conduit) emerged from ground prior to branching to all the devices that need it. All the pipes sticking out of the ground formed something of a wicket, making it impossible to take advantage of the existing trench coming from the north along the foundation wall (which would normally provide a gentle slope for me to walk to where the digging needs to happen without having climb in and out of a deep part of the trench). So I had to build what I mentally referred to as an "access well" about three feet out from the foundation wall. This required and enormous amount of digging, which reached to where in the ground the fat propane line curved from vertical to horizontal. Once I had the well to a depth of about two feet, I could place that three-foot wooden ladder in there to give me access to the trench. Fortunately, the propane line seemed to pass through the ground several feet from the foundation wall, giving me plenty of room to dig. The only problem was the little PVC pipes necessary for venting the two pressure regulators were in my way. Fortunately, they hadn't been glued together and could easily be disasembled and put aside while I worked. I then managed to dig down to the footing and install the third sheet of styrofoam (counting from the north) on the west foundation wall.
Then I grabbed a Dragon's Milk imperial stout and went down to the lake. I tried to get Ramona and Neville to follow me, and when I got to the dock, I paddled around a little in the canoe in hopes Ramona would come down and want a ride. But Neville was the only dog who made it, and he doesn't like to ride around in canoes. Meanwhile I could see three teenagers throwing small rocks into the water from the public dock.
On the way back to the cabin, Neville and I walked to the beaver dams at the lake's outflow. I love building dams almost as much as a beaver does, so I added more rocks to the new beaver dam near the old Boy Scout causeway. (Beavers never use rocks to build dams, at least not the size of rocks I use.) While I was doing these things, my nice camera, the one with a telephoto lens, slipped from my fingers and fell into the water. It briefly submerge completely, but I immediately pulled it out and removed the battery. Then I tested it, and it seemed to still be working. But I had my doubts and ended up hanging it in the blast of very dry air that comes out of the heatpump-based hot water heater in the cabin's basement.
To make that hot water heater blast a large amount of very dry air, I took a nice hot bath in the upstairs bathroom. I'd eaten a large nugget of cannabis from my huge stash of very weak home-grown and didn't expect much. But I ended up having a noticeable (if a bit mellow) buzz that lasted all night long.
Teenagers at the public dock.
Neville crossing the causeway just below the new beaver dam. You can see the undammed outflow creek behind him. Click for a wider view.
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http://asecular.com/blog.php?230811 feedback
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