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peaceful easy feeling
Sunday, August 13 2023
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
When I tested my camera this morning after its night of being in the occasional blast of dehydrated air, I found that it was once more working. Hopefully it will keep working and I won't have to buy a replacement. It's a good camera, capable of resolving the moons of Jupiter, and I'd rather not lose it to some stupid accident. True, it has developed some problems in the six and a half years since I bought it; the rubbery parts are peeling off and the viewfinder screen has developed serious flaw. But it still takes great pictures and I have charging infrastructure and extra batteries in both Hurley and the cabin. (I'd been thinking I could always just replace it with a used model, which can be had for about $100 on eBay; but until I get a new job, I am on a strict budget that forbids the purchase of anything that might be considered a toy.)
Neville's paw continues to bother him about as much as it did yesterday, which isn't good for the vet's theory that his problem stems from a tick-borne illness. I'd started him on doxycycline last night, and perhaps there hasn't been enough time for that to begin solving his problem (assuming it ever does) but remain skeptical.
[REDACTED]
In the mid-morning, I resumed work on my foundation insulation project, digging out a slot for the fifth sheet of styrofoam on the west foundation wall. Things were going nicely, and I had the slot ready to accept the installation of a sheet when some last-minute cleaning of the slot resulted in a partial collapse of the ditch wall. I'd seen cracks developing in the damp sand that constituted the material of the trench wall and had supported it with a series of U-shaped pieces of wire that acted as large staples stuck six to eight inches into the side of the wall. Usually this sort of precaution makes the wall much more stable, but this time it collapsed anyway. It took at least a half hour to clean up the results of that collapse, as I didn't really have great access to this particular section of ditch. On the plus side, the collapse had effect of widening the trench, which, with the styrofoam installed, would've been too narrow for me to walk in while attempting to extend the ditch further south.
Once I had this fifth sheet of styrofoam in, I could go back and reassemble the PVC pipes that attach to the propane pressure regulators and bury them in the still-open trench further north along the west foundation wall.
As I was shoveling sandy dirt from a big "borrow pile" outside the west-facing window of the only downstairs bedroom with such a window, I must've accidentally stepped on a bumblebee working on the purple flower of a thistle-like plant that I'd managed to knock down in all the activity related to the ditch digging (probably sometime last week). The bee, which I saw and which I might've accidentally injured but did not kill, stung me on the arch of my left foot. But not very painfully; it must've been one of those light warning stings bees and hornets can inflict. I could feel the sole of my foot swell slightly over the next hour or so, and I worried a little I might go on to have an allergic reaction. In my teenage years I had to go to the emergency room on two occasions specifically after being stung by bumblebees (and I even carried an ana-kit for awhile for emergency injection of adrenaline should the need arise). But I ended up experiencing no such allergic reaction this afternoon. (I think I've been stung by bumblebees once or twice since my teenage years, always without incident.) I should mention that bumblebees are one of the principle pollinators active around the cabin. Other pollinators include butterflies, various flies, hornets, wasps, and hummingbirds. But I don't think I've seen a single honey bee.
In celebration of all of today's progress with foundation insulation, I took my newly-revived camera and a strong beer with me down to the lake and sat on the dock for awhile feeling a good combo buzz from a mixture of kratom tea, alcohol, and another substance I took earlier. It's rare for drug use to produce precisely what I am hoping it will, but in this case it was doing exactly that, giving me what the Eagles might've referred to as a "peaceful easy feeling."
Back at the cabin, I straightened things up, gathered up the recycling, and then loaded up the dogs (putting Neville in the backseat again so he could have more room). I made it back to Hurley at around 7:20pm. Gretchen proceeded to make a bean & kale stew for use as a sauce with polenta or angelhair pasta, and that was what we ate while watching an episode of Jeopardy! for the first time in a long time. Gretchen told me some of what her experince in Brooklyn had been like, where she'd been surrounded by Dina & family as well as the family of her old friend David the Rabbi (who had been somewhat estranged from her for well over a decade). Gretchen said she found shabbat dinner to be a bit alienating, as she's come to view the tribalism of Judaism as not an especially good thing. She'd rather form the basis of her tribalism around values that she thinks actually matter, such as ethical veganism. To that end, she'd made a friend on the bus ride back from the City yesterday. She'd heard a couple young men talking about the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, and she'd whipped around to tell them that she'd written the memoir of its founder (which one of the young men had actually read). She ended up having a long and conversation with the other guy, a 22 year old Black vegan.
A cairn I made to signal the turn onto the last leg of the path to the dock. It's only about 24 inches tall. Click to enlarge.
Google Image Search says this is Gymnopus dryophilus. Or perhaps Psilocybe (unlikely!). Click to enlarge.
The boat house today with the edge of our dock in the foreground. Click to enlarge.
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