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no range anxiety for me
Sunday, October 1 2023
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
My basement bulkhead riser plug (which will allow me to block the four inch hole giving me access to a large prism-shaped space under the bulkhead stairs) was done with its overnight drying of the Gorilla Glue holding it together. Now, though, I thought it would be better if I blocked the many holes perforating its steel flange and then painted it. So this had me applying more Gorilla Glue to plug every hole (and there were a couple dozen of those).
By mid-morning, it was already apparent that it was going to be a glorious beautiful day, with clear skies, humid balmy conditions, and temperatures up in the mid 70s. We'd had a little sun yesterday and no sun the day before, so I was going to need that solar energy to have enough power to drive the Bolt back home.
Since applying the portland cement yesterday, I'd been spraying it every few hours, as one has to do to keep it wet so it can set before it dries out. Unfortunately, though, my second squirt bottle had died on me, forcing me to splash the wet cement with whatever containers I had handy. I found it best to use a small-necked bottle for splashing, as splashing with a wide-necked jar depleted my water very quickly, forcing me to take many trips back to the hose for refills. I wish someone somewhere would make a squirt bottle that could hold up to thousands of squirts, as the bottles I've been using only seem to last for hundreds.
In the mid-afternoon, I took a bucket with me down below the cliffs northwest of the cabin and found places where the bedrock had crumbled to form numerous jagged triangles and prism-like shapes of the sort that are rare among the scattered rocks I usually find for my granite rock constructions. This allowed me to further build out my north retaining wall project (the one where I use smaller rocks to top out the massive boulder retaining wall created as part of the initial cabin landscaping).
Later in the afternoon, I convinced the dogs to go with me down to the dock again. The weather was so perfect that we all might've been content to just sit on the dock for hours, even though by then it was in full shade. [REDACTED] Eventually, though, I took Ramona for a ride in the canoe out to the outflow beaver dam. The lake level had fallen significantly since I'd been there last, and I ended up scraping bottom on at least one rock. I couldn't find a place to beach, so I just paddled back and offloaded Ramona at the tree dock (the place where I keep the canoe in the summer).
The warm weather was so inviting that I was soon wading in the shallows near the dock. There's a large rectangular boulder there that is right at the limits of what I can move, and I've been wanting to move it into a line that coincides with the furthest-out pilings on the permanent section of dock, with the idea being that a line of rocks there might divide the ice mass that eventually forms into two pieces, perhaps with one part (either closer or further from shore) freezing before the other. This would mean that the ice would tend to want to break in that line if stressed, and, in so doing, cause less damage to the dock. Happily, I was able to get that big rock to where I wanted it without accidentally toppling it onto my foot.
Back at the cabin, my charging of the car eventually caused the cabin battery to fall to such a low charge that cabin power was shut off. At that point, I only had a range of about 90 miles, which wasn't quite enough to get home comfortably via the scenic (low-energy) route. Furthermore, now the cabin didn't have enough power to make it through the night, which had me concerned about the contents of the refrigerator. So I opted to run the generator for a little while, just long enough to get 106 miles of range into the Bolt and a 31 percent charge in the cabin battery. The generator whipped up such wind that it blew a thin dusting of dry sand all over the Bilco doors. Thinking that blowing sand would be bad for the generator, I hosed everything down around it. I also hosed down the wet portland cement within range, since that was a lot easier than splashing the cement with a small-necked bottle.
Then it was time to begin driving back to Hurley. The sun had already set by the time we made it out to Route 309, so nearly all of the drive was in darkness. The car started with a range of 106, which wasn't great (and, indeed, Gretchen experienced severe range anxiety driving during the day with no cargo starting with a range of 105). But the Bolt seemed to consume its range at an acceptable rate, and I was never too concerned I wouldn't make it. The car still had 24 miles of range left when I pulled into the driveway up on Hurley Mountain.
I ate some leftover Indian food Gretchen had gotten and she proceeded to tell me how her weekend had gone. She'd attended various Woodstock Film Festival events and then gone up to Albany with Falafel Cathy to attend Albany VegFest earlier today. (I'd been invited to meet them there, but I was far too content just being at the cabin.)
Neville sunning himself in the northwest corner of the cabin's building site. Click to enlarge.
The fieldstones topping the north retaining wall. Click to enlarge.
Neville and Ramona down on the dock today. Click to enlarge.
Ramona on the dock today. Click to enlarge.
The state of the cairn signalling the shortcut trail to the dock. Click to enlarge.
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