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another couple skirmishes with Charlotte
Monday, October 23 2023
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
Since I didn't have any place I needed to be on Monday, I'd decided to extend my weekend by a day. The weather was supposed to be cool but today, and that was a welcome change. I took advantage of the nice weather to cut up a fallen tree west of the cabin for use as firewood. The wood was half-rotten, though it was fairly dry and there were chunks of good hardwood. I couldn't really figure out the species, though. The bark suggested basswood, but it had good heartwood, which basswood doesn't. Meanwhile Charlotte was snorting around trying to understand what the hell I was doing.
Initially it had been cold and unpleasant, but after the winds died down it was warm enough in the sun for me to take off my shirt and stand outside in the weedy grounds west of the cabin and cut my hair for the first time in months (something Gretchen had been vaguely suggesting that I do). Following my usual pattern of late, I just hacked away at handfuls of hair randomly until there wasn't any obvious long hair left and then made a few adjustments using the side mirror of the Forester. I then I threw the cut hair on the ground for the wildlife to refashion into nests or whatever. It was all grey, some of it surprisingly light in color.
This afternoon when I walked down to the dock, the dogs didn't want to come with me even with encouragement. (If they followed me there, I figured, that was less trouble they'd get into in the house.)They'd apparently both concluded that it's cold and boring down there and it would be more fun to lie around in the cabin's great room.
I'd carried a 12 volt car battery that had seemed to be working down to the dock with the hopes of at least experimentally running the winch. Initially I hadn't even planned to detach the floating dock and row it over to the place near the tree dock on the lakeshore where we keep it over the winter. But the swimming ladder was easily detached and then I managed to get the cotter pins holding the hinge pin out without too much trouble and then suddenly I was sailing on an independent watercraft. I'd thought ahead enough to bring a paddle and some rope, and soon had the floating dock tied up where the winching would begin from. But then, after setting up the winch and feeding out the cable for several feet, its motor slowly ground to a halt, indicating that that battery I'd brought wasn't capable of holding enough electricity to do any winching. So I carried the damn thing back to the cabin.
I'd been cleaning and straightening up off and on all day, so after eating a sandwich of leftovers and putting all the food that needed to go back to Hurley in the Forester, I decided it was time to get back on the road. I hoped Charlotte would see Neville climb into the car and decide to join him. But all she did was hem and haw and stand around, not letting me get too close. So I picked up Neville and had him go back into the cabin. Charlotte followed him in and then climbed up on the couch with him. At that point I grabbed Charlotte in an instant and leashed her. She tried to buck herself free, but I was too strong. She then calmed down and allowed me to walk her out to the Forester. But when she saw that I wanted her in there, she refused and began backing up in a way that I feared would allow her to slip out of her collar (she was no longer wearing the Jets-branded harness). So I tackled her and we struggled on the ground together for a few seconds, her biting the leash in an effort to break free (fortunately she somehow missed biting me, not that she didn't want to). I then picked her up and put her in the car. When I then had Neville climb in, she seemed relieved that at least he was coming too, whatever horrible fate she was bound for. I figured it was probably bad to violently grab Charlotte two times in quick succession, as it will probably make her even more suspicious of me than she already is. But I was frustrated and didn't want to dilly dally all day waiting for her to decide to get in the car. Once I started driving, Charlotte remained calm and quiet for the rest of the ride, stretched out on the backseat. (Neville was riding shotgun, which is what he prefers.)
Back in Hurley, I held the leash as Charlotte jumped out of the car and continued holding it even after Gretchen came out. She eventually turned Charlotte loose, and she happily came in through the pet door. Perhaps not surprisingly, Charlotte seemed more trusting of Gretchen than of me and even sat next to her on the teevee room couch even when Neville wasn't around (probably guarding a toy; keep reading).
Gretchen had bought a number of dog toys in an effort to keep Charlotte from destroying more of our stuff. Neville glommed onto one of them with such zeal that he actually began guarding it, and I had to bribe him with some peanut butter hidden in an old cow bone to get it away from him.
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