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a mostly well-behaved Charlotte
Monday, November 6 2023
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
To keep Charlotte from going into the laboratory unsupervised, I've rigged the door using two eye screws and a piece of wire to hold it open just wide enough for the cats to come and go. That way I can secure the door when I am away (or taking a bath or in bed asleep) so that the cats can still use the laboratory but the dogs cannot. I'd twisted the wire so that it was attached to the loop of the eye screw in the door frame at about the height of a nearby light switch, and I was finding this would occasionally snag me as I walked by. So I screwed a rare earth magnet into the door frame a little higher up so that the wire hook could now be held out of the way when it wasn't being deployed. This system will probably remain in place like this for years, long after Charlotte stops randomly pissing on things. I have a similar (though more primitive) rig in the laboratory window designed to secure it in an open position so the cats can have free access to the laboratory deck when I am away. The goal with that is to keep the window from being blown shut by a strong wind and trapping a cat on the laboratory deck for (potentially) days.
Charlotte was better behaved today than any previous day in Hurley. The worst thing she did was wander onto the side of the road near our driveway, but at least she didn't cross it. She had a number of unsupervised adventures east of the house, but didn't get into any trouble. And she never peed or pooped anywhere inside the house. Late this afternoon I took her and Neville on a not-particularly-long walk atop the escarpments west of the Farm Road.
Before Gretchen came home, I boiled up a pot of fancy rigatoni noodles and fried up a pan of tempeh with onions and garlic (I'd more or less forgotten about using garlic as an ingredient and hadn't used it in years) so Gretchen would have a hot meal to come home to at the end of her Monday bookstore shift. Then, with her watching Ugly Betty, I had the psychic calm to take a bath, since I no longer had to be the one person keeping track of what mischief Charlotte was making. (At the time she and Neville had run off into the dark forest west of the Farm Road seemingly in pursuit of a wild animal.)
Neville west of the Farm Road.
Click to enlarge.
Charlotte with a yawning Neville at the top of an escarpment west of the Farm Road.
Click to enlarge.
Roots of a large tree in a swampy area west of the Farm Road.
Click to enlarge.
White pine snags west of the Farm Road.
Click to enlarge.
Charlotte on the Farm Road. Click to enlarge.
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