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a ruffed grouse outsmarts Charlotte the dog Sunday, June 2 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
This morning after I drank my coffee and checked my usual internet haunts, I decided to take the dogs for a walk on the nascent Lake Edward Trail. Neville was apparently still too sore from big hikes I'd taken them all on, so he opted not to come. Charlotte stayed with me nearly the whole time, disappearing at times when I was dragging sticks around and not trudging in some direction, and she was there when I made it to the shoreline of Lake Edward. (Meanwhile, Jack disappeared before I even got to the Split Rock landmark.)
With the work I did today, I finally had the whole trail laid out on the ground. Now all that remains is for me to make it a little more obvious so Gretchen can follow it successfully. In the brief period during which I was at Lake Edward, I heard the call of a loon. Charlotte isn't as acculturated to such nature sounds and they excite her much more than they do Neville, a dog who has experienced many more rodeos. (He also doesn't flip out about the crazy hoots of barred owls, though when Charlotte does, he doesn't like missing out on the excitement and goes bounding down the stairs after her.)
Back at the cabin, I made myself a pot of rice, which I ate with a pouch of Indian food and a bunch of broccoli Gretchen had insisted I eat this weekend. (She suspects that I don't eat nearly enough vegetables, particularly when I'm cooking for myself. She isn't wrong.)
Some time later, I took my big Kobalt chainsaw and a beer with me and hiked down to Woodworth Lake. This time all the dogs came. About halfway down to the lake, a ruffed grouse jumped out of the bushes, squealing like she was horribly injured. As she did this, I saw several tiny grouse chicks scurry away, some of them still peeping. They were little brownish grey fluffballs and, judging by their size and behavior, they might've hatched only a few days before. Once they figured out what was going on, the chicks fell silent, hiding wherever they'd ended up beneath the ferns. Charlotte wasn't far behind me, and when she saw and heard the squealing mother hen, she immediately ran after her, perhaps thinking that for once in her life, she'd be able to sink her teeth into bird pre-incapacitated by injury. Charlotte is fast, so the grouse quickly ditched the "I'm injured" distraction and expertly started flying, though she stayed low and went in the opposite direction of her chicks. The stunt worked, and Charlotte was easily led far off to the southeast. When the two other dogs came down the trail, they didn't noticed that there were grouse chicks hiding nearby. Soon thereafter, Charlotte came bounding back onto the trail a 100 feet further on than where I'd seen the chicks. I was familiar with killdeer faking injury to lead predators away from their chicks, though I didn't know ruffed grouse do this too.
When I got to the nascent stool that I am using a chainsaw to carve from a single bucked piece of sugar maple, I proceeded to cut away the rest of the wood between the legs. This produced an adequate round stool with four legs, though it was a bit top-heavy, as the legs were short and the top of the stool was a massive block of wood something like eight inches thick. But now the stool was fairly easy to carry, as I'd made it considerably lighter and the legs gave it something for me to grasp with my hands.
Down at the dock, I decided to float around on an innertube to best experience the clear sunny day. The water was noticeably colder than it gets in the height of summer, but with a little acclimation, I could relax and sip my beer. First Neville and then Charlotte watched me from the dock. I don't remember what Jack was doing.
On the walk back to the cabin, I took turns carrying the chainsaw and beer can and then the stool, making it so I got all those objects back without ever carrying the saw and the stool at the same time.
As I waited for the big 80 volt battery on my saw to charge, I puttered around the cabin putting things away and cleaning up in preparation for heading back to Hurley. When I eventually had enough power in my chainsaw battery, I used the saw to cut out a little four-inch-high shelf in the mass of wood at the top of the stool. As I did so, I preserved the corners so it would look like the legs continued past the shelf. The end result was a satisfying little stool. Perhaps its æsthetics were a bit too rustic for Gretchen's taste, but I thought it looked like exactly the sort of furniture one should have at an Adirondack cabin.
I packed up my stuff, loaded up the dogs, and began the drive back to Hurley at a little before 5:00pm. It had been sunny every day this weekend (including Thursday), so the car's battery was full (the first time I'd managed to fill it using only solar power this season). So at some point when it was a bit hot, I spoiled myself and the dogs by running the air conditioner (which, obviously, somewhat reduced the car's range.
As I was driving into Livingstonville from the north on Route 145, I saw two separate roadkilled porcupines. Evidently it's porcupine season in the northeast Catskills as well.
Back home in Hurley, Gretchen and I sat out on the east deck briefly discussing our respective weekends. She'd been to a dosa-making workshop near Catskill and also visited a Veggie Fest in Troy. She had some leftover baked goods and cauliflower "wings," all of which tasted very good to me.

Charlotte on our dock watching me swim. I'm looking north and she's looking south. Click to enlarge.

Charlotte on our dock viewed from the southwest. Click to enlarge.

The way my remote control system is looking these days. It's on the east basement wall. Click to enlarge.

The sugar maple stool as it looked when I drove away from the cabin today. Click to enlarge.
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