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small porcupine at dusk
Friday, June 6 2025
setting: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York
As is typical for a Friday, I fought my way through the gelatine that my remote workplace often feels like, with its kludgy unreliable VPN (and the even kludgier, less-reliable VPN of one of its customers), not to mention all the stupid security theatre always getting in my way and breaking my focus, making me want to do anything else. (And, with an internet connection, there are lots of options). Meanwhile Gretchen drove out to Connecticut to meet up with her two long-time friends she met back in college: May P. and Katie. They would be staying at an AirBnB and doing whatever for the night.
At the end of my workday, I loaded up the car with my stuff and the dogs and I drove us to the Adirondack cabin. We stopped on the Hannaford in Cairo mostly for beer and orange juice, and then I visited the liquor store nearby to get booze not just for the cabin but also for the laboratory.
After driving through part of Johnstown, I saw a couple weird manifestations of the animal world along Maple Street Extended. The first was a tiny chipmunk bopping across the road in front of me, looking more like a CGI animation from a documentary about early synapsids than anything else. And then I saw a vulture calmly standing on the shoulder beginning to feast on what looked like an orange and still-fully-intact housecat.
The weather was so warm at the cabin that it felt a little stuffy indoors.
It was nearly dusk by the time I got around to taking Charlotte for her post-arrival walk. (Neville didn't come.) Not wanting to overdo things with my still-injured back, I just went on a short walk down to the lake via the Mossy Rock Trail, then over to the beaver dams at the outflow and then back to the cabin via the Cliff Trail. Soon after arriving at the Old Lake Trail, I heard Charlotte barking like a crazed banshee. So I ran over to see what she'd found. What she'd found was a small porcupine that insisted on strolling around slowly on the ground. Fortunately, Charlotte hadn't been quilled, confirming that she knows enough to avoid the rodent most likely to result in a visit to the vet. After I arrived, Charlotte quit barking and I could study the little guy up close. He kept turning around to show me his back, so that was all I could get pictures of.
For the first time since Donald Trump's election back in November, I took a dose of cannabis in my usual way, by eating it. But it must've been weak (it had been on a table in the cabin basement for years), because its effects were weak at best. Worse still, it didn't keep me from drinking to the point where I would wake up with a hangover the next day.
Woodworth Lake this evening from the dock. Click to enlarge.
By the time I saw this porcupine, it was dark enough to have to use a flashbulb to get a photograph. Click to enlarge.
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