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Ferrellgas mystery continues
Sunday, July 3 2022
location: 800 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
I got up early and, after drinking some coffee and reorganizing the stuff in the car, I roused the dogs out of bed to tell them we'd be going for a ride in the car, something they normally loved to do. I then drove us down to the public dock on Woodworth Lake and staged all the things I would be needing at the place where I am building our own personal dock. This included the six big concrete blocks, two two-by-fours, and a piece of all-purpose plywood (measuring about 24 by 96 inches; fitting it into the car was tricky). I then returned to the cabin and abandoned the dogs there (they were done with walking for the day) and walked down to our dock site. Once there, I paddled across the lake to the public dock to retrieve the supplies I'd left for myself, and returned all of it to our dock, where I offloaded it. I then did a few small tasks, such as replacing several carriage bolts with hex bolts in places where the latter made more sense and attaching more hardware to the framework of the fully-floating section of dock to help with anchoring and towing it. The weather was beautiful and there weren't too many deer flies bothering me, so I was worried I would get into a state of flow and lose track of time. The annual homeowners' association meeting for the lake would be held today at noon, and I didn't want to miss that. So I made myself stop working and returned to the cabin. (The walk from the lake to the cabin is longer than anyone would want it, but it seems a little shorter every time and, since making the small shortcut path that makes it all more direct and slightly less steep, it doesn't seem that bad.)
The meeting was held at the site of the old Sawdust Café in nearby Bleecker (meaning I didn't have to drive down the Adirondack escarpment). Because the venue was a restaurant, I left the dogs at the cabin. The restaurant is now called Mountain Hut, and it specializes in pizza. The nice woman who runs the place had provided association-funded food for the event. Unfortunately none of it was vegan and little of it was even vegetarian, so I didn't have any. Instead I had Juice Bomb IPA, which I had to pay for (I'm surprised they had something that cosmopolitan on offer). It wasn't quite noon, and already four or five of us were drinking beer. I mostly chatted with Ibrahim, who was very excited to be installing the sill plates on his foundation. He was itching to get back to work more on it, but he's the association secretary and had to be at this meeting.
The meeting only lasted an hour and didn't cover much new ground. Again someone brought up stocking the lake with trout, something Gretchen and I vehemently oppose, but it never came to a vote and the can probably got kicked down the road for another year. Another matter, one that would require a change in the bylaws (and require a 70% vote of the members) would allow low-power electric motors on the lake. Such motors would be silent and wouldn't create much in the way of a dock-destroying wake, so it's probably not something worth opposing, though it does reflect a certain lameness on the part of people who can't find the energy in their bodies to row a boat across a 30 acre lake. The guy advocating most strongly for electric motors on the lake was Mel, the heavily-tattooed beach racing guy from New Jersey whose son was freakishly bitten in the crotch by Neville at last year's meeting. Mel gave "I'm getting older" as the reason, but he's younger than me. At some point we had votes for two positions in the organization: Ibrahim's and one other, and both gentlemen were reelected.
As the meeting was winding down, I asked Mel (who has a 500 gallon propane tank supplied by Ferrellgas) if he'd found it had been mysteriously filled over the winter. I explained that the morons at Ferrellgas had "delivered" propane to our tank, but none had actually been added, so I'd assumed they'd put it in his tank. But he said he hadn't noticed any unexpected level increases in his tank. Where exactly that propane ended up remains a mystery.
[REDACTED]
Back at the cabin, my acid reflux problems continued. But I was able to walk down to the lake and, somewhat to my surprise, wrestle the ten by twelve foot frame for the fully-floating final section of dock (it must've weighed around 250 pounds) into the lake just south of the fixed part of the dock. I could then build a small island out of concrete blocks that would raise a floater high enough above the water's surface for me to get my impact driver under it to drill pilot holes and screw in lag bolts. But the nausea was making the work miserable, and I never got to the point of actually attaching a floater. Meanwhile, across the lake over at Joel's place, merry revelers were making use of a zip line across the marsh. In the past I'd wondered what the line was, and now I knew. There was a lot of drunken and childish screaming associated with this activity, but it was much better than the gunfire that occasionally erupts in that very same area.
Back at the cabin, I climbed into bed and took a long nap with the dogs. Awaking a little before sunset, I hurried back down to the lake and attached the first floater before darkness started creeping in.
As I was going to sleep, it sounded like a war in the distance. The population of the Adirondacks is small, and yet there a continuous rumble from fireworks both near and far. But none were close enough to illuminate the sky.
One floater on the fully-floating section of dock in the place where I worked on it. At this point I've rotated the floating section of dock 180 degrees clockwise after installing the floater.
Another view, from the end of the already-installed dock. You can see our canoe and "tree dock" in the upper left.
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