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handtruck, not the propane tank
Wednesday, November 16 2022
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
There was a little wet snow on the ground this morning, but it warmed up enough today for it to mostly melt away. It was a bad combination of cold and wet today, but this didn't keep me from going to that fallen tree I'd partially cut up yesterday and salvaging more of its wood. I did that during lunch while listening to a "town hall" of our "vertical" in the corporate archipelago. I mostly tuned in to hear them mention my name in the list of people making it to an anniversary with the company. In my case it was my fourth, though that happened a month ago (and my current chain of employment that continues to this day has been continuing for about 50.5 months).
Every third Wednesday is full of meetings due to our three-week sprint schedule, and things always get a little festive for the sprint retrospective. I like to drink alcohol during that, so today I bought myself the right to do that by painting a very simple painting of a crescent moon against a starry sky on an old credit card.
At about 4:30pm, I loaded up the dogs in the Subaru Forester and began driving to the Adirondacks. There was supposed to be a blast of arctic air arriving this weekend, and I wanted to put away the floating parts of our Woodworth Lake dock before it became locked in ice. Also, my remote monitoring of the cabin (Which is still unheated) has shown its indoor temperatures dipping into the 30s. I can't let the pipes freeze in there.
On this drive to the cabin, instead of driving along the Mohawk after getting off the Thruway in Amsterdam, I drove over to Amsterdam's motor mile, the land of big box stores and auto dealerships. I wanted to get a few more supplies at Home Depot related to jacking up the half-floating hinged part of the dock. And then I wanted to get groceries at Hannaford which, unlike the Price Chopper in Johnstown, sells vegan frozen pizza. After that, since I was traveling with just the dogs, I stopped at the Amsterdam Burger King to get an Impossible Whopper and two large orders of fries. Finally, I also bought a half gallon of cheap white rum from Black Bear Wine & Spirits, (which is just north of Burger King on my way to the cabin via State Street in Gloversville).
There was about three inches of snow on the ground at the cabin. We've opted not to get our driveway plowed this year, meaning that at some point the snow will become too deep to drive through and we'll have to park our car along the plowed part of the road and trudge in. For the time being, though, the Forester can easily drive through three inches of snow.
The temperature inside the cabin was something like 36 degrees. I immediately started a fire and booted up the boiler for the first time since spring. Even with all that heating, it took hours for temperatures to rise into the 50s. But, as I've noted before, it's not difficult to get cozy and be comfortable in such conditions if you're under a blanket and snuggling with one or more dogs. And even if you're not, there's something about knowing the temperature isn't going to be in the 60s any time soon that makes it possible to happily putter around and do things in such cold conditions. You know nothing can be done to make it warmer, so you accept the conditions as they are and carry on.
At some point I went outside and noticed that a mid-to-large white ash tree along the driveway had snapped off about eight feet above the ground. The trunk had then landed on my heavy duty handtruck, narrowly missing our 500 gallon propane tank, and then a higher part of the trunk landed on the stack of styrofoam sheets I intend to use to insulate the cabin's foundation wall. Damage to the handtruck wasn't immediately obvious, and there didn't seem to be much damage to the styrofoam sheets either. But I'll have to cut up the fallen tree to learn more. This might be the first time in my entire life that a fallen tree (or limb) has damaged anything I care about.
Some cannabis I'd eaten earlier slowly kicked in while I snuggled on the couch and read various stories in the news. Yes, I'm fully back to following the news closely.
Today's painting.
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