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walking the west bifurcation creek Friday, May 31 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
After feeding the dogs, drinking my coffee, checking my usual news sources (to wallow in the convictionfreude), and play some Spelling Bee, I decided to get some work done on software development issue in my remote control system.
As you may recall, early in the development of that system I ran into a problem with the Apache server delivering gzipped data to the ESP8266 whenever the amount of that data passed a certain threshold. I didn't know what that threshold was and couldn't figure out how to either turn off this functionality on the server or get the ESP8266 to unzipped zipped data. So my solution was to limit the amount of data sent to the ESP8266. The mechanism I used to do this was, if gzipped data was detected, to switch into a mode where the info for each relevant pin was sent one at a time for each pin needing control information. This worked, and I've been doing this this way for months. But doing this makes the system less responsive than it would otherwise be. The ESP8266 polls the backend at a finite rate, and even if that rate is set to maximum, each polling typically takes at least ten seconds (at least over the slow internet connection available at the cabin). Now that I am controlling six different pins, this means that it can take as long as a minute for a pin ordered to change state actually does. So I needed a way to send the info for all the pins at once in a way that didn't produce so much data that a gizipping threshold was crossed.
It turns out that JSON is a bulky data format, since the name of every entity has to be explicitly stated in the data. So if you have an integer column named "chicken_butt_sandwich_id" in a table that a query is producing 100 rows for, that string "chicken_butt_sandwich_id" is going to appear 100 times in the JSON, and the same is going to happen for all the other columns in the 100 rows. A much more compressed data format is something like CSV, where the position in a delimited list conveys the name of the column. CSVs sometimes have a header column where all the column names are stated, but this only happens once in the data. But if you know the position in the delimited data of the daum you need, you don't need that header at all.
So late this morning and into the afternoon, I built out a separate system in the ESP8266 code to parse out delimited data in addition to its JSON-parsing system. I also added some code to the backend to produce the delimited data when so requested. Preliminary testing showed this system to be working, though there would be some bugs to fix once I went live with this new code in the ESP8266 doing the remote controlling in the basement.
First, though, I needed to take the dogs for a walk. We went directly to the dock, where I'd parked the canoe yesterday in hopes Jack might want to go for a boat ride (he hadn't). While the dogs were sunning themselves and snorting through the reeds along the shoreline, I loaded up some four by four and four by six lumber that I'd bought for the dock but never actually used. I then hauled it across the lake to the public dock so I could drive there later in the Bolt and return it to the cabin for use on projects there.
Then I took the dogs on a hike along the newly-discovered west bifurcation of the Woodworth Lake Outflow Creek, though this time I stuck mostly to high ground along it so I could look out for where the Adirondack State Park boundary markers were. When I found them, I went into the creek and built a little marker cairn so that next time I'm hiking up or down the creek I'll know when I'm reaching our parcel (from downstream) or state land (from upstream). I then walked back to the cabin along the boundary, scrambling up occasional steep grades and around cliffs along the way. Neville stuck close by me for most of this, though I lost him on one of escarpments not far from the top (only several hundred feet from the cabin).
Back at the cabin, all the dogs showed up in short order. But they were so exhausted from climbing up cliffs that nobody wanted to get in the car when I said I was going for a "ride in the cwar." So when I drove to the public dock to pick up the lumber I'd placed there, I did it all by myself.
Later this evening, I took the dogs on a second big walk of the day. This time we went down to the dock and along the lake to the outflow and then to the bifurcation. From there, though, we walked along the east bifurcation all the way downhill, past the little waterfall to where it encounters a substantial west-flowing creek just before going into the Six Acre Marsh that lies just north of our parcel's northmost boundary with state land. I then followed this creek westward until I eventually got to where the west bifurcation coming from the south met it. I'd probably only been to that confluence once before in my life, back when Gretchen and I hiked up to the Six Acre Marsh back in 2013. From there, I wanted to explore the entire length of the west bifurcation to see what marvels lay along it.
Not too far up the west bifurcation, I came upon a set of impressive cliffs, perhaps higher and steeper than any I'd ever seen in Woodworth Lake area. They were actually steeper than 90 degrees, somewhat overhanging my head as I stood at their base. Further up, I encountered impressive jumbles of massive boulders, some containing trapped voids under them that large animals could shelter in. In one place the west bifurcation creek completely disappeared beneath a pile of such boulders. Mind you, all these stunning landforms I was seeing were in many cases part of a massive multi-acre island separated from the mainland by the two bifurcation creeks and the unnamed east-west creek passing through the Six Acre Marsh.
Eventually I arrived at the cairn I'd built in the west bifurcation at the boundary with our parcel, and again I hiked up the steep landscape to the cabin (about 900 feet to the south). By now Jack was familiar enough with this terrain that I was no longer concerned about him getting lost.
Dogs on the dock on our first walk today. From left: Neville, Charlotte, and Jack. Click to enlarge.
A view from the canoe as I was paddling back to the dock after dropping off the lumber at the public dock. Click to enlarge.
Neville in the Woodworth Lake Outflow Creek a little upstream from where it bifurcates. Click to enlarge.
Woodworth Lake Outfloow Creek's bifurcation, viewed from upstream. On the left is the west bifurcation and on the right is the east bifurcation. Click to enlarge.
Woodworth Lake Outfloow Creek's bifurcation, viewed from downstream. The east bifurcation is on the left, the west bifurcation is on the right. Click to enlarge.
There's a big standing boulder on the trail on the steep slope between the dock and outflow beaver dam. Here Jack and Neville are digging and sniffing at its base. Hopefully it won't topple over while they're there. Click to enlarge.
The waterfall in the East Bifurcation. Click to enlarge.
Looking out of the woods towards the Six Acre Marsh. Click to enlarge.
The impressive cliffs I discovered near the bottom of the west bifurcation. Jack is in this picture on the right. Click to enlarge.
For scale, here's Neville at the base of the cliffs near the bottom of the west bifurcation. Click to enlarge.
In a large denning void beneath a jumble of boulders near the west bifurcation. Click to enlarge.
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