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valuable clumps of turf
Sunday, September 1 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
Unlike the past two days, today was mostly sunny, meaning we could finally put enough electricity in the Bolt to get home via the Thruway (something we had to do to avoid the congestion in Fonda due to its ongoing fair). Gretchen could also go down to the dock and swim several times.
Meanwhile, I was improving the stone-paved west end of the Mossy Rock Trail where it connects to the stone paving around the cabin. To do this, I had to dig out bits of turf under the rocks I'd already laid down in an approximate pattern of how they would end up. I also filled in beneath the rocks using sand from under the screened-in porch. At the cabin, bits of removed turf are valuable as turf, and I used them to put vegetation on soil that is still barren along the west basement wall from when I dug it all up last year to install panels of styrofoam insulation.
After doing a fair amount of that, I feeling hot and sweaty, so I thought I might be able to go for a soak down at the lake. But once I got down there (Neville came!), the water was a little too cool for that and winds were occasionally strong. So instead I paddled one of the kayaks into the outflow bay. Meanwhile, there was a little activity at the public dock, where I saw a shirtless man wading in the water. And over at Pyotr's dock there were as many as three different paddled water craft in the lake.
Back at the dock, I waded into the water to further improve the "ice wall" that helps protect the outermost piers of the part of the dock I leave in the lake all winter. In so doing, I was standing three feet of water, though to retrieve rocks that had toppled off the wall, I had to reach down, drenching my shirt. By the time I was done tinkering with the wall, I was nearly as wet as I would've been had I gone for a swim. I ended up walking back to the cabin completely naked on the Mossy Rock Trail, carrying my wet clothes, my camera, the nearly-empty can of beer I'd been drinking, and a foldable saw that I used to trim off a few lingering little stumps in the trail.
We left the cabin at around 4:30pm, driving home via Amsterdam (where there was apparently no fair) and the Thruway. The Bolt's radio was working great, and the route required 120 or 130 miles of range.
Back home in Hurley, Gretchen threw together another suprisingly good meal, this one featuring pasta, chick peas, vegan sausage, tomatoes, and kale salvaged from various places. We ate this while watching an episode of Shark Tank, as Jeopardy! is on hiatus.
A dragonfly flies past the bow of my kayak in the outflow bay as I paddle back south.
Click to enlarge.
Neville on the fixed part of the dock with, in the foreground, the stone "ice wall" that separates the water in the middle of the lake from that near the shore at the dock's outermost piers. Notice it is built on a reef of exposed bedrock.
Click to enlarge.
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