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a path restricted by cellphone availability
Thursday, October 24 2024
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
Today was the day the minisplit was supposed to be delivered to the cabin, and I was under the impression that I would have to sign for it. Since it could arrive any time between 10:30 am and 4:00pm, I didn't want to be in some place where the phone wouldn't work if the truck driver called. So this morning when I took the dogs for a walk, I did it on a route where I never (or almost never) lost a cellular connection. This isn't easy near Woodworth Lake, as much of the the land there lies in the radio-shadow of the landscape. There is a cell signal at our cabin, and this continued along our driveway out to Woodworth Lake Road and then west on it for maybe a couple hundred feet. And that's pretty much it. So I took the dogs over to Shane's parcel (which is at a slightly higher elevation than ours and probably has a better cellular signal) and then down through the woods to Woodworth Lake Road near the intersection with the spur road to the nearby radio tower. (It's a radio tower for local emergency services and has no cellular equipment on it.) I then walked up to that tower and then returned back to the cabin via our driveway. Neville stayed close by for most of this, though Charlotte went off on her own adventure in the highlands south of the tower.
Back at the cabin, Gretchen messaged me to say the delivery guy had called and was 20 minutes away. It also turned out that I wouldn't have to sign for it. (I'd tried to get Home Depot to use my cellphone to reach me, evidently to no avail.) So about twenty minutes later, I walked out to Woodworth Lake Road, because I could hear some clanking going on out there. It turned out that someone had just dropped off a Generac generator at Ibrahim's A-frame. Only a minute or so later, the truck carrying my minisplit arrived. It was driven by a guy who had the affect of someone who had known me for years, which caused me to mirror that same affect even though I had no idea who he was. (This is probably something familiar to people with prosopagnosia, that is, face-blindness, which I might have a mild case of.) He said he'd back his truck down my driveway to wherever it needed to go, so I said sure, and he backed it up all 950 feet. When he got out of the truck, he asked if I was in the witness protection program. "It's peaceful out here," I replied. He then proceeded to tell me about all the parcels he's delivered to Ibrahim. He said the signing requirement, if it existed at all, was mostly to avoid theft. "I've never had anything stolen," I declared. "Yeah, you'd get shot," he agreed.
The minisplit came on a pallet, and I soon had it broken down to its three main pieces: two indoor air handlers and and outdoor unit. (There was also piping, wires, and such.) All the pieces were individually small enough for me to carry, though the outdoor unit was pretty heavy and I decided getting it into the cabin and away from the weather was good enough for the time being.
After that, I spent several hours working on the porch ceiling project. Things were a little trickier with that today because I had to cut out a hole for a ceiling light. And then I had to differentially change the overlaps of the clapboards to ensure they were parallel to the end wall as I approached it, because I didn't want to have an end piece shaped like a long, narrow triangle.
Then I quickly put everything away, tidied up the cabin, and began the two hour drive back to Hurley so I could be there in time for a dinner party at Ray & Nancy's place. I left at around 4:50pm and daytime faded to twilight somewhere around East Durham.
Back home, I quickkly unloaded the car and dogs ran around briefly before we all got back in the car with Gretchen and drove to Ray & Nancy's place. Nancy had made a rigatoni pasta with pesto and a salad, and it was all pretty good, though strangely there wasn't very much. So I ended up eating a fair amount of dessert, which tonight took the form of Newman's take on Oreo cookies. We also drank a fair amount of red wine while discussing things like our neighbor A, the nailbiting we're doing about the presidential election, and the house we're buying in Rochester. There wasn't much news in the Ray & Nancy household other than that Nancy had recently gotten a six month gaphic design gig. Meanwhile, the dogs were being all kinds of adorable. Charlotte and Neville seem to get extra frisky around Jack, but mostly only with each other.
Neville in front of the radio tower transmitter building this morning about a half mile south of our cabin.
Click to enlarge.
Charlotte and Neville being adorable at Ray & Nancy's house this evening while Nancy looks on.
Click to enlarge.
Charlotte and Neville being adorable at Ray & Nancy's house this evening while Ray and Nancy look on.
Click to enlarge.
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