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shroomy Saturday
Saturday, July 19 2025
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
While we were winding down our drinking of coffee and playing of Spelling Bee, Gretchen and I decided to take some magic mushrooms we've had for nearly two years, since they were given to me by my old post-Big-Fun-era friend Leah. The package contained 3.5 grams, which we decided to split, which, the packaging suggested, would give us each a "macro" but not "trippy" experience. We then headed down to the dock on the separate trails that we each prefer. On the way down, I could already feel the mushrooms kicking in just a little, though its main effect was to dilate the time I was in the woods being attacked by deer flies.
At the dock, I set up the umbrella so I could vegetate in one of the zero gravity chairs without concerns about sunburn. Meanwhile Gretchen had gone for a swim.
Soon it was clear that the mushrooms had kicked in, though their main effect was to drain me of any ambition. For Gretchen, the effects were much weaker; all she could feel was that her limbs seemed heavier. She'd taken a little less than me, but that was because she weighs nearly fifty pounds less. After an hour or so of the effects not getting (for me) any stronger than a mild cannabis buzz, we decided that perhaps the mushrooms had lost much of their potency from having sat around for two years.
Gretchen had brought some food, including cherries and stale old corn chips which weren't too bad when dipped in hummus. I don't remember what all we talked about, but there wasn't much else we could muster the energy to do except talk.
Expecting my motivation would be affected, I'd brought an old copy of Run Magazine from 1987 that I'd found in or near my childhood home. Run was a Commodore-specific magazine, and I'd gotten it to help me expand my mind about what to do with the Commodore 128 I had at the time. This particular issue was full of mailbag content, with people excitedly sharing clips of BASIC code that did amusingly simple things, such as generating random eight letter passwords by alternating between random vowels and random consonants.
While this was going on, Throckmorton the Loon spent some time fairly close to our dock, where I managed to get some good photos.
After a couple hours or so, I'd developed enough motivation to paddle out into the lake in a kayak. I ended up docking at the public dock, where I noted that the only watercraft in the canoe rack was the ugly yellow kayak that our neighbor Shane had been keeping in the clearing he'd made, next to his single camp chair and ring of stones for a fire. (Shane's "little slice of heaven.") It had never made sense for Shane to keep that kayak near his fire pit, since getting it to the lake would require bushwacking and perhaps scaling a cliff. The fact that he has, for the time being, stopped keeping the kayak there is good news; perhaps he's losing interest in that parcel or his wife is nagging him to free the financial resources tied up in it. And if he loses interest, perhaps a cabin won't be built there, and our privacy will remain undiminished.
Also while I was at the public dock, I noticed that an old Boy Scout building, one measuring only about six by ten feet, had fallen over on its side.
When I'd developed even more motivation, I announced I was going back to the cabin, something Gretchen wanted to do by then too.
Up at the cabin, I cooked up a box of campanelle pasta while frying a pan containing nothing but a chopped up onion, some oil, a dash of salt, and the chanterelles I'd recently gathered. I ended up eating this with the pasta and no salt at all and it was perfect that way. It was a gentle comfort food and I went back for thirds when I ate it for lupper. (Gretchen doesn't eat foraged mushrooms, so she maybe found something else to do with the pasta.)
Later this evening, I finally got around to installing a new GFI outlet at the end of the subterranean electrical cable I'd run earlier this summer. (This will provide power for an ESP8266 that will be monitoring our propane tank fuel levels, among other things.)
The magic mushrooms we ate were sold in this commercial packaging. They're legal in Washington, DC, and I think that was where Leah got them. Click to enlarge.
Throckmorton the Loon near our dock late this morning. Click to enlarge.
The fallen-over boyscout structure near the public dock. Click to enlarge.
The parcel just north of the public dock has a rope boundary with all this stupid surveillance signage. You can see the trailcam they are using, which is definitely not sending any live feed to any cloud. Click to enlarge.
What I ate for lupper: chanterelles with onions mixed with campanelle pasta. Click to enlarge.
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