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early morning drive to the Catskills
Monday, August 10 2026
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
Having slept on the couch in the great room, I awoke at about 4:00am and couldn't get back to sleep. I played Spelling Bee all the way to Queen Bee using the method I've been using for months now, that is, not playing any four-letter words until the end. I then made myself a bagel sandwich similar to the one I'd had last night, but, because the Tofurky was misbehaving as pealed pieces up, I ended up with too much in my sandwich, and if you've ever done this, you probably know what I mean.
When I stepped outside to load stuff into the Forester, there was an unexpected cool in the air. Temperatures were in the forties.
A little before 6:30am, I began my drive back to Hurley, hoping to arrive there before Gretchen set off for work. Neville's first injection for heartworm had been rescheduled for this morning, and, after that, he'd have to be kept heavily sedated and cooped up in a pen most of the time. I wanted to be there not only to pick him up this afternoon while Gretchen would be at work, but also so Gretchen wouldn't leave Charlotte behind alone at the house without Neville, something we have never yet done.
As I set out, the Forester's radio was still tuned into a cheesy Christian station I'd been listening to last night, and as I heard the schmaltzy unorginal production and lyrics that require a lack of critical thinking skills to be believed, it occurred to me that such music has a lot in common with AI slop.
I was home well before 9:00am, and Gretchen and I sat for awhile on the bed with Charlotte nearby as I detailed how the spiral staircase pickup had gone. I also characterized the Massachussetts Turnpike as a best-avoided route.
Soon after Gretchen left for work, I noticed Charlotte lying at the end of the driveway almost in Dug Hill Road, someting I've seen her do in the past. This something she does when she is feeling abandoned, in this case by both Gretchen and Neville. But when I opened up the door to the East Deck, she seemed to have a preference for being out there instead, so I didn't have to worry about her perhaps moving out in the roadway. Meanwhile I'd been using the GreenWorks hedgedrimmmer to trim all the bushes that encroach on our front door walkway and driveway. Later I took advantage of the persistent cool of the morning to take a reasonably hot bath, something I probably should've done after taking Charlotte for a walk down the Chamomile Gorge Trail and back, since that walk ended up being a fairly sweaty one.
A little before 4:00pm, Charlotte wasn't around, so that allowed me to pick up Neville from the vet without her, which made it a lot easier. I paid Neville's vet bill (over $500 so far) and took him and his three big bottles of medication home with me. He was more active than I'd expected given all the talk of how sedated he would be. But he was also clearly in pain, so I gave him a medication called trazodone. After letting him be on the east deck for a bit, I put him in one of the two wire pens Gretchen recently had delivered, as I knew she wanted to follow to the letter the advice given by the vet about keeping him from moving around too much.
I then made a low-effort chili with rice for dinner. I forgot to add salt to the rice, but also put too much salt in the chili, so, when combined, they were about right. After Jeopardy!, we watched the final episode of the second season of Dark Winds, which wasn't terrible even if it was full of head-scratching holes in the narrative. Later I sipped booze and watched the eighth episode of the third season of House of the Dragon, which was full of war sequences but was good despite all that.
On the road east of Preston Hollow this morning. Click to enlarge.
White baneberry in the lower Chamomile. Click to enlarge.
Old man of the woods on the Chamomile Gorge Trail. Click to enlarge.
A wood frog on the Woodshed Path Wall today. His camouflage works much better with leaves. Click to enlarge.
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