Bright Lights, Empty Campus

 

There is a relatively new sculpture on Cornell campus, and now that the hundreds of students with Covid have left, Gail and I walked up to see it Christmas Eve. 

The take out from Chinese Hot Pot on the way home was an added bonus.  They're on Eddy St. try it.

Weird Stuff in Town

Despite notifying Streets and Facilities of the risk of loosing a South Hill scholar, they never sent anyone up to replace the storm grate.  Lucky for all involved, I had an extra metal pole sitting around and an orange cone I brought up from the creek years ago.  It got fixed after a few days, but I didn't get the cone back.

Kurt's Porch in Thompson Park got furnished.  It looked inviting on a record-setting warm day in December, but probably not so much in the cold rain and snow.

 This showed up in Fall Creek.  On the one hand, people shouldn't treat public property like it is their own; on the other hand, this was much more creative than the rocks people stack up.  I wanted to treat it as my own and move it up to the sidewalk along the street to see if it would slow down the speeders coming down the hill, but somebody else tossed it into the creek first.

Cool Kids

 

I've been helping a former student, Yardana, get her new apartment in order.  It's been fun and she's thrilled with each addition, but none so much as these spice shelves.  Won't be long before she stars in her own cooking show.

 

By a wonderful coincidence, a fiend-of-a-friend knows somebody who lives upstairs in the building and wanted her and Yardana to meet.  While I was putting up the spice shelves, the neighbor came by with two of her grand kids.  Jordanny was in a couple classes I worked in and was a great kid.  He tells me he's now a great college student in South Carolina.  And he and Yardana used to be neighbors back in the day.  Small town.

A Mighty Wind

 

We were spared the winds that reached 70 mph in WNY, I think we had a gust over 50 mph.  It was cool living along Lake Erie and seeing this happen once in awhile: the wind would push the water down the lake in one huge wave in front of it, called a Seiche.

Bridge to Everywhere

 The much-maligned bridge over Rt. 13 by Buttermilk State Park is officially open.  The City took advantage of funding back in the last century to have it built, with the vision that someday it would link the Black Diamond Trail along the Inlet and the South Hill Rec Way.  We're getting there...

I stopped by Buttermilk that day to see the results of the deluge we'd received the night before.  It was pretty impressive.

A Job Done

 

If you scroll down to a post from October about cutting up some wood, this is an update.  Sara and Bronwyn bought a fancy splitting maul that I just had to test out, then Gail and Sara stacked it all up out of the rain and snow.  There was quite a bit of wood in that log.

Ugh.  In between cutting up that log and going back to split and stack, they had another tree cut down.  No promises this year.  Bronwyn has a new hip so she'll be like new when it comes to putting up wood for the winter, and now that Sara has used a real garden cart, maybe she'll go out and buy one of those too.

Gone Electric

 

I finally pulled the trigger and bought a chainsaw, and like Dylan in '65, I went electric.  I'd used a friend's electric saw over the summer and was quite impressed, and seeing so many ash trees come down on local trails, I decided the only way to keep up was to supplement my bow saw and axe arsenal.  The initial test was to remove a neighbor's stump and cut it up.  Plenty of power, I wish the battery lasted a bit longer but my back will be happy to not cut so long.  Hope I don't hit any rolling stones with it.

Friends Weekend 2021

A bunch of friends flew in for a weekend together in November.  They had to rent a car to get home after a rough landing.  But we had a great time in between.

We rented a bunch of cabins on Cayuga Lake near Trumansburg.  Nice to be on the water, lots of loons hanging around and changing skies and water.

The Wilsons, Howard, and Gelsiminos all took advantage of Thursday being Veterans Day.  That gave us enough time for a trip to Watkins Glen.  Sadly, the gorge trail was already closed for the season.

We were close enough to Taughannock that everyone made it there for a walk to the falls, and Howard and Amy joined Gail, me and Nina for a look at Frontenac.

Brian did a great job of cooking breakfast Sunday.

Great to see everyone, and hope those who couldn't make it can join us next year.

Dr. Joe

  Sorry for the mundane post about going to the dentist.  It's just that Gail and I didn't realize that by having the first appointment of Farmer Joe's day we would have to help out with the milking.
 

Grilling

 

  A work day with some friends allowed me to lead a team to rebuild the grill station on the deck.  It doubles as a cozy seat.

Should Have Happened Long Ago

   I've been driving and biking through Danby for 31 years and never took the time to stop at Jennings Pond, part of Buttermilk State Park.  What a knucklehead, nice place.

Funny Halloween

   I revived an old Halloween costume from college and went to work as a stand-up comic.  No joke:  When I wore this to a party at IUP, a friend who was a safety science major lit me on fire.  No such problem at IHS.

Sitting Around Doin' Nothing

  I've been taking it easy as much as possible this fall, spending a lot of time sitting around: after I rented a chainsaw and cut up a log for some friends and rolled the chunks across the ditch.  The log sat for a year since I offered to cut it so it's seasoned now. The reason for rolling them is that it's too muddy to split the wood where it was.  I'm not sure if they've gotten anyone to split it up, or if they'll fit in the fireplace and be burned as is.

  I did get some help moving a few more pieces of sandstone curbing.  Andy and I got two in his truck for him to use somewhere, and he helped me get one on a hand truck and bring it down the street to our house.  I was told by a neighbor 15-years-ago if I could move it, I could have it.  All I had to do was borrow the hand truck and find an old guy to help.
 

Creek's Are Rising

  As always, the creeks are changing.  Another chunk of the bank along Six Mile Creek was washed out in a storm, when the soil washed away, a tree using it to stay anchored came down and blocked what's left of the trail.  The reroute is working well and should as long as the creek doesn't jump the bank and flow down the existing trail.

   Downstream, Bolton Water is continuing to make a mess of the creek to add a water pipe under it to serve South Hill.  There's hope they'll finish before winter and the bank will be skiable so when the creek freezes there's a viable crossing.

   A piece of concrete below the 30' dam that has been getting battered by high water since 1903 finally got knocked out.  I can barely remember the message that was spray painted on it.

  Watkins Glen has undergone some changes since this photo was taken.  I'm not sure about the date of this pic, or how many winters those stairs lasted.

  Fall Creek reached levels not recorded since 1996, at least that's how the data looks from the USGS, but they're a sneaky bunch.  More of the diversion dam above Ithaca Falls washed away, I can barely remember the message that was spray painted on it.

Walking About

  A popular section of the Finger Lakes Trail in Danby got a much needed fix-up.  The Abbott Loop is a rough trail over quite a bit of rolling terrain cut by streams, I ran it once to impress a woman and learned running eight or nine miles is different than hiking the same distance.  After that, I was pretty sure Gail would stay with me whether I ran it or not and haven't tried again.  So far so good.  This is a new section of puncheon over a stream that shifted.

  We rebuilt two sections that had deteriorated beyond safe use.  It couldn't be done without getting in the mud a bit.  Wood and stone have combined for happier trails.

  I tested out an impressive stone carrier and came home and started shopping for one.

   Ross spent the most time in the mud.  Thanks for a valiant effort to him and everyone else who showed up, including Cornell students who helped haul materials a half-mile from the road.

  On a drier day, the largest group in the 48 years of the Caroline Walk About embarked on a jaunt that took us to a section of the FLT in Caroline/Berkshire.

  It's gotten so short, it doesn't get underway until late morning so Gail and I followed the old schedule and had a couple hours to hang out with Connie and Andy.  Nice to chill in their kitchen with them again.

    Will we make it to 50 years?  Stay tuned.