It has occurred to me, since a brief visit back to Earth (or is it "Earth1" or "other-Earth?"), that there is an entire, and perhaps uninhabited world here. There is of course the desire to make public my discovery, but the nation in which the rift to Earth2 occurs would inevitably claim it, and a war with other nations would inevitably result. Claiming it personally in a public forum (which I now have the money to do) and grandly ceding it to the U.N. would  result only in the larger developed powers fighting over it, which would come down to development and exploitation, and I somehow can't abide that. I find myself becoming more concerned about the rift being discovered inadvertently, but I've taken steps to reduce the probability of that.
The weather has turned to spectacular storms, and the temperatures are dropping, indicating, I suppose, some seasonal change. May I then infer the cause to be this planet is tilted on its axis, like Earth1? Who knows? I'm snug enough here in the Tower. I can enter and leave much more easily, since installing an electrically powered lift from the ground to the window. This has the added benefit of making my stores in the Tower more secure. The lift can be locked out when I am exploring, and if it is damaged, I have retained the independent manual hoisting system, which is stored separately under a cairn at some distance from the Tower.
I now have provisions for a year, so I feel that I might become more adventurous in my exploring. This, however, will be a very gradual process, as I must continually establish caches of food as I move further from the Tower, each containing sufficient provisions to get me back to the one next nearest the Tower. I must never lose sight of the fact that none of the abundant life here is edible....except to each other.
I have killed my first Earth2 animal. Quite impressive, some local equivalent of a carnivore, certainly having the teeth and claws for it. Vaguely reptilian, at a guess 4-500 pounds, but it might just as easily be a mammal or something else inside....being wary that it might have been a member of a pack, I left quickly the way I came, and didn't even try to do an anatomy. It was one of those spontaneous encounters, and after months here I wasn't expecting it. Fortunately, the creature apparently wasn't, either, and I apparently looked different enough from the things on its accustomed diet that it stood watching me, as I quietly and slowly unslung my shotgun and made ready. When it made up whatever passed for its mind, it came for me quickly enough, and I put a series of 12-gauge slugs into its face. It dropped on the fourth, and there was not much twitching or evident pain involved. Perhaps I hit a vital spot and simply shut it off, perhaps those things just work differently with the fauna here. I must always remember to refrain from making assumptions drawn from Earth1 animals.
I have made a trip of 100 miles (a guess, but reasonable) from the Tower and returned, attempting to construct a map on the journey. A compass seems to work here, indicating an apparently consistent direction.