I took another run through the forums with fresh eyes, and a fresh mind this morning and I was able to sort out the library issue with the clock/calendar chip. I found the library I needed tucked into the software package for a similar set of sensors to the kit I’m working with. After installing that and testing the code I was given my next surprise - another error was being generated about referencing some kind of invalid object named “clock”.

The short version of the solution is that I needed to rename all occurrences of “clock” in the tutorial program to “clock1” because there was an even deeper reference to “clock” already be used by the system. Once renamed I was able to get the my test NodeMCU to recognize and connect to the RTC3231 Clock / Calendar chip, and update the time/date stamp to current.

I guess that means that means my next step will be mounting the chip into the Colonel, so I can try incorporating that info into the spreadsheet upload.