The Caretaker's Concern can be blamed on Wreck-Loose Island Publishing.
Send all complaints to:
WLIPublishing P.O. Box 1521 Bolton Landing, N.Y. 12814

WreckLooseIsland@yahoo.com

Friday, February 22, 2008

TCC for 2/22/08




The Caretaker's Concern 2/22/08
Ghetto temp. 47 F. and rising, hopefully.
Island tmp. 22 F. Yesterday's L/H: 20/24 F.
Current conditions: Sky completely cloud covered, no wind.

Today's snow storm that seemed to cause a bit of trouble in NYC and the tri-state area, only brought about 3 inches of snow here on the Island and Lake. It is a super fine powder that will probably blow away in the wind. It snowed all day, at times creating total whiteout conditions. Nothing too severe for too long, but for the most part the East shore was not visible for most if not all of the day. It's good to have the snow, too bad there isn't more of it. The Caretaker thought about going out for a ski on the Ice, but not knowing where is compass was and not feeling like looking for it he decided to pass on going for a ski. During snow storms it is always good to have a compass while out on the Lake, when you can't see either shore, you don't know where you are nor which direction you are going in. Sure you can follow your tracks back, but if it is snowing hard enough to fill in your tracks or the wind is blowing enough to wipe away your tracks you won't be going anywhere fast. So the Caretaker decided to save x-c skiing on the Ice for another day.

The Caretaker has still not picked up more fuel, he is running low on both propane and kerosene. The low quantity of kerosene does not bother him because he is seriously thinking about abandoning his kerosene heater, he is having too many problems with it. Although, to do this he must then rely more on propane, he is down to two 40 pound tanks, which should give him at least another week of heat, perhaps more. If all goes well, the Caretaker will be able to pick up more propane this coming Monday. In the meantime the Caretaker has switched over from his propane stove to his alcohol stove for heating tea-water in the Ghetto. This switch has not resulted in a compromise of the Caretaker's living situation. For those of you who are familiar with the traditional style alcohol burning backpacking stoves, you are well aware of the rather middling performance of such stoves. The Caretaker does not own one of those, if you are interested in ultra-light hiking, or just like to keep things simple, the Caretaker highly recommends the Brasslight brand of alcohol backpacking stove. It is a brilliant little device, the model that the Caretaker owns has just one moving part, and if it breaks or breaks off, the stove is still highly functional. The Caretaker won't go into further detail about this stove, you can find out all you want about it at the company's website:

http://www.brasslite.com

The Caretaker will share this about the stove, essentially it burns alcohol in a blowtorch fashion, thus burning much hotter (or at least much more effective) than traditional alcohol stoves. The Caretaker has owned this stove for some 5 or 6 years and it has yet to fail him. So, other than shifting around his heat sources and use of fuels, the Caretaker spent much of the day doing little else of interest.

--The Caretaker

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