TCC for 4/7/08

The Caretaker's Concern 4/07/08
Ghetto temp. 49.5 F. and dropping slowly.
Island tmp. 50 F. Yesterday's L/H: 30ish/50ish F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, occasional wind gusts from the South East.

The Caretaker awoke this morning with the light of the Sun shining through the East window of the Ghetto. The average temperatures are high enough to allow for the window shutters to remain open throughout the day and night with an acceptable amount of heat loss, this is good. Looking out the window, prior to getting up, the Caretaker noticed a pile of branches with strings of webs glistening in the early morning sunlight, this work of spiders is another sign of Spring, this too is good.

Today was a day of rake and burn, much of the Caretaker's time was spent raking up branches and burning them. Throughout the morning there was little to no wind, with the Sun shining combined with the Caretaker's exertion he had to remove his under-layer of clothing, this was a first since last October. Throughout the entire winter here on the Island, long underwear day and night is an absolute necessity, a second skin of sorts. Well, maybe not a necessity, but who wants to be cold? The Caretaker hopes the current warming trend continues with little to no steps backward. A further sign of Spring is that the warmth of the Sun is pleasantly easier to feel.

As the afternoon rolled around the wind began to pick-up, two days in a row the wind has come directly from the East shore, the Caretaker can count on one hand how many times the wind comes from the East shore in a year, rare indeed. It has made for a marginally interesting ice-out so far, the wind has been pushing the ice in the exact wrong direction that the Caretaker would want it to go, at least for photography purposes, most all of the open water has now become ice covered thus preventing reflections. However, the current ice flow is perfect for the docks, they are well protected by the Island, not that this Ice would do any damage, it has thawed such that it is mostly just slush. If the Caretaker had himself a bunch of corn syrup, artificial flavoring, artificial coloring, and whatever other toxins the industrial food complex uses to make slush drinks--if the Caretaker had all these he could probably get himself into the "Guinness Book of World Records" for having created the World's largest slushy drink. He would also probably get into the record books for having caused the largest fish die-off in Lake history. Good think the Caretaker doesn't have any ties to the industrial food complex.

--The Caretaker