TCC for 2/10/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/10/08
Ghetto temp. 47 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 20 F. Yesterday's L/H: 28/31 F.
Current conditions: Light snow, wind from the South mostly mild, occasional gusts from the West to North West.

The day started out mostly mild, even quite a bit of sun and sky, but then the wind began to pick up from the West shore. Blustery at times. Occasional snow falls, late afternoon there was a snow squall. Dark, thick clouds, high winds, blowing snow, etc. Overall a quiet day for the Caretaker, some outside work in the morning, some inside work in the afternoon. In the morning before the wind picked up, out on the Boathouse South dock in the sun it was rather pleasant, such that the Caretaker decided to engage in some Free-Form T'ai-Chi Ch'uan. This is the Caretaker's own brand of T'ai-Chi, unlike traditional methods of T'ai-Chi; Free-Form is not intended to be meditative, not that it can't be, but the focus of Free-Form T'ai-Chi is activity for both the body and the mind. What is Free-Form T'ai-Chi? The movements of Free-Form are similar to traditional in execution but that is about it. There are no set moves, you continually make them up as you go along. Having to continually make up the moves serves to stimulate the mind, thus not just providing exercise to the body, but also the mind. The Caretaker will expand upon this at another time.

In honor of Valentine's Day this week, the Caretaker has decided to include some "poems" in the posts leading up to the holiday. Some of the poems are from year's past, others will be new. The intent will be to cover some of the many aspects of love, this first one dwells on a cynical view of love. Should you be in need of some nice sentiments for the one you love, and have yet to come up with something, by all means, feel free to make use of what you read here over the next few days--that is if you should find them worthy enough to repeat. If you'd like, use them whole or in part, or as inspiration. If you'd like, pass them off as your own (for personal use only), or perhaps, the more likely, for comic relief. Whatever you do, be sure to have a happy Valentine's day and do whatever it takes to make it special. The Caretaker does not recommend the following poem as a "sweet nothing" to share with your loved one, but being the first of the week today he decided it would be best to dispense with it at the beginning.

"Love Is So"

Love is language,
debated.
Love is bondage,
overrated.

Love is so erogenous,
so fluid.
Love is so ambiguous,
so stupid.

Love is joy,
all the anger.
Love is coy,
all the stranger.

Love is so plenty when new.
Love is so much to so many.
Love true,
Happens so few.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/9/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/9/08
Ghetto temp. 44 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 31 F. Yesterday's L/H: 23/29 F.
Current conditions: mild breeze from the South 5 to 10 mph, light sleet.

Colder temperatures of late have iced over much of the open water. Hopefully the trend will continue. For the first half of the day the Caretaker spent his time organizing and cleaning things up outside. For the later half of the day he spent his time cooking. One of the things he did was to do some cleaning out of the refrigerator. He came across a tub of crumbled blue cheese. The Caretaker rarely if ever eats real blue cheese by choice, big fan of the dressing with hot foods, etc. but the real deal? Eh. Soooo, obviously this blue cheese is left over from some time in the Summer, chances are the "freshest" it could be is from late September. The Caretaker's first thought was to just throw it out, he wouldn't be too inclined to eat "fresh" blue cheese, even less inclined to eat "aged" blue cheese. Then a question came to him, does blue cheese go bad? or does it just get "bluer"? Doesn't blue cheese start out "bad"? So this blue cheese, at least 5 months old is actually better? The Caretaker has yet to come up with an answer to this, and so he has decided to keep the blue cheese. He doesn't anticipate getting a hankering for blue cheese anytime soon, however, if it does prove to be safe to eat, and should things here on the Island get dire, the blue cheese might not be such a bad thing after all. It could prove to be quite handy for flavoring rice.

"When things GET dire?" you ask. No running water, marginal heat, sequestered on an Island during ice-in, when do things GET dire? When the Caretaker, in desperate need of something for dessert, and nothing else is left but cool-aid and rice, cooks some rice in cool-aid and eats it as dessert, which would probably follow a meal of rice cooked with "aged" blue cheese. However, the Caretaker is a long way off from being that desperate. In fact, just today the Caretaker cooked up a big batch of potato, corn chowder. Well, he was only mildly desperate today, not for having to make chowder from corn and potatoes, in fact it was a soup base that his step-mother was kind enough to give him, thank you, rather he was mildly desperate because one of the ingredients needed for the chowder was milk. The Caretaker has no milk on the Island, so in it's place the Caretaker whipped up some rice milk from scratch and used that instead. Certainly not as creamy as dairy milk, but the rice milk certainly worked well enough. If he wanted something creamier, he could have made soy milk from scratch, if he had planned ahead, but he didn't, and he didn't want to wait the 8 hours it takes to soak the soybeans before the soy milk can be made. So, he made rice milk and made the chowder with that, the Caretaker will be enjoying this chowder for the next few days, it should keep him from having to try the blue cheese.

So after the Caretaker finished cleaning up from his cooking and mealing, mealing? Why not? "Eating" is so... the last some odd thousand years or so. Now a days, those who really enjoyed their food: "mealed"

For example, the phone rings:
"Hi, I'm calling from the United Divided Workers for the Gainfully Unemployed, are you familiar with our cause?"
"Can you call back at another time? I'm mealing."
"Oh, sorry to interrupt, please enjoy your meal. I'll call at another time. Good-bye."

Or:

"So, how was dinner at your in-laws?"
"Good."
"Good? How good?"
"It was mealy."

Anyway, you get the point, not sure if the Caretaker does, but that's for another time. So the Caretaker finished with the dishes, was he dishing? Meh. Right. After cleaning up the Caretaker replenished his kitchen water supply, then got rid of the waste water. While out for the water it had begun to snow. There was little to no wind and it was a light to moderate snow, what the Caretaker would call a pleasant snow. It almost seems to give off a warmth.
A maker of quiet moments,
Beautiful white, blankets the ground.
This most pleasant downfall
Wonderfully surrounds.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/8/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/8/08
Ghetto temp. 44 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 24 F. Yesterday's L/H: 25/37 F.
Current conditions: Little to no wind, half the sky is wide open, star filled points South and West from the Island. The other half of the sky is dense with clouds, lounging low to the ground points North and East from the Island.

Still further loss of ice. If the Caretaker wanted to he could bring the canoe over to the East shore, drop it in the water and start paddling. The open water appears to reach almost all the way over to the East shore of the Lake. The weather report calls for snow tonight and tomorrow, if it turns out it doesn't snow, the Caretaker will probably go for a paddle to see how far indeed the open water does reach towards the East shore. Not much, if any, in the way of open sky and sunlight today, not much in the way of either of the two this entire week. Perhaps next week. Then again, perhaps the coming snow will be enough to ski one. Perhaps.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/7/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/7/08
Ghetto temp. 52 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 26 F. Yesterday's L/H: 24/36 F.
Current conditions: Light snow, medium to large flakes. Little to no wind.

It was a decent snow fall last night, however the wind was such that much of the snow was blown right off the Island. Although a considerable amount of snow did remain, x-c skiing on the Island is not yet an option, there are still a number spots that are too thin of snow--a complete loop of a usable size is yet to be had.

The blowing wind has opened up the Ice between here and Clay. The wind has been blowing from the Narrows for the past few days at such a sustained force that the Caretaker is somewhat surprised that much more of the ice has not broken up. Eventually the wind died down today, hopefully it will stay away with the coming cold temperatures so all this open water will freeze over again.

This dark water glares out of the surrounding bright snow covered ice like a gash, and the wound seems to be only getting bigger. Hopefully the cold will come soon, hopefully it will be deep, hopefully it will reach into the water and heal it over with a thick layer of ice.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/6/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/6/08
Ghetto temp. 39 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 30 F. Yesterday's L/H: 38/32 F.
Current conditions: Complete cloud coverage, wind mixed from the East and North, out of the Narrows and the NorthWest Bay, 15 to 20 mph, gusting to 25/35.

The wind never gave up the entire night and into this morning. When the Caretaker emerged from the Ghetto for the first time today he was greeted by the sight of a snow covered Island peppered with green pine needles. While out and about, a number of branches were noticed to have come down from the trees--mostly white pine. During the night the Caretaker heard an occasional crash upon the roof of the Ghetto, his assumption was that it was a result of limbs being brought down due to the high winds. Thus he was not all too surprised to see a few crooked tree limbs splayed out awkwardly on the Island--their dark black bark in deep contrast to the white snow. Next time the wind blows from the South the Caretaker will have himself a good burn-off.

The winds of late have worn away more of the ice, the distance between the Island and open water is now down to 50 yards or so. If this keeps up the Caretaker will be able to go canoeing without the need for ski poles. Overall, last night, not a good time to be squirrel.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/5/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/5/08
Ghetto temp. 53 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 35 F. Yesterday's L/H: 32.5/37 F.
Current conditions:
Light fog, mild wind from the South

Today was cloudy and foggy for most of the day. There was a brief break of some sunlight and blue sky which the Caretaker was able to catch some photos of. The Caretaker is looking forward to when this current weather system blows out of here, however it is not looking like it will happen anytime soon. Come nightfall it began to sleet which then turned to rain. Late at night, at around 2 am the Caretaker was in bed having slept for a while then he woke up for no apparent reason. Five minutes later he heard a tremendous crack of thunder. It was like an explosion right above the Island, it thundered across the sky from North to South. The Caretaker found this a bit disquieting. Not because he doesn't care for thunder and lightening, here on the Island it is a regular occurrence during the warmer months. Both the lightening and thunder can be very impressive at times. Just this last June there was a storm that thundered so close over head that during one crack the Caretaker felt the concussion in his chest. Many times the show of lightening is much more impressive than fireworks. What the Caretaker found disquieting about last nights crash of thunder was the time of year, although it is possible for there to be thunder and lightening in the winter it is not very common.

The Caretaker heard some while back that there is no word for either rain and/or thunder and lightening in the Inuit language. This is because neither of these events ever occurred up in the far North reaches of the continent. The Caretaker can not confirm the truth of this, but he does know that in recent years they have had to come up with words for these events. Apparently global warming has caused rain storms where traditionally there where only snow storms.

In other news, the Caretaker's friend B. was kind enough to pass on some information as to why the sky is blue. Special thanks to her for passing on the information. The Caretaker had it totally wrong, the oceans have nothing to do with the color of the sky. The link to this information, for those who are interested, is below:

http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/sky_blue.html

To read the part specifically on the color of the sky scroll down a bit to "Why is the Sky Blue".

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/4/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/4/08
Ghetto temp. 52 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 32 F. Yesterday's L/H: 26/37 F.
Current conditions: No wind, complete cloud coverage.

Yet another slow day on the Island. The recent warm weather is slowly melting the snow, this morning felt like early, early Spring--cool humidity. In the afternoon the Caretaker stepped outside of the Ghetto and heard a loud slap, it sounded much like a gun shot from a .22 rifle. The Caretaker looked up and saw a Eagle taking flight. It had been roosting on a tree just off the North corner of the Ghetto. The sound was the slap of its wings coming together upon taking flight. The Caretaker went down to Cocktail point to watch where it might fly to. It landed on the ice about 500 yards off the North side of Cocktail point. The Caretaker ran back for his camera, unfortunately by the time he returned the Eagle was nowhere to be seen. Oh well, perhaps next time.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/3/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/3/08
Ghetto temp. 55 F. and steady
Island tmp. 35 F. Yesterday's L/H: 26/32 F.
Current conditions: Little to no wind, complete cloud coverage.

It has been a mostly colorless day. The cloud coverage has been so thick that the sun only appeared vaguely for a few moments. The diffused light stripped most all of the color from the scenery. Mostly a day of gray and white. The Caretaker spent the day in front of the fire in the main house giving his kerosene heater a complete overhaul. A pleasant day of repose.

--The Caretaker