TCC for 2/27/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/27/08
Ghetto temp. 50 F. and rising, for now.
Island tmp. low teens. Yesterday's L/H: 30/31.5 F.
Current conditions: Cloud covered sky, occasional wind gusts varying from the North and East. Cold and getting colder.

The Caretaker does not have the current temperature because he does not want to go outside to check the thermometer. It is probably somewhere in the teens, it is due to go down to around Zero F. The Ghetto is not insulated, and drafty, the Caretaker would prefer to retain as much heat as possible by not opening the door to go outside and check the temperature. Also, there is no photo from today, the above photos are from days past. It has been a driving snow all day long, the wind coming from the Narrows, blowing at a pretty good clip non-stop. The Caretaker did not feel like taking his camera out in the snow storm. However, if all goes well he will make up for today's lack of daily photo tomorrow. The first photo is of the top of Shelving Rock, the Caretaker's plan is to cross the Lake to the East shore and snowshoe to the top, tomorrow is forecast to be a clear sunny day, hopefully some good photos will be taken.

Not much to report today, the Caretaker dragged a ton of laundry over to his car this afternoon. He decided not to go to town to do laundry today. Instead he dropped it off at his car and then shoveled out the snow from around his car. While skiing over to the mainland the Caretaker saw a ice fisherman, well, technically it could have been a ice fisherwoman, but not likely. Not that women don't go ice fishing, but usually they have enough sense to not go sit on the ice over an ice hole in a snowstorm with winds of 10 to 20 mph, so, most likely it was a ice fisherman that the Caretaker saw while skiing over to the mainland. Some may say that the Caretaker is crazy for living on an Island in the Winter with no running water and marginal heat, but ice fishing in a snowstorm? Either that guy was very hungry, has very, very few chances to go ice fishing, or he and his wife don't get along all that much, then again, it may just be the the guy is about as crazy as the Caretaker. Whatever the case may have been the Caretaker did not go find out, his only plan was to keep moving until he got to his destination. After dropping off his laundry and shoveling out his car the Caretaker skied back to the Island and began making preparations for his field trip tomorrow.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/26/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/26/08
Ghetto temp. 43 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 29 F. Yesterday's L/H: 27/34 F.
Current conditions: Dense cloud coverage, snowing mildly, subtle wind from the East.

The snow began this morning and has been going pretty much nonstop, varying in intensity but overall it's been nothing but snow. In the afternoon the Caretaker decided he was in need of some exercise so he slapped on his skis and headed out on to the ice, he didn't get very far. After about 30 yards or so he turned back. Much of the snow from this storm is the damp heavy kind which is the one type of snow that sticks to the Caretaker's wax-less x-c skis. When the snow sticks to the skis it is no longer x-c skiing, instead it is walking with two heavy boards on your feet. Fun? Not so much. However, the Caretaker was not going out on the ice just to for exercise, his plan was to head over to his car to get a jump on snow removal. So, not wanting to have to walk, which is much slower than x-c skiing, the Caretaker decided he would try to slick his skis, not having any proper wax he thought he'd try spraying them with vegetable oil. Unfortunately the spray oil from the kitchen was too cold to flow through the nozzle. Not to be deterred the Caretaker grabbed a tub of vegetable shortening and a paper towel and headed out to his skis. After rubbing them down with the shortening the Caretaker headed back out on to the ice. The shortening was quite effective, unfortunately at about half the distance to the mainland the shortening wore away leaving the Caretaker with no other option but to walk the rest of the way with two boards on his feet.

Hopefully this snow will freeze up tonight making for better skiing conditions tomorrow. The Caretaker is hoping to be able to ski to town tomorrow to do some laundry. It has been awhile since the Caretaker has washed his clothes and he is starting to run low on long underwear.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/25/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/25/08
Ghetto temp. 52 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 28 F. Yesterday's L/H: 12/27 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, light bit of haze, rather dark. Mild wind from the South.

Mostly an uneventful day for the Caretaker, which is a good thing, his trip to Albany came off without a hitch, more or less. It was a two Martini lunch with S. and friends, when the Caretaker got back to the office his coworkers were a touch less than pleased with his performance at the monthly meeting, but the Caretaker doesn't care what the board thinks. Office politics, who needs 'em? Then again, when the board consists of a member of one, the office politics are rather easy to manage. Overall not much to report, the Caretaker pretty much spent the entire day on the mainland. However, he did score 105 pounds of propane, that should keep the Ghetto warm for awhile.

Today's top photo was taken at night with the use of a flashlight, the technic is called "painting with light", at least the is what the Caretaker read in a photography magazine awhile back. Weather report calls for a good amount of snow tomorrow--goody, goody, gumdrops. If all goes well the Caretaker will be skiing around on the East shore come Wednesday. Then again, most of the weather reports for this area this season have been less than accurate. So, tomorrow will be what tomorrow will be.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/24/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/24/08
Ghetto temp. 51 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 25 F. Yesterday's L/H: 9.5/26 F.
Current conditions: mostly clear. wind from the South, 5 to 10 mph.

For those who are interested the Caretaker has finally gotten around to writing and posting the reports for the past 8 or 9 days. He apologizes for not getting them out in a timely manner. It is highly suggested that if you are interested in reading these late reports that you begin with the report from February 14th and work your way forward. To the left is an archive, by clicking on the date the corresponding report will open.

Here are a few of the "highlights" from some of the reports from the 14th to today:

Caretaker spends 5 to 6 hours getting his car out of the snow and running.
Caretaker stays inside most of the day to avoid the ice raining from trees.
Caretaker stays inside most of the day to work on his portfolio.
Caretaker runs mild risk of being blown by the wind across the ice.
Caretaker tromps around in water soaked boots, car battery goes dead again.
Caretaker pulled over by police; sees a man get tazered; lunch with S.
Caretaker watches Moonrise from mainland, Eclipse from the ice.
Caretaker fails to repair car for inspection, successful at repairing phone line.

All of the above and more can be read about in the reports from 2/14/08 to 2/23/08. And now, without further adieu, today's report:

It seems as though the phone line has repaired itself over night, thus the Caretaker is able to send out new reports. How soon until the phone line breaks itself again? Who knows? Who cares? The phone company's automated system did call the Caretaker's cell phone to confirm the appointment for tomorrow is still on. The Caretaker has decided to cancel it, he needs to get down to Albany tomorrow. After tomorrow the phone company can repair (or not repair) the line whenever they see fit. Just to note, in the future, should the line breakdown again, the Caretaker will try and make a point to write the reports on a daily basis and put them up on the blog en masse whenever he gets on-line on the mainland. Also, the Caretaker has received some comments on the blog, he apologizes for not being able to respond right away to those asking for a response. The Caretaker has been busy of late, but once this report goes up he will provide a response, at least try to, to be honest, he is not completely sure how to respond, but he'll figure it out. As far as comments go, the Caretaker does appreciate them and he encourages you fine readers to make them, but please do not be offended if you do not receive a response right away.

The Caretaker woke up this morning to a Ghetto temperature of 37 degrees F. It seems as though 3000 btu's is not enough heat to keep the Ghetto warm, at least not on a night with a low of 9 F. For tonight the Caretaker has switched heaters thus boosting the btu's, this should keep the Ghetto at a warmer temperature, if not, he will have to go back to kerosene, which means he will have to come up with permanent solutions to the problems he has been having with the kerosene heater. Stupid heater.

The Caretaker stepped out of the Ghetto this morning to Lake effect snow falling from the sky. The combination of cold air, high humidity, and open water around the docks resulted in a mild dusting of snow crystals, each about a quarter inch in size, give or take, blanketing the trees and the Island. The Caretaker had intended on getting some photos of these sizable crystals, but he was side tracked by a phone call and by the time he got back outside, the sunlight had melted all of the new fallen snow.

The Caretaker skied over to the mainland to drop off one last empty propane tank at his car and install a battery kill switch to his car battery. The kill switch will make it much easier for the Caretaker to manage the car's electrical problem until he can get it fixed properly. Before heading back to the Island the Caretaker got involved in a political discussion of sorts with G., this went on for at least a half an hour or so. The overall consensus seems to be that choices for Vice President is going to have a large impact upon who people will vote for, at least as far as the Caretaker is concerned.

It was a sunny clear day, a bit of wind out of the South but nothing too chilling. Quite a number of people out ice fishing and others snowmobiling or AtV-ing. As a child the Caretaker did his fair share of snowmobiling, now a days he does not care for the noise, at least not the noise of the 2-stroke's, the 4-stroke's seem to be much quieter, which is a good thing, however the Caretaker would want one that has no engine noise, until then, the Caretaker will continue to enjoy his cross-country skis. Today's photos are of the North end of Dome island, the bottom photo is of the ice pile up, it is about 6 feet high, unfortunately it is covered with an inch or so of snow so the ice is not all too visible. It's looking like the Caretaker will now be able to ski over to the East shore, yipp-ee. After tomorrow he will make a point to get over there and start going through the mountains there. Then again, if he gets back from Albany early enough, perhaps he'll ski over there tomorrow.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/23/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/23/08
Ghetto temp. 40 F. and rising, slowly
Island tmp. 23 F. Yesterday's L/H: 21.5/23 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, some clouds off to the East. Mild wind from the North East.

It turns out that the Caretaker did not fix the phone line, that is why this report did not go out in a timely manner (the same for yesterday's report). The phone company's automated phone service claims a repair person will be here Monday, the Caretaker is not holding his breath. There is a strong possibility that the phone company may not be willing to send a repair person across the ice to the Island, which would mean that the Caretaker will be without internet service on the Island for either a little while, or for the duration of the winter. If such is the case, the Caretaker will not be able to send out reports everyday, however, he will still make a point to write the reports and put them up on the blog whenever he can get on line.

The day started out very dense with clouds, much of the morning was rather dark with a bit of wind from the Narrows making for a cold feeling morning. Come the afternoon the clouds began to give way, and so too the wind. The Caretaker spent the day on the Island doing a bit of tidying up, he thought about going out on the ice on his x-c skis, but thinking about it is as far as he got. Come nightfall the Caretaker did walk out on to the ice to check the conditions, the snow has caused a slush layer in some places, hopefully the slush layer is not wide spread on the ice.

--The Caretaker

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

TCC for 2/21/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/21/08
Ghetto temp. 40 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 22.5 F. Yesterday's L/H: 12/27 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, light layer of clouds, little to no wind.

It was a mostly cloudless day, a bit of wind from the West, gusty at times. It's good when the wind comes from the West because Clay Island blocks much of the wind from hitting here on the Island. The Caretaker walked the ice to try and fix his parking break, after some labor he was able to properly route the cable that had come out of place, unfortunately this did not solve the problem, it appears that the parking break still does not hold. So, realizing that the repair was beyond his ability with the tools on hand he figured he might as well look into the electrical problem which amounted to him checking the fuzes for the devices that have stopped working, unfortunately none of the fuzes were blown. Thus concluded the Caretaker's attempted repair work. With nothing left to do on the mainland the Caretaker walked the ice back to the Island.

Upon returning to the Island the Caretaker became aware that the Island phone line was dead. After unplugging all of the phones he went to the connection box and plugged in a phone to see if the problem was in the house lines or in the telephone company's line. The test seemed to show that it was in the phone company's line. So using his cell phone he called the phone company to report the problem. After performing a line test the automated system said that a repair person would be out the following day. This made the Caretaker smile, he highly doubted that a repair person would walk the ice, during a snow storm. While going to reconnect the phones the Caretaker noticed that one of the phone cords used to connect the handset to the wall jack was corroded over on one of the terminals. His deduction was that this is perhaps the cause of the problem, it could be generating a cross or dead signal or whatever but either way was probably telling the phone company's system that the phone was off the hook, thus the phone company's system would shut down the line. Sure enough that was it, after waiting a half an hour or so the Caretaker plugged the phone back in using a different cord and there was a dial tone. In the past, every once in a while the phone line would go dead for a while and then come back on. The Caretaker could never figure out why, now he knows.

There is talk of snow tomorrow, the early report was calling for 6 to 8 inches, by the afternoon it had been reduced to about 3 inches. Whatever the amount turns out to be, hopefully it will be enough to ski on. The ice has been mostly bare but for a very thin layer of snow with occasional patches making for terrible skiing ice and none too sporty skating ice. It will be good if it is a substantial snow, in a few days the Caretaker might then be able to ski over to the East shore.

In other news, the Caretaker has been wondering how it is that he has been put on the fake Rolex spam list. Pretty much everyday he gets at least two or more spams advertising "great deals on fake Rolex watchs". Well, he doesn't really wonder why or how it is he is on this list, but he does find it mildly amusing. The Caretaker doesn't wear a watch. There are times when the Caretaker loses track of what day of the week it is let alone what time it is.

--The Caretaker