TCC for 4/8/08

The Caretaker's Concern 4/8/08
Ghetto temp. 51 F. and dropping slowly.
Island tmp. 55 F. Yesterday's L/H: 30's/58 F.
Current conditions: Clear night, little to no wind.

It was a mostly quiet day on the Lake today, there was a light wind at times, it moved the ice a bit, but more of it just melted from the heat of the sun. With the Lake in transition, neither ice-fishermen nor boats can utilize the Lake, at least not that easily, so the Caretaker pretty much had the Lake to himself for the entire day. Given the light to no wind for much of the day, it was a rather relaxing day, much of the Caretaker's time was spent raking and burning.

The Caretaker needed something from his car over on the mainland so he hopped in the canoe and went for a night time paddle. The water was perfectly flat, the reflection of the stars on the water was an almost perfect image. Without paying attention one could almost lose track of which way was up and which way was down. The sky clear, the water flat, stars seemed to shimmer from all around. The Moon provided pleasant company amongst the stars, a waxing thumbnail, reflecting enough light to be seen, but not so much to shadow the stars. A Moon just right, it socialized well with the stars, mingling amongst them all through the night. Not so noisy to be rude, nor too quiet to be missed, a pleasant night time guest.

--The Caretaker

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

TCC for 4/6/08

The Caretaker's Concern 4/6/08
Ghetto temp. 45 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 35 F. Yesterday's L/H: ?/? F.
Current conditions: Clear sky, light South East wind, directly from the East shore.

Not much has happened to the Caretaker while he has been off-line these past few days. At first he was not able to connect to the internet via his internet provider, eventually that was resolved but not long after that the phone-line went dead. Now it seems as though all is well again in cyberspace.

A few of the highlights from the Caretaker's life these past few days are that he spent one afternoon rolling around on the ground in the mud fixing the exhaust of his replacement car ("new car" would most certainly be misleading). Initially he thought there was just the one hole in the exhaust, but after patching it and starting up the car he noticed that there was still quite a bit of noise. Upon further inspection he noticed that the noise was coming from the clean break of a weld just before the muffler. So back on to the ground and more rolling in the mud for the Caretaker, in the end he managed to fix the problems, however, he has still not put the car through inspection, perhaps next week, hopefully it will pass. Either way, the Caretaker's hope is that the car will last him through the Summer, after the Summer he will most likely be looking to get rid of it. Enough about the car.

As to his traffic ticket, the Caretaker managed to get it dismissed. Which was good for the Caretaker because if he didn't he stood to win 4 points on his license, a score he is most interested in keeping as low as possible--the only game where zero points keeps you a winner. The Caretaker had big plans for his April Fool's day report that would have involved his experience in court, unfortunately due to his lack of access to the internet he was not able to put out the report in a timely manner, and now it is far too late to be worth doing.

The Caretaker also managed to get all of his tax paper work filled out, which has taken a bit of weight of his shoulders. The Caretaker hopes to live to see the day our Nation rids itself of this totally inefficient tax system, if the Caretaker was in charge he would work towards a combination flat tax/consumption tax system.

The ice is thinning out more and more around the shorelines, and the main ice sheet is moving around more and more depending on the wind. Ice-out has begun, however it is in the very early stages. From the looks of things so far it may be a rather mundane ice-out, the type where the ice just slowly melts away with little to no ice-piling up on the shoreline. Although this makes for a rather unexciting ice-out it is great for photography and more importantly it is great for the docks--when the ice moves whatever is in its way does not usually stay so for long.

Spring has definitely arrived, the songs of birds are on the increase in number and variety. More and more Geese are migrating north. The other evening, late dusk, the Caretaker saw two bats flying for bugs and drinking water from the Lake. The sight of the bats pleased the Caretaker for two reasons, one is that it means they are already starting to reduce the bug population, second is that the bat colonies here in New York (and perhaps also much of New England in general) have been suffering from a facial fungus of some sort that has been killing off the bats during their winter hibernation. The sight of these two bats means that at least some of the bats in the area have survived. Lastly, the pan-ultimate sign of Spring: early the other morning the Caretaker heard the call of a Loon. Unfortunately this Lake does not provide enough protected waters for Loons to nest so the only time the Loons' call is heard is during their migrations. Passing through twice a year for only a brief amount of time, they formally mark the beginning of Spring and the end of Autumn here on the Lake--at least as far as the Caretaker is concerned.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 4/2/08

The Caretaker's Concern 4/2/08
Ghetto temp. 50 F. and rising.
Island tmp. ? F. Yesterday's L/H: ?/? F.
Current conditions:

No report today, top photo is from today, photo immediately below is from yesterday, other two photos are from the archive.

--The Caretaker