TCC for 5/17/08

All photos from today, shown in order taken.







The Caretaker's Concern 5/17/08
Lake Temp. 53F.
Ghetto temp. 60 F.
Island tmp. 60 F. Yesterday's L/H: 52/58 F.
Current conditions: total cloud coverage, little to no wind, damp and moist from earlier rain.

Report will follow tomorrow morning.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/16/08

The Caretaker's Concern 5/16/08
Lake Temp. 52.5F.
Ghetto temp. 55 F.
Island tmp. 56 F. Yesterday's L/H: 54/64 F.
Current conditions: total cloud coverage, no wind.

The Caretaker was finally able to get over to Clay island and do some leaf wrangling, he was a bit concerned about losing his raking form due to a lack of practice, but after just a few swift sweeps of the rake he was back in fighting shape. Enough with the leaf wrangling, even the Caretaker is getting board of it.

While in town today doing some errands the Caretaker noticed that much was in bloom, all the Spring flowers on the plants, and bushes, and trees, were creating quite a cornucopia of aromas for the noses. The Caretaker should make a point to get into town more often, using some of his free time to dawdle amongst the villagers' many various floral plantings. Given all the polluting noxious fumes we have pumped into our atmosphere, it is good, every once in a while, to provide the nose with something other than say, vehicular exhaust. Take your nose on a holiday, go smell the flowers. Treat the world, plant a garden, be it floral, produce, herb or mix of all three, it will make the Earth sing.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/15/08

The images from the Caretaker's field trip to Shelving Falls on the 13th of May have been posted on his new blog, the narrative will follow at a later date, (yet to be determined). The link to the Caretaker's new blog: The Caretaker's Travels, can be found just to the left.





The Caretaker's Concern 5/15/08
Lake Temp. 52F.
Ghetto temp. 60 F.
Island tmp. 59.75 F. Yesterday's L/H: 48.5/65.5 F.
Current conditions: Little to no wind, sparse cloud coverage, intermittent fingers of clouds streaked across the night sky, a touch of haze mildly obscuring the moon which is illuminating a large ring around it. Moon is a touch beyond half, lighting the Island in a soft blue-white, glow.

Early midmorning the Caretaker went for a paddle to do what he was supposed to do yesterday. The sky overcast with clouds, there was a brisk wind from the South, the Caretaker paddled the canoe around the North point of Clay Island to avoid as much of the wind and wave action as possible. This time around the Caretaker remembered to bring the house key, and his work gloves. While watering the house plants it began to rain, this was not looking good for the Caretaker's leaf wrangling practice session on Clay Island. After passing through the isthmus between Clay island and the mainland, out on the main body of he Lake, the cloud obscured Sunlight glimmered chrome on the ebony colored water.

The paddle back started in a mild rain that became progressively heavier, the Southerly wind began to pick up a bit, neither of which became too heavy and the temperature wasn't too cool, making for a rather pleasant paddle back. Unfortunately the Caretaker wasn't sure how long the rain would last, so he decided to put off the Clay island leaf wrangling for yet another day. Wrangling wet leaves is a rather slow arduous process, besides, it is the antithesis of the conditions used for competitive leaf wrangling, so more often than not to practice under such conditions only serves to ruin strong leaf wrangling form. With such sound reasoning the Caretaker shirked this responsibility for yet another day and merrily paddled his way home.

Later on in the morning the wind eventually died down calm. It remained this way for a while, but then come early mid afternoon the wind picked up again from the East, coming from the Narrows with many fast feet. When the wind picked up the Caretaker was up top a ladder on Cocktail point removing an outdoor light fixture from a tree that was slated to be cut down in the next few weeks. Having little interest in practicing his sky dive landing technique he decided that the light fixture could be brought down at another time and so descended the ladder. (Not that the Caretaker has a sky dive landing technique, although he imagines that there must be a lot of the bending of the knees involved.)

From there the Caretaker went on to do some other electrical work, mill wood, and various other Island work into the early evening. Hopefully tomorrow will be the day that the Caretaker can finally get some leaf wrangling practice in, if he doesn't he runs the risk of losing his title of "Professional Leaf Wrangler". Meh.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/14/08

The Caretaker's Concern 5/14/08
Lake Temp. 53.5 F.
Ghetto temp. 65 F.
Island tmp. 65 F. Yesterday's L/H: 48.5/63.5 F.
Current conditions: Total cloud coverage, mild to moderate in density, light wind from the North.

Late in the morning the Caretaker had planned to canoe over to G. G.'s to water the house plants and then stop in at Clay Island for some more leaf wrangling. After arriving at G. G.'s the Caretaker realized that he forgot the house key, so he hopped back in the canoe and paddled over to Clay. After arriving at Clay he realized that he had forgotten his work gloves, not that the Caretaker is above working barehanded, but he is in the habit of wearing gloves when working with his hands and to wrangle leaves without gloves would most likely cause friction burns on the palms and fingers of his hands. Once these friction burns become calloused all is well, however, during the interim it can make things a touch difficult with hands being tender and raw. So the Caretaker hopped back in the canoe and paddled back home, by now it was almost lunch time so the Caretaker lunched. The off Island obligations will have to wait for later.

While preparing his lunch the Caretaker heard a loud bang come from the South end of the Island. He went out to investigate. On the South side of the South dock was a center console type boat with three men in it, they were holding on to the dock, a fourth was standing on the dock with his fishing rod in hand.

"Having boat trouble?" The Caretaker asked, he wasn't very pleased and made sure his tone expressed this.
"We got hung up on the dock here." Said one of the men in the boat.
Knowing that this was false the Caretaker responded, "will you need help getting unhung up?"
"Oh no, we're all set."
Seeing a bunch fishing rods and gear in the boat the Caretaker asked, "how's the fishing?"
"We just got started."
By this time the fourth man was working his way back into the boat.
"Good luck fishing," said the Caretaker. He then turned his back on them and walked towards the house to finish preparing his lunch. The boat of fishermen motored away from the dock.

Every once in a while this sort of thing happens, the last time it was a pontoon boat full of "Easterners", they had brought their boat up along side of the South shore of the Island. When the Caretaker came upon them, two men from the boat were standing on the South shore, this was a mildly amusing incident, but the Caretaker will share this story at another time.

After lunch the Caretaker began the ritual raking and burning, once the fire was started he moved on to do some milling work. At one point in time, while adding some more brush to the fire the Caretaker noticed a family of Geese over on Little Recluse Island. Grabbing his camera and tripod the Caretaker took a few minutes to get some photos. Baby water fowl are certainly cute, too bad there are far too many Geese, cute as they may be as younglings, as adults they can be quite a nuisance (as flying crap machines). If the Caretaker was smart he would get his hunting license so he can harvest some Geese come the proper season. Sometime ago the Caretaker came up with a way to go at it with a Goose in hand to hand combat, he should probably give it a go some day. Arrrrrrr.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/13/08

The Caretaker's Concern 5/13/08
Lake Temp. 52F.
Ghetto temp. 60 F.
Island tmp. 60.5 F. Yesterday's L/H: 50/58 F.
Current conditions: Almost crystal clear night, little to no wind.

After some breakfast, the Caretaker went out on a dandelion hunt, he wanted to catch all the flowers that had bloomed before they turned to seed. After a short walk around the Island, picking the bright yellow flowers as he went, his efforts resulted in a hand full of sunshine. After observing this collection of yellow glow in his hand he summarily through it in the trash. Even when decapitated, dandelion flowers will turn to seed so there is no point in composting them only to wind up planting more dandelions.

After getting some work done on the Island the Caretaker canoed over to Clay island for some recreational raking. The Caretaker had plans for the afternoon so he could only wrangle leaves for about an hour. After leaving Clay to return to the Island, approaching quietly in the canoe, the Caretaker noticed a Blue Heron standing on the South Boathouse dock, wings akimbo, sunning itself. The Caretaker was only able to get about 20 feet from the South dock before the Heron took flight. Always calming to watch a Heron fly; disturbing to hear its call.

The Caretaker grabbed some lunch, packed his camera and a few other things and headed off towards log bay. The Caretaker decided it was high time he went on a field trip, the last time he had done so was back in February. The wind was coming from the Narrows so there would be no burning on the Island for the day and the rest of what needed to be done could be put off for an afternoon. Today's field trip was to Shelving falls. It was a great field trip, the Caretaker had a great time. He took lots of photos, so many that he has decided to start a new blog. The Caretaker's plan for the rest of the Summer is to go on a field trip at least once a week, the images and commentary for these field trips will be posted on a separate blog, if you are a regular reader of The Caretaker's Concern you will be notified when photos and text from a field trip are posted to the new blog. By starting this new blog the Caretaker will also be able to post photos and text from his field trips from years past. If all goes well the Caretaker will have this new blog up in the next few days.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/12/08

The Caretaker's Concern 5/12/08
Lake Temp. 51F.
Ghetto temp. 56 F.
Island tmp. 56 F. Yesterday's L/H: 50/64 F.
Current conditions: thin layer of clouds from horizon to horizon lightly obscuring the moon, little to no wind.

The text reports from May 1st to May 11th, 2008 will be published by the end of this week.

The Caretaker began his morning by baking some biscuits, this was prompted by his need to use up the resulting whey from making cream cheese last week. The biscuits tasted well enough, although, melted butter will make most anything taste good (maybe not watermelon), however, the Caretaker does need to work on his kneading technique before he would be ready to serve homemade biscuits to anyone. In short, he over kneaded the dough, but not by much.

Later in the morning the Caretaker went to have himself a shower (the conventional kind), so he would be clean and tidy for his trip to town (well, maybe not the tidy part), anyway, he went to have himself a shower, all undressed waiting for the hot water when the house phone rang. The Caretaker knew that this could possibly be an important call so not wanting the answering machine to take the call before he could the Caretaker dashed to the phone undressed. It was an important call, contractor G. wanted to come by in the next 10 minutes to make an assessment for a job to give a quote on. So the Caretaker got dressed without having his shower and waited for contractor G. After contractor G. left the Caretaker repeated the process from earlier, just about to set the cold tap with the hot tap for the optimum shower temperature when the phone rang again. So, the Caretaker quickly shut off the taps and dashed to the phone again, undressed, thus repeating this earlier process also. This time on the phone it was the cleaning lady, she was calling to inform the Caretaker that she and her crew would not be coming out for the Spring housecleaning before Memorial Day weekend, (May 24th to 26th), but instead would be coming out after Memorial Day weekend. The Caretaker thanked her for calling and that he would make note of the date change. While walking back to his interrupted shower, the Caretaker made note of the cleaning lady's total lack of responsibility, to do a Spring housecleaning after Memorial Day weekend sort of defeats the purpose of a Spring cleaning, at least as far as entertaining goes. So, it looks as though at the very least the Caretaker will be responsible for covering the basics of the Spring cleaning. Which, the Caretaker doesn't really mind, it just means one more thing on the list. Waiting for the shower water to get hot a third time, the phone rang again. The Caretaker ignored it and got on with his shower, he would call whoever it was afterwards.

While in town the Caretaker noticed that there were some rather nice flowers in bloom, quite a number of tulips of all sorts of colors. While checking out at the grocery store, the cashier remarked that the Caretaker looked like the son of Grizzly Adams, in response the Caretaker laughed. (The Caretaker has been growing his beard for almost a year now with absolutely no trimming, no shower alone will make him look tidy.)

After returning to the Island and doing a bit of this and that, the Caretaker made more cream cheese, this time with garlic. He also made more cream cheese icing, this was made with store bought cream cheese and not the garlic cream cheese. Although, that might be worth trying.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 5/11/08

The Caretaker's Concern 5/11/08
Lake Temp. 49F.
Ghetto temp. 62 F. and dropping.
Island tmp. 63 F. Yesterday's L/H: 50/60.5 F.
Current conditions: Mild cloud coverage, hazing the moon gently, light Southerly wind with occasional gusts.

The daily text report has been suspended from May 1st, 2008 to after the weekend of May 10th/11th, 2008. However, daily photos will still be posted.

--The Caretaker