TCC for 11/21/08

The Caretaker's Concern 11/21/08

Lake Temp. 46 F.
Ghetto temp. 52 F.
Island tmp. 23 F. Yesterday's L/H: 24/32.5 F.

Current conditions: Crystal clear star filled night, just after dusk the galaxy was rather visible, late into the night it was still visible but not as distinct. At dusk a planet was illuminated brightly enough for its light to be reflected on the water. Wind is from the North, mostly mild, less than 5 mph. The wind was from the North all day, not too strong but strong enough to make you cold pretty quick. Mostly sunny day, out of the wind and in the sunlight it was rather pleasant.

11/21/08


11/21/08


11/21/08


11/21/08


The first half of the day was rather uneventful, the second half of the day was a time for packages, the Caretaker received two packages which made him happy. Unfortunately the one package he is waiting on still has not arrived, this made him at touch displeased. Chances are this one package he is looking to arrive won't come tomorrow, Saturday, he is hoping it will come Monday, if not, then he will be rather displeased. Of the two packages that did arrive one was a replacement for a part of his "no running water, water system". The Caretaker knows that he had mentioned in the past that he would have posted an explanation of his water system by now but he his schedule has kept him too busy and since one of the key parts of his water system has totally failed he has decided he will hold off on the explanation until he can work out a replacement. Speaking of a replacement, he did hear back from one of the manufacturers that he was hoping to patronize, turns out their product won't work for the Caretaker unless he gets hold of a water pump. The Caretaker would rather not do that, he would much rather have a gravity fed system. It's looking more and more like the Caretaker will have to build his own tankless water heater, however he won't be able to get started on that until after the weekend and possibly not until the end of next week.

The replacement for a part of his water system that arrived today was definitely a plus, especially since he no longer has his tankless water heater. For the past three Winters the Caretaker used an enameled pot that held about three gallons of water and had a spigot. He would use this for rinse water to do dishes, being a metal pot he would fill it with warm water and then run the soapy dishes underneath the water from the spigot, it makes rinsing very convenient. However his enameled pot has started to rust on the inside, so he decided it was high time to upgrade to a stainless steel pot with a spigot. Last week he had picked up a spigoted pot but it was made of aluminum, which certainly would have worked but not wanting to run the risk of contaminating himself with aluminum he decided he should return it and splurge on a stainless steel one. He found one on the internet that wasn't all too expensive, he figures it's worth the investment, he doesn't want to get Alzheimer's in his old age, well, at least do as little as possible to contribute towards it. The only draw back of the stainless steel pot is that it is really much larger than he needs, it holds about 8 gallons, but that is a minor trouble that the Caretaker can certainly live with. Regardless of its size it certainly made his shower this evening much easier to get together than to do with out it. The spigot makes filling his shower bag a breeze, to do it otherwise requires a funnel and pipe which often times ends up making a mess of water on the floor. As easy as the pot makes getting water into the bag, it doesn't make getting the temperature correct any easier, the Caretaker is quite out of practice and so will have to work on getting back in the groove. Yesterday's shower using this method was a touch on the cool side, around 92 degrees Fahrenheit, which isn't insufferable, but he prefers his shower water at around 104. Tonight's shower water temperature? It was decidedly warmer. Not wanting to take a cool shower again the Caretaker overcompensated a bit too much, tonight's shower water was above 128 degrees Fahrenheit. The Caretaker waited a bit for the water to cool down but he didn't feel like waiting too long so he went with it as it was. Hopefully the third time will be the charm and tomorrow night's shower will be like the last bowl of porridge--just right.

The Caretaker's other package was from Campmor, it had a few things that will make his winter camping more pleasurable, one of which is a down sleeping bag rated for zero degrees Fahrenheit. The Caretaker will be testing it out tonight, it isn't supposed to go down to zero tonight but it is supposed to be one of the coldest nights on record for this time of year. Conveniently enough the Caretaker won't have to sleep outside to test his new sleeping bag, instead he'll just shut off all the heat in the Ghetto. If it turns out that the sleeping bag is not as effective as it claims to be rated for he'll just turn the heat back on and sleep in the usual pleasurable 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Caretaker is thinking of writing a book:
"The Joy of Winter:
How to enjoy living in the cold... but why?"

--The Caretaker

P.S. The photo of the rock is of the first ice from the Lake on the Island, it has been so cold that when the waves splash on to the rock the water has frozen to it (the ice may not be too visible in the photo given its size.

TCC for 11/20/08

he Caretaker's Concern 11/20/08

Lake Temp. 47 F.
Ghetto temp. 44.5 F.
Island tmp. 29 F. Yesterday's L/H: 26/32 F.

Current conditions: Dark night, mostly cloudy, a few stars here and there, wind from the North, 5 miles or so, occasional gusts up to 20 mph. It was mostly a windy day, patchy clouds but relatively sunny.

10/17/08


8/6/08


10/11/08


The Caretaker's day did not exactly go as planned, his morning went well enough taking care of some business for the Island, but after that it all went down hill. His original plan was to have a shower late morning and then get over to the mainland to take care of some business there, unfortunately his on-demand water heater had other plans, namely to not work. The Caretaker was only mildly surprised by this, in the past his water heater had a history of not working too well or at all in cold temperatures. Yesterday the Caretaker had made arrangements to remedy this problem, or at least he thought he did. He came back to the Island sometime late last night and did a test run on his water heater to see if what he had done solved the problem, sure enough the water heater worked, the Caretaker was pleased as punch. He went to sleep assured that he would be able to have a hot shower the following day with no worries.

Come today when he went to fire up the water heater, sure enough it didn't work. He tried all of his usual tricks to get it to work but to no avail. While trying to get the water heater to work the Caretaker surfed the net to look for a replacement water heater. Because of his sloooow internet connection this took up much of his afternoon. In the end he came up with two possible solutions, the first two are on-demand water heaters by companies other than the one that manufactured the heater he currently owns, his third option is to make his own on-demand water heater. He hasn't decided which way he is going to go, for now he is waiting to hear back from these other two companies on some technical questions he has about their heaters and the conditions that they would need to be able to operate in. He hopes to hear back soon, in the meantime he will just have to continue to do what he did in the past and what he did today, boil water on the stove, add it to cold water to get the temperature he wants, and use that for his shower. It works well enough but is much more time consuming and energy consuming than his on-demand water heater. He is rather bummed that his current water heater doesn't work, it makes life here on the Island in the Winter waaaaay more convenient. When it works it is the easiest to utilize of all the on-demand water heaters for his particular circumstance, but when it doesn't work, well then it is obviously the most difficult to utilize. Part of the problem is that since so few people are foolish enough to lead the life that the Caretaker does there is little to no market so manufacturers have little to no need to fill the market. But enough about the Caretaker's problems.

Due to the Caretaker's time spent trying to come up with a solution to his water heater problem he made no time to take any photos today. So instead the Caretaker will take this time to share his experience with fried green tomatoes. The first photo in today's post is of one of the green tomatoes that grew on the Island this year. It was by no means planned that any tomatoes would grow on the Island this year but by happenstance it occurred. Back in June the Caretaker brought out a stump grinder to the Island to spend a day grinding up a bunch of stumps. After the stumps were ground out and the saw dust was removed the holes needed to be filled in again. So the Caretaker used the soil from last year's mulch. In two separate stump holes where this soil was used plants started to grow. A variety of seeds from last year did not break down while in the mulch pile, so a variety of plants began to grow. Other than the tomato plants, which bore some fruit, the Caretaker couldn't say what else was growing, but probably some melons, squash, and what have you. Since these seeds didn't start to grow until the end of June their growing season wasn't long enough for the plants to bare fruit, except for the tomato plants and only two of them actually had fruit. The Caretaker's total harvest was the "large" tomato in the photo, and three other small tomatoes about a quarter of the size of the "large" one. The Caretaker left them on the vine until the first frost, he wasn't expecting them to fully ripen but he figured why not give them as much of a chance as possible. Once the frost came he figured that his options were to pick them and eat them or let them wither on the vine, but the Caretaker would never do that--waste not want not. So he brought the tomatoes inside, put some butter in a frying pan on the stove, sliced up the tomatoes and gave them a bit of a hot butter bath. The result? The small ones were on the bitter side, but not too bitter to be unpalatable. The "large" one on the other hand was actually quite tasty, he would even recommend them. Other than wheat grass and sprouts, the Caretaker doesn't grow much in the way of plants, perhaps next Summer he will make a point to actually plant some tomatoes in a timely manner so he can enjoy some nice red ripe tomatoes-- picked fresh from the old stump holes.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 11/19/08

The Caretaker's Concern 11/19/08

Lake Temp. 48 F.
Ghetto temp. 31.75 F.
Island tmp. 30 F. Yesterday's L/H: 26/36 F.

Current conditions: Mild wind from the North, no more than 5 mph. Some clouds to the South, stars visible but no so brilliant, occasional flurry or two here and there. The wind was from the Narrows for much of the day, going pretty good, no precipitation, mostly sunny.

11/19/08


10/6/08


8/6/08


This report is going out earlier than "usual", the Caretaker has to get to the mainland to take care of some business, come tomorrow is the big push for the last part of the kitchen project, shutting down the septic for the main house. From tomorrow on the Caretaker will be residing exclusively (more or less) in the Ghetto for the rest of the Winter. As for today, not much happened to report on. Well, except that the Caretaker had some fried green tomatoes for lunch, but that story, which isn't much of one, will have to wait until tomorrow night.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 11/18/08

The Caretaker's Concern 11/18/08

Lake Temp. 48 F.
Ghetto temp. 43 F. (was 30)
Island tmp. 30 F. Yesterday's L/H: 35.5/39 F.

Current conditions: Cloud covered sky, dark night, wind from the North to North East, 5 to 10 mph, gusting up to 15/20 mph. Snow off and on throughout the day. Accumulation on the Island but nothing substantial.

11/18/08


11/1/08


10/9/08



It has been a rather mixed day today for the Caretaker, it has been snowing off and on throughout the day which makes the Caretaker happy, especially because it has been accumulating, nothing substantial, just a thin layer, and not on stone or pavement, just on grass, leaves, etc. either way, it is a start, and so the Caretaker is happy. There are a few things that did not please the Caretaker today, but he has done all he can for now regarding those problems and so will leave off with the negative stuff. If you are a follower of the weather conditions posted here, you will notice that the temperature of the Ghetto was down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit and then went up to 43. The Caretaker has finally thrown in the towel on the use no heat plan, two degrees below freezing was just a touch too nippy so the Caretaker got his propane heaters up and running. Well, this isn't exactly the first time he started with the heat, the other day he got his personal heater (which he carries on his person) up and running, last season during the lunar eclipse his personal heater had stopped working, he thought it was done-fur, but with a little bit of tinkering he was able to get it to run good as new, this pleased the Caretaker immensely. He share more about his personal heater, at least what he calls his "personal heater", others will know it as a hand warmer.

As for the propane heaters just started up tonight, so far so good, well, sort of, but good enough at least for now. The 13 degree temperature rise has made things rather comfortable, the Caretaker will probably not raise the temperature any higher for the night, in fact, when he goes to bed he will most likely let the temperature drop.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 11/17/08

The Caretaker's Concern 11/17/08

Lake Temp. 49.5 F.
Ghetto temp. 36 F.
Island tmp. 34 F. Yesterday's L/H: Missed the specifics, but the morning was "warm" then the cold front rolled in and the rest of the day was progressively colder.

Current conditions: Calm clear night, almost no wind, perhaps a touch here and there every once in a while. This is the first clear night in what seems like ages, before the moon rose Orion was clearly visible just above Buck mountain, the light of some of the stars could be seen reflected upon the water. In the morning the Lake and the Island were visited by snow squalls that varied from snowflakes, hale, and rain. Today marks the first day that snow reached the Island before melting, however, upon touching ground all precipitation turned to water. Hopefully today's snow won't be it for the Winter...

11/17/08


9/2/08


8/10/08


--The Caretaker

TCC for 11/16/08

The Caretaker's Concern 11/16/08

Lake Temp. 49.75 F.
Ghetto temp. 43.5 F.
Island tmp. 39.5 F. Yesterday's L/H: The Caretaker hasn't been following the temperature highs and lows, however, the warmest it was over these past few days was 62 degrees F. It has been unseasonably warm these past few days, warm, cloudy, and rainy, lots of fog too.

Current conditions: Mild wind from the South, dark and cloudy night, diffused moonlight doing little to illuminate. Mostly cloudy today no photos taken, nothing to see.

11/2/08


10/24/08


7/11/08


--The Caretaker

TCC for 11/15/08

11/15/08


10/10/08


8/28/08