The Caretaker's Concern for 7/15/2010

TCC for 7/15/10

The Caretaker apologizes for the unexpected long hiatus. His modem got fried in a lightening storm back in late May and he has been too busy to replace it, that is until last night. The following are some photos taken back in late May. Lot's has happened on the Island, the Caretaker will share some of it at a later date when he has more time to write, probably tomorrow, but maybe not, he is going up to Schroon Lake to see a performance of "As You Like It", it is to be performed outside in the town park with Schroon Lake as the background, may or may not be a good performance but will certainly be an interesting venue.

And now for some recent photos from the archive:
5/18/10:

5/23/10:







Before there was the blog the Caretaker sent out posts via e-mail, the following is from the Caretaker's second winter on the Island:

Island Ice Report for 3/16/07:

Outside temp: 20 F (maybe warmer, maybe colder, I don't want to go look and lose heat).
Ghetto temp: 60 F
Wind: East, 10-15 mph, gusting to 20/25
Sky: full cloud coverage
Precipitation: snow

The weather reports continue to call for more and more snow over the next 24 hours or so, in light of this the Caretaker made a point to take advantage of the snow clear ice by going ice skating this morning. The ice was not all too hot for skating, but it was better than nothing especially since it could be the last chance for the season. After the ice skating the Caretaker went back out on to the ice to fly a kite, while trying to get it set up an Ice fisherman came up on his 4-wheeler looking for directions. Apparently he was not very familiar with the Lake because he was turned around and didn't know North from South nor East from West, everything looked the same to him. So after a few questions I figured out where he put in to the Lake and sent him off in the right direction. If all goes well he will have made it back to where his car is, or, he came across someone else who can help him further.
The wind is still blowing good and strong, so for the rest of the day the Caretaker will be staying inside, the wind chill is below zero. The rest of this report will focus on answering questions from this past week or so. Also, the attached photo is from Buck mt. looking towards Vermont, there isn't really much to photograph these days, mostly just heavy clouds and rain. Perhaps during the snow storm or after the snow storm there will be better opportunities for photography.

There were many informative responses to the Caretaker's question about what a cakewalk is, the following are what people had to share:

C. writes:
A cakewalk is a strut which has its roots in the African-American community and oddly has been adopted by some colleges into an intramural competition. In fact, when I was in college, many moons ago, one of my dormmates was friend to Alcott Smith, twin of Avery Smith and considered cakewalk greats/champs at UVM, back in the sixties. They ran away with the competition. I've forgotten much of its history, but it was done in blackface, as I recall.

N. writes:
The Cakewalk is a dance and was made famous by a piece called the Golliwogs' Cakewalk written by Debussy.

T. writes:
From Wikipedia (an excellent site to find out anything about anything)

Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the US South. A cake, or slices of cake, were offered as prizes for the best dancers — a rare treat during slavery — giving the dance its name. The dance was invented as a satirical parody of the formal European dances preferred by white slaveowners, and featured exaggerated imitations of the dance ritual, combined with traditional African dance steps. One common form of cakewalk dance involved couples linked at the elbows, lining up in a circle, dancing forward alternating a series of short hopping steps with a series of very high kicking steps. Costumes worn for the cakewalk often included large, exaggerated bowties, suits, canes, and top hats.

The Caretaker would like to thank C, N, and T for taking their time to enlighten the Caretaker.

T. M. asks:
If you never went off the island do you think you would miss any spirit of community? or do you feel like you'd get enough of that from visitors?

Perhaps eventually, but then again maybe not. The visitors to the Island certainly bring a whole lot of community with them but as far as not going to the mainland,
the longest the Caretaker has gone without going to town was during ice-out last year which was two and a half weeks long. The Caretaker saw no one for the entire time but did not miss "the community". And, if I remember correctly, I could have gone to town at least a day earlier, maybe even more, but didn't because I had no real need to.

L. made this suggestion for future field trips:
Best not tell people what you are doing, but leave a note on the Ghetto door so that if you do not show up for a month someone will know where to look.

The Caretaker will try to make a point to do this but being he is so lazy he will most likely not get around to doing it for future field trips, however, the Caretaker does make a point to bring along his drivers license to allow for easy identification of the body should that be necessary.

The Caretaker was somewhat surprised by the enthusiasm for the building of a Gin still, here is an example of one of the responses to this "dilemma":

Homemade gin, no problem, check out http://homedistiller.org/gin.htm

The Caretaker would like to thank B. for the above link, however, after having perused that web page and seeing the amount of work involved in making both a still and Gin, the Caretaker will most likely just make a trip to the mainland every once in a while or just learn to do with out. I'm sure you can guess which way the Caretaker will go on this one.

S. writes:
I assume the A.A. series of paintings refers to Alcohol Anonymous. Correct?

The artist currently known as the Caretaker prefers not to share any of the inner thinking of his ideas for he feels that it will only serve to limit the experience of the viewer. The Caretaker would also like to thank those of you who took the time to make comments, compliments and critiques of the painting.

During the hiatus when it was bitterly cold M. asked:
How cold?

The outside thermometer's lowest reading was 0 degrees F. At that time the wind was blowing hard enough to cause a wind chill of negative 30 or so. Even though the Caretaker chose to stay indoors the cold still had its impact, for example, when he went to eat something with a spoon in the kitchen the spoon was so cold that it stuck to his tongue. Thankfully spoons are of rather thin metal so it didn't take very long for the Caretaker's tongue to warm up the spoon enough so that it would release, which was a good thing because it sure would have been a real stupid reason to need medical help.

And lastly, the Caretaker would like to share this very kind sentiment from M's son N. which he e–mailed to the Caretaker during the cold snap:
"As the spring sun peaks through the clouds here in Boulder I ask one of its rays to bring you some warmth. Hope you don't get too too cold."

The weather has turned cold again, enough so that the Caretaker has had to bring in auxiliary heat to the Ghetto to counter the heat loss due to the wind, and so since the temperature has finally risen from 40 degrees up to 60 in the Ghetto the Caretaker is going to go take a shower.

And thus concludes the IIR for 3/16/07, sorry I have been so lazy this past week or so, but to be honest there wasn't really much to share.



--The Caretaker