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 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 3/30/08

The Caretaker's Concern 3/30/08
Ghetto temp. 55F. and rising.
Island tmp. 36 F. Yesterday's L/H: 22/33.5 F.
Current conditions:

Internet Connection Problems.

--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 2/24/08

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 2/22/08

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 2/8/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/8/08
Ghetto temp. 44 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 24 F. Yesterday's L/H: 25/37 F.
Current conditions: Little to no wind, half the sky is wide open, star filled points South and West from the Island. The other half of the sky is dense with clouds, lounging low to the ground points North and East from the Island.

Still further loss of ice. If the Caretaker wanted to he could bring the canoe over to the East shore, drop it in the water and start paddling. The open water appears to reach almost all the way over to the East shore of the Lake. The weather report calls for snow tonight and tomorrow, if it turns out it doesn't snow, the Caretaker will probably go for a paddle to see how far indeed the open water does reach towards the East shore. Not much, if any, in the way of open sky and sunlight today, not much in the way of either of the two this entire week. Perhaps next week. Then again, perhaps the coming snow will be enough to ski one. Perhaps.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/7/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/7/08
Ghetto temp. 52 F. and rising.
Island tmp. 26 F. Yesterday's L/H: 24/36 F.
Current conditions: Light snow, medium to large flakes. Little to no wind.

It was a decent snow fall last night, however the wind was such that much of the snow was blown right off the Island. Although a considerable amount of snow did remain, x-c skiing on the Island is not yet an option, there are still a number spots that are too thin of snow--a complete loop of a usable size is yet to be had.

The blowing wind has opened up the Ice between here and Clay. The wind has been blowing from the Narrows for the past few days at such a sustained force that the Caretaker is somewhat surprised that much more of the ice has not broken up. Eventually the wind died down today, hopefully it will stay away with the coming cold temperatures so all this open water will freeze over again.

This dark water glares out of the surrounding bright snow covered ice like a gash, and the wound seems to be only getting bigger. Hopefully the cold will come soon, hopefully it will be deep, hopefully it will reach into the water and heal it over with a thick layer of ice.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/6/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/6/08
Ghetto temp. 39 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 30 F. Yesterday's L/H: 38/32 F.
Current conditions: Complete cloud coverage, wind mixed from the East and North, out of the Narrows and the NorthWest Bay, 15 to 20 mph, gusting to 25/35.

The wind never gave up the entire night and into this morning. When the Caretaker emerged from the Ghetto for the first time today he was greeted by the sight of a snow covered Island peppered with green pine needles. While out and about, a number of branches were noticed to have come down from the trees--mostly white pine. During the night the Caretaker heard an occasional crash upon the roof of the Ghetto, his assumption was that it was a result of limbs being brought down due to the high winds. Thus he was not all too surprised to see a few crooked tree limbs splayed out awkwardly on the Island--their dark black bark in deep contrast to the white snow. Next time the wind blows from the South the Caretaker will have himself a good burn-off.

The winds of late have worn away more of the ice, the distance between the Island and open water is now down to 50 yards or so. If this keeps up the Caretaker will be able to go canoeing without the need for ski poles. Overall, last night, not a good time to be squirrel.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 2/1/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/1/08
Ghetto temp. 58 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 28 F. Yesterday's L/H: 27/26 F.
Cloud covered, light rain/sleet.

The day started out with rain, it then turned to sleet, then snow for a while, about two to three inches and then went on to become freezing rain. The ice is now snow covered, which won't help it get any thicker. It also means that the Caretaker will not be able to scoot across the ice in the canoe, sliding across the ice in a canoe is not much work, pushing through the snow in a canoe is utterly miserable. Most likely the rain will eventually wash away the snow, but until it does, the Caretaker won't be making any trips to the mainland any time soon.

Due to the precipitation today the Caretaker spent most all of the day in the Ghetto. He didn't even get out during the day to take a photo. Originally he was thinking of using a photo from his back-stock, but in keeping with a photo a day he took one of the rain at night. Not much to look at, however, while the Caretaker was out on the water in the canoe yesterday, he did shoot a short video, it is now posted on youtube, here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyN-RP9k9kg

Unfortunately due to the Caretaker's very slow internet connection he had to reduce the size so he could upload it in a reasonable amount of time, sorry for the poor quality.

--The Caretaker

TCC for 1/22/08

The Caretaker's Concern 1/22/08
Ghetto temp. 52 F. and steady.
Island temp. 23 F. Last night's low: 17 F. Lake temp. 32 F.
Snowing, South wind, 15-20 mph.

The snow began to fall, quite heavy, at around noon today. It is now, 2 p.m. beginning to slow down. The wind from the South never let up last night so the main part of the Lake did not freeze over at all. Perhaps after this storm blows through the wind will die down long enough for the Lake to freeze over. This Thursday night the weather report calls for a temperature around zero, perhaps the Lake will ice-over then.

Yesterday afternoon the Caretaker got another glimpse of a Bald Eagle while out on the South dock, perhaps it was the same Bald Eagle from the morning. Either way, it would be nice if the bird or birds would take up residence in the immediate area. Speaking of birds the Caretaker is reminded of the owl he found floating in the Lake back in October, and that he has neglected to make mention of it in his earlier reports.

It was October 21st. the Caretaker was coming back from an early morning "photo shoot" on the Tongue Mt. range, around 10 o'clock. The Lake was dead calm. While motoring back to the Island, out of the corner of his eye he thought he noticed something move on the water. Not knowing what it was, and curious, he decided to check it out. When he got to the object he noticed it was a sizable bird. So he took an oar and used it to lift the bird out of the Lake and into the boat. Turning it over he saw that it was an owl, of what breed he knew not--the Caretaker may be a lot of things but ornithologist he is not. Upon returning to the Island the Caretaker put the bird in a cool shady spot. Briefly looked it over for bullet wounds and saw none.

Later that day S. came out to the Island, he didn't know what type of owl it was either. In the end the Caretaker decided to double bag and seal the bird and put it in the outside refrigerator until he could speak to someone with the State. The following day a phone call was put into the DEC, the Caretaker offered to bring them the bird. His hope was that someone there would be able to tell him the type of owl and to see if they would be able to discern the cause of death. Upon presentation of the bird, the biologists on hand could not tell what type of owl it was.

Every so often the Caretaker finds things floating in the Lake, however this is the first time he has found a dead bird. Hopefully the bird was just flying along and died of natural causes in mid-air, maybe a heart attack. Do birds have cholesterol problems? Perhaps they do if they live off of vermin that live off of human food waste. If so, that probably wouldn't be considered a natural cause of death. Who knows? The Caretaker has not followed up with the DEC to see if they looked into the cause of death, perhaps he will do so in the next few days. However, the Caretaker does believe he knows what breed of owl it was, a Short Ear Snow Owl. Since finding the owl, he saw some photos of owls labeled as such and from his memory of the owl he found would have to say that it looked just like the ones in the photos.

Out of respect for the owl, the Caretaker did not take any photos of the owl he found. He figured that if it was his lifeless body found floating in the Lake (which has almost happened on at least two occasions) he would rather people not take photos of it. Humanity on the whole has already shown this bird (and many others) enough disrespect since it was probably our actions that killed it--pesticide use, destruction of habitat, cholesterol problems, etc. When the Caretaker obtains more information on the owl he will be sure to pass it on.