TCC for 1/1/09

12/31/08


1/1/08


1/1/08


1/1/08


This New Year's Day was most definitely on the cold side, down to around zero Fahrenheit or something, whatever the number, the Caretaker had difficulty getting Birch kindling to light for a fire in the fireplace. Eventually he got the fire to go, but since the stone of the fireplace was so cold it took an awfully long while for the hearth and fireplace to throw any heat, it wasn't exactly what one would consider warm and cozy. Other than being rather cold the day was mostly unremarkable, a bit windy so not too great for being out and about outside. The Lake is certainly cold enough to freeze over but the wind has been keeping it churned up so it hasn't iced over yet.

The photos taken today are of the ice formation along the shore, the ice was caused by the high winds blowing the water out of the Lake and up onto shore. The bottom photo is of ice coated frozen blades of grass.

Much of December of 2008 wasn't all that remarkable and the Caretaker's schedule kept him quite busy thus he wasn't able to get much out in the way of posts to his blog. As for photography during the month of December? For the most part the sky was overcast, accompanied with either rain, sleet, snow, or some combination of the three. In essence, the month of December for photography was a wash, however, there were a few incidents during the month that the Caretaker feels are worth mentioning.

Sometime during the middle of December, it was a Monday, the Caretaker was doing some work in the kitchen in the main house. He was pulling down some paneling to look for evidence of rot within the walls and ceiling, as he was pulling down the paneling he would allow it to fall on the floor, much of it still had nails sticking out of it. The Caretaker was aware of the potential risks associated with not being diligent about keeping the floor clean for walking, however if knowing is half the battle the Caretaker lost the other half. He was stepping down from the ladder so he could move it to a different location when he brought his left foot down onto the ground driving a rusty nail straight through his boot and consequently his foot. His right foot was still on the last rung of the ladder and so his immediate response was to step fully off the ladder in order to remove the nail from his foot, and like a grim comedy of errors he brought his right foot down on top of a nail too driving it into his foot. With nails in each foot the Caretaker immediately raised his left foot up, thankfully the nail came out. Putting his weight on his left foot he raised his right foot up, thankfully that nail came out just as easy as the first.

Not wanting to contract lock-jaw or at least do whatever he could to prevent it, the Caretaker quickly hobbled out of the kitchen to the Ghetto to dress his wounded feet. On his way to his desk chair he grabbed some bandages, iodine, and topical anti-biotic gel. Upon sitting he quickly threw off his left boot and sock and stopped the bleeding, doused the puncture wound with iodine and then applied a bandage treated with the topical anti-biotic, he did the same for his right foot. After dressing his wounds the Caretaker decided it would be a good idea to inspect the souls of his boots, sure enough there were one or two nails in each boot that needed to be removed. Before grabbing a pair of needle nose pliers the Caretaker observed that these holes would probably not be too good for the water-proof quality of his boots. He then wondered if these holes would prove to be not too good for the souls of his feet and thus his health overall, he hoped not. As he finished up removing the nails from his boots he noticed that he couldn't feel any pain associated with the puncture wounds, then he realized that it was because it was so cold both his feet were going numb. The Caretaker quickly put socks back on his feet and then put on his boots, laced them up and took a few tentative steps, all seemed well enough so he went back to work in the kitchen, the first thing he did was to cleanup all the paneling, especially the bits with nails sticking out. For the remainder of this job the Caretaker managed to finish it up injury free.

--The Caretaker

P.S. See the Caretaker's new blog:

http://www.theblatheringidiot.blogspot.com/