It has been a while since we have posted here… this weekend (May 16 2020) we will begin the process of opening up the island and seeing what (if anything, hopefully nothing) the squirrels have done in our absence over the winter.

Stay tuned!

Island people are an odd lot.  This can be best seen in the types of gifts we give one another to celebrate milestones or holidays.

This Father’s Day I gave my husband John a new composting toilet for the island.  He was thrilled. As he is fond of saying, we can now advertise the island as “4 bedrooms, 2 baths, high ceilings and water views”

Island visitors will be even more thrilled I am sure.

Located in what was once an outhouse that was painstakingly dug out by my own dad for many years (yuck), the new Biolet lives in the Greenhouse. The model number is the BTS33 (BTS are also my mom’s initials…. perfect).  Special thanks go out to Dean and his son Ryan for rebuilding the floor of the Greenhouse to accommodate our new potty.

Check the island instructions pages for how to use it, but if you remember the old Biolet then there is not much to learn.  It is super simple. And it works. Yeeha.

Also new for 2015:

• Lost trees, new stain: Because of bad storms in late May we lost several trees on the west side of the island.  Thanks to some deft work by local tree surgeons, the cabin was saved but the clapboarding had been pummeled by hail.  As of this writing John has sanded it down and is restaining it. Here are some pictures:

Before

After

• New beds/mattresses:  The girls’ (east) cabin is now has one bed and it has a queen sized mattress…and it is really comfortable.  The metal bed has gone into storage and the other bed was junked.    The boys’ (west) cabin has new mattresses too as well as the materials needed to turn those two beds into a super comfy king sized bed. (check the plastic storage bins under the bed). There is a set of king sheets there as well but we encourage you to bring and use your own.

• New screens, screen doors and a window in progress:  Most of the front porch has been re-screened, we have new screen doors and the window off the kitchen overlooking the picnic table is in the process of being rebuilt.

Enjoy the summer!

The winter of 2013-14 was a nasty, long and cold event.  While we are grateful that the island did not suffer any major physical damage, the clapboarding of the main house and the windows were in dire need of a facelift.

What follows is a timeline of what we did during the month of July.  What would a trip to Crescent be without a few “projects”? I will spare you the curse words, the cries for Advil and the groans after 12 hours/ day of steady work.  Or the number of beerz this took.

While there is more to be done (as in a second coat of stain and whoops! a few windows I forgot to re-glaze before we re-hung the windows), the house looks a thousand times better than it did at the beginning of the season.

We made progress, and it shows, and I am grateful to everyone who lent a hand in this project! More pictures will be posted soon of the improvements to the West Cabin deck (thank you Bruce and Nancy) and the ever so special Envirolet dual blower potty fan! Betcha can’t wait for that picture!

You can look at these images as a gallery, or click on any one to expand it and then play it as a slideshow.

Last summer we needed to level the floor of the main house, which meant among other things, pulling down the old chimney (which was bolted to the house).  Much smashing and crashing ensued.  We cleaned up, I promise.

Before….

After

During….

Thanks to Derek at R&D Building Solutions the house was buttoned up before the winter and a temporary patch was put on the roof (we are working from the ground up…and there is a new roof in the Island’s not too distant future)

Here are some pictures of getting the underpinnings in place (we could not have done this without Dean…)

Petey the dog is unphazed

Hanging by a…

Or, to put it another way….

Click on the image for the full effect

Once that was done, John also refinished the floors in the main house.

Other exciting moments on the island last summer included visits from our large, winged neighbor, The Adult Eagle.  Who knew they liked to go wading.

Oh, hello there… (click for a larger view!)

No summer at the island would be complete without hauling something somewhere (usually the dump).  In the summer of 2012 we got rid of the “brush pile” to the east of the deck as well as the dead dock “being saved for parts” in the swamp.  In the summer of 2013 we got rid of the other brush pile that had taken over a stone wall Tina had created (to trap sand and to prevent erosion)  Here are pictures:

Brush being hauled to shore

John admiring the results

Thanks to Graham we got an electric exhaust fan to start working in the Envirolet (using a marine battery as a power source).  This summer we hope to improve the ventilation even more.  Better ventilation = better composting = happier island residents.  Details to follow.

Apparently Crescent didn’t weather the  Winter of All Winters as well as we had hoped. We are planning a visit soon to survey what needs to be cleaned up, moved, replaced, and hauled to the dump.

Stay tuned!

Here we go again

Friday June 22nd…Severe Thunderstorm Alert and 50 m.p.h. winds.  Joy.

Hi. Whatcha doin'? Can I play?

Recently my niece Lizzie and friends visited the island and were visited by this timid little critter… a flying, yes flying, squirrel. She (the squirrel, not Lizzie) has taken up residence in the storage loft, along with her, um, family.

Note to self: the birdfeeder that seemed like a great idea at the time (blame the rain) and that I put on the island for the songbirds now doubles as a rodent feeding station. Plan to remove.

Also: Ask Ridgewood to borrow their Hav-a-Heart trap.

Anyone have a kitty that would like to live on Crescent for a while? 🙂

I did a little experimenting with my iPad and using SoundCloud (an online recording app that I just discovered and think is amazing).

Here are some sounds from Crescent on a rainy morning. Put on some headphones or earbuds, close your eyes, and imagine you are in the hammock…..

Coming soon: Loon Sounds 🙂

The island has been opened for the season, and I am happy to report that Barbara’s fabulous fall squirrel proofing did the trick…there was no new damage this winter. Now, of course, there wasn’t much of a winter either, and the critters probably didn’t need the shelter as much as they had in the past, but any spring opening that doesn’t involve cleaning up squirrel chaos is a good one by me.

The weather, however, was awful the week we where there to open (May 28-June 4). Here, let me give you an idea:

Here is a weather map image that I sent to my husband via an ipad from the first night (click on the image to make larger)….

the weather ahead...

And here is a video of what that looked like from the beach…

We got 7.7 inches of rain in one day. The lake rises 2 inches for every inch of rain that falls from the sky. Do the math and voila! you get something that looks like this:

The back deck

The dock at the landing

In other news, there are NEW INSTRUCTIONS for using the Envirolet potty. Simply put, it didn’t compost over the winter and that was our fault, not the the potty’s.

Please check the Island Rules for more information!

Crescent Island, Fall 2011

…okay well at least it has here in Ohio. From the reports I get from my folks, there really wasn’t a hard freeze on the lake at all this year. Very strange.

According to this webcam and this one (both webcams are from Big Sebago, not Little Sebago)… there is nothing but water. No ice. Weird.

We are taking requests for summer vacation time on the island. Please let me know if Crescent Island will be in your plans this year.

Feel free to email me at crescentislandmaine AT google DOT com with questions!

Last winter the red squirrels had quite a splendid time inside of the house while we were away.

Last fall, armed with contractor-grade trash bags and scented dryer sheets (apparently squirrels and mice hate the smell) I tried an experiment to see if we could keep the critters away from the mattresses, pillows, and cushions.

Stay tuned … we will report in May as to whether this was a success or not…