Friday News Brief

The sun is now rising at 10:45 AM and setting at about 5PM in Northern Town. I'm eagerly anticipating long sunny days and planting our veggies in a to-be-rented plot in the community greenhouse.


It's cold here in Northern Town ('twas -42C early this morning) and ManNorth and I are particularly glad that the cost of heating our apartment is included in our rent. When we first moved into our apartment we were surprised that our access to the balcony was through a single, poorly sealed metal door. We would have sealed it off completely for the winter with insulation and a plastic window cover over the entire door frame but we use the balcony to store extra frozen food, such as our Christmas turkey and our buttermilk haul. Unfortunately, this means that we lose a lot of heat through the balcony door. We've installed weather stripping around all four sides of the door in addition to a single length of weather stripping that was already in place, which has made an enormous difference, but we still end up with this some days:



(The three snowy balls perched along the bottom trim are actually entirely made of frost that has accumulated on the top of flat headed screws that are flush with the trim.)

Tomorrow ManNorth and I are having an adventure and taking Big Red....out onto the Arctic Ocean (providing we can get enough gas for the trip)! ManNorth is very excited to show me the sea ice and to have a winter picnic with the pack ice for a backdrop. I'll do my best to post a few photos from the trip on Sunday.

Sometime early next week I'll be getting some important news that may very well change things for me in Northern Town, in mostly very good ways. For now, I'm jumping every time the phone rings...

Stay tuned for the updates!