Winter? Yep, it REALLY is already

We now interrupt this irregularly scheduled appearance of vacation photos to bring you....

a photo of our balcony this morning.

Just in case you didn't really believe me when I said that our fall is done and we've begun winter, I've now given you proof in all its glorious fluffy cold whiteness in a 2 dimensional electronic voyeuristic sort of way. So, um, there!

In other breaking news in Northern Town, ManNorth and I were astonished to have been awarded the Green Thumb award, meaning that of those who voted over at our community greenhouse, most of them thought our garden was the best. Now, I've no idea how "best" is defined for although we had a pretty garden, that was quite bushy and green with willow bird and sweet pea accents, we didn't think it was terribly prolific. However, we are pleased as punch to have the Thumb, replete with its dirty nail and all, to display in our garden next year as next year's garden is going to be even better!

Apparently our tomato harvest was more than most people were able to grow this year. We're just pleased to have fresh tomatoes that don't cost $1 each or more!

Now that the mercury has dropped below zero, the temperature inside the greenhouse has likewise fallen and most plants have frozen, died or are in the process of doing so. We spent a few hours yesterday helping to clean up before winter lock-up and to bring home a few of our potted plants that were in need of some attention and/or eating.

Some of those potted plants look admittedly scrawny and it was due in part, to my forgetting to water them and then to massively over water them. The huge bouquet is made up of the last of our parsely and the final few blooms from our sweet peas. I'll make some tabouli with the parsley and just enjoy the scent of the sweet pea flowers, more so now that we've moved into winter.

Vacation photos the first

A few weeks ago my folks came waaay up North and West for a visit and we ventured south to meet them. Along the way back, we decided that since we were so close we might as well pop over to Alaska and visit the small town of Chicken (named chicken apparently, as the residents couldn't spell ptarmigan). That there is Alaska (and the wee border crossing over at the green buildings on the right):

Just as we approached the border the engine light of our rental vehicle came on and as ManNorth and I had already been stranded just a few days earlier by our first rental vehicle we decided that we would cross the border but leave Chicken for another visit. The quizzical look on the border guard's face was rather amusing when we answered the question "How long will you be in the United States?" with "About 3 minutes." (To answer your obvious question: We had a problem with our first rental while making the long drive south to meet my folks. That vehicle was replaced 24 hrs later after we'd slept in it 100 kilometers from the nearest service station and about 300 kilometers from the nearest town. The ever so understanding operator of the rental company considered that to be a cheap hotel room. At least the scenery was nice.)

Looking back on the return to Canada from Alaska on this highway, one will see this:

Do be safe though, if you navigate this particular road. There are some steep parts and some sharp curves. No one was in this vehicle when we stopped to check but it was a sobering reminder to have a ready foot on the brake and a sharp eye on the road.

Along the way we also encountered this wonderful sign which I very nearly sent to The Grammar Vandal or to the Grammarphile but then selfishly kept it here for my blog.

Amusingly, someone else had noticed the apostrophe error and decided to write a bit about it. Unfortunately, they made much less sense than the sign did:

Some one must have taken note however, as by the time we actually reached the ferry the next sign looked like this.

Below is the ferry we were using to cross the mighty Yukon river. I think this particular passenger is comfortable with a higher level of risk than me.

More photos to come...

Good-bye fall, hello winter

I admit it.
I’ve become a terrible blogger, posting one day and not again for months. (Has it been quite that long?)
I've no idea how busy people can still find time to keep up a blog in addition to all their activities. I'm not managing this blog particularly well but it's not time to call it quits just yet.

For any of you who still bother to check in (and I really don’t know why), life goes on in Northern Town with some happy new developments for yours truly. My job has become permanent and I’m now an ‘ologist in the full sense of the (um, truncated) term. Whoo hoo!

Occasional field activities have kept me busy this fall and now that winter is beginning, plans for the spring are already in order. I don’t know yet what all that will entail, as it will as always, be determined by the funds I can raise for the various projects we have in mind.

What’s that you say, YESTERDAY was the first day of fall? Heh. Yes, maybe for those of you in the south, but up here in Northern Town the majority of the leaves have fallen and the last day of technical summer was celebrated by an 18hour or so snow fall, which has since melted and been replaced by the occasional snowflake determined to be all it can be among a crowd of raindrops.

Other than winging my way through the skies around Northern Town by helicopter (although I’m grounded by all the clouds this week), and watching my to-do list of office activities grow larger than I could fit on my whiteboard, ManNorth and I also took a week off in order to properly celebrate a visit by my parents who ventured north just in time to see a final spectacular display of the north’s fall colours and enjoy the last week of mild temperatures along with the odd caribou and grizzly sighting. (Mom & Dad, it was wonderful to have you visit. Next time, come in February!!)

That’s it for today. More stories to come...

He's SSSSSSuper!

I think that I may have forgotten to mention ManNorth's superhero status to all of you.

Hmm. Yes. I think I have, owing to it being secret and all. (Of course, this is no surprise to those of you who have met him, but we don't speak about it much publicly, owing to the superhero secrecy oath he had to take, which is itself secret. SHHHhhhhhhhhh.)

I really can't explain further as I'd completely give it all away but I can share this wee little bit about one aspect of his superhero pursuits: they involve fire...and the coordinated putting out of really really big ones.

Like this one depicted below by unknown and unnamed hapless citizens who now have the good fortune to have ManNorth (da da da dum) on their side.. or at least between them and the fire. (Er, actually, he has minions to do that for him, but I'm getting a bit sidetracked here.)

I'd give photo credits to the photographers if I knew who they were...but they arrived by secret post along with super secret messages that couldn't be decoded.

Yep. I'm feeling rather proud of him today and missing him no small amount. I'm also hoping that he's taking lots of photos too before he jets off back to me here in Northern Town (hopefully) next week.

The pleasures of summer

It's berry picking season in the area around Northern Town and I'm determined to stock up on as many as I have time to gather before the berries start to drop. This weekend after ManNorth unexpectedly left on a two week posting to the south (more blogging to follow), I took the opportunity to share the berrypicking time with other friends from NorthernTown and went picking on Saturday and this evening after work. (It's always a good idea to avoid going out alone, even near town and I'd assured ManNorth that I'd stay safe as bear encounters are rare, but possible in the area. That, and spending time with friends is fun!)

I've found that there is a special technique necessary to be speedy and gentle enough to avoid jarring the bush and knocking off all the fruit in pursuit of an individual berry.

Now, when one (womannorth) isn't particularly good at this technique, the berries are each as small as a pea and there is a limited amount of time to do the picking, one may resort to alternate methodology:

Berry rakes and campfire waterbuckets!

Now this is the way to do it! Simply scoop up the berries, raking the teeth of the scoop through the entire plant. Is this cheating? No, I don't think so. This is an efficient way to collect lots of berries quickly. (Of course, after Saturday's excursion, I found I spent almost an equal amount of time indoors cleaning all the twigs and leaves from the berries that the rake had also collected. However, that was time indoors while seated on a comfortable couch and protected from the myriads of black flies and mosquitos determined to render me a dry carcass. This was a fair exchange, I thought.)

Don't believe me? Here's a horrible 20 second video I took today as an example. (Horrible, because of the poor technique admittedly, but most horrible because of all the bugs. Obviously.)

Now that I've mentioned of the local wildlife, of which I am certain you were simply fascinated by, you miiiiight just be interested in seeing another animal that had also been enjoying the berries. (Actually, there were at least 6-8 of them, but this was the only one that stuck around after I startled them to cluck at us in annoyance and disapproval from a perch atop a spruce tree. )

It's a ptarmigan!

(Can't see it? Look at one of the tree tops near the right hand side of the photo.)

This is how one sneaks up on it to get its photo.

It was on to us.

C'est finite!

Heh, heh. It's kinda cooold.

There was ice on a pond next to ManNorth’s workplace this morning and frost on the vehicles in our parking lot. Temperatures dropped overnight (despite the 24hours of daylight) to -1C.

This makes me laugh just a wee bit for a few reasons:

1. Because it’s just so ridiculous to be seeing ice in July at the same time one is contemplating going out to pick wild blueberries and ward off hoards of mosquitoes.

2. Because it’s not really that unusual, given that we live 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle

3. Because making headlines in the news over the past few days was how darn warm another arctic community that is 320 kilometres south of the arctic circle has been for the past few days and how much has been made of this temporary warming in that community and how everyone is speculating that it is related to climate change and global warming etc etc..

Now, I certainly don’t deny that our climate is changing but what often gets forgotten is how variable weather can naturally be. For instance, when cold arctic air blows south to chill Northern Town and create sheets of ice on wee duck ponds, the air has to come from somewhere. The thing to remember is that where it came from isn’t suddenly a vacuum, devoid of air, but is being replaced with air from somewhere else, whose air is also being replaced.

So to just speculate a wee bit here, not knowing the actual patterns of air movement that caused this but, as a result of low pressure systems sucking in air from high pressure systems, creating something known as global winds and pressure gradients, could not one tell a simple story of cold air in Northern Town coming from the arctic which sucked up warm air from the south to pass through TemporarilySwelteringOtherArcticTown to replace it?

But one is speculated to be evidence of global warming while the other one just has sucky cold weather? Mmmm?

Yep, this makes me chuckle, just a tiny bit.

Brrrrrrr!

What was that I was saying the other day about it being warm enough for T-shirts and shorts?
Yes, well that was a short time ago. (Ahem.)

I must not have been paying much attention to the weather these past few days because today's high was a balmy 11 degrees Celsius (53 Fahrenheit), only 3 degrees below the 24-hour high and tomorrow's high is forecast to be a lovely 8 degrees Celsius (46 Fahrenheit).

Compared to a typical daily average temperature in January of about minus 27C, don't these warm July temperatures in Northern Town just make you think of piña coladas and Hawaiian lei or something?

Hmm mmm, says half the town as they wish they were in Hawaii...

Of course, ManNorth and I are faring well and didn't mind needing to pull out a wool sweater or two this evening!

(Mom & Dad, don't worry: It will be looooooovvveeely when you come to visit in September.
Just remember your sweaters and your gloves and hats, 'kay?)