Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Dark Side of Sunlight

At the bottom of the slide...

There is nothing more effervescent than springtime sunshine across the tundra!

With daylight hours stretching well beyond ten o'clock in recent days, children of all ages find making hay much more appealing than hitting it.

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In other words, there's no time like springtime for staying out late and soaking up rays...even if it drives your parents and teachers crazy!

Cool ride...

Yet, however strange it might sound, all that sunshine does have a dark side.

While it splashes itself across the seamless white tundra and packs a visual wallop that demands protective eyewear, sunlight (this time of year) doesn't actually carry that much warmth.

It slyly disguises still-frigid temperatures with its flashy smile and those who are fooled by its brightness often pay a hefty price.



It's still cold.

And no one knows that better than this fifteen-year-old girl who made the mistake of riding a skidoo wearing only warm-up pants instead of insulated snow pants.

Her frostbite wound was painful at first, but is healing well.

Lesson learned...I hope.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Favorite Foto Friday

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My living room window ledge is about seven feet above the ground. There isn't much chance that anyone, least of all a child, would be able to reach the window without a ladder.

However, one Sunday morning, after the 40 mph winds had "calmed" down to the thirties, I heard this small band of snow jumpers playing outside and was soon surprised to hear a tapping on my window. When I pulled back the curtain, I found three thirsty wild things standing on a fresh drift, asking for a drinks of water.

I didn't mind.

Playing in the snow can be hard work, after all.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Sweet Sunshine Sliding

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What is wrong with me?

Though I'm sure everyone feels the time crunch in one way or another, there are plenty of teachers out there who still manage to blog well & blog often in spite of having demanding jobs and full lives beyond cyberspace. FC over at Pure Florida makes daily (yes, I said daily) blogging look easy.

How does he do that?

I'm pretty sure it involves waking up much earlier than I am willing to or may even be capable of, so the hope of me becoming a daily blogger is probably nil...at least not until retirement (and even then the odds aren't good).

At any rate, here's my semi-biweekly post skidding in just under the wire before Favorite Foto Friday begins calling for attention.

The last couple of weeks have been brimming with blue skies and sunshine. Add to that mountain ranges of pushed snow and you've got the perfect spring time recreation.

There's nothing better than a slippery snow slide on a sub-zero afternoon! At least...if you're not sure about that...just ask one of these little cuties.




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What a blast!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Favorite Foto Friday

Frosty Fantasia

When I decided to post a favorite photo on Fridays, I didn't intend it as a fall back or substitute for actual posting. But time for blogging and internet connections that'll support it don't seem to working in sync right now. So...for now..this is what I've got.

This amazing scene adorned my window about a week ago. I have no idea how frost can form in so many different shapes and patterns...all within inches of each other. When I loaded this shot onto Flickr, I titled it Frosty Fantasia. Being uncertain of the exact meaning of the word "fantasia," I looked it up.

fantasia |fanˈtā zh ə; fantəˈzēə|
noun
a musical composition with a free form and often an improvisatory style.
• a musical composition that is based on several familiar tunes.
• a thing that is composed of a mixture of different forms or styles.


If music could be frozen...wouldn't it look something like this?

Friday, March 12, 2010

Favorite Foto Friday

Check out those mittens!

Some bloggers have Wordless Wednesdays. I've been toying with the idea of Foto Fridays as a similar tradition.

Waddaya think?

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Cool Things 2 Do @ -42

The weather this morning is amazing...not beautiful and clear, but warm and calm.

In fact, over the last two days, temperatures have risen about 45 degrees! At the moment, we are hovering around zero with NO WIND! That's practically a heat wave considering that less than a week ago we were sitting at -49 with 35 mph winds!

Oddly enough, during all that wind and cold weather, school was only canceled once. Of course, teachers and staff were still expected to attend on that day, so at lunch time our fearless leader decided that she wanted to see some of the oddities of the Arctic for herself.

This short video shows water being thrown from a cup and instantly freezing in the air (that happens in the first milli-second of the video...so don't look away or you'll miss it) as well as bubbles freezing into a rubbery consistency (I say this repeatedly on the video...when will I ever learn to keep my mouth shut while recording???).

Just a couple of cool things to do at negative forty-two. :)