Snowbow or Icebow?

Not a rainbow, not a sun-dog, this bow was the handiwork of Mr. Sun...painting ribbons with ice crystals across our northern October sky.



Of course, Old Man Winter had a hand in it too.



The colors were much more vivid than these photos reveal.



Snowbow or icebow?
Either way, it was pretty cool!

Finally!

After weeks of waiting and whining, we finally got a little snow. For the last three or four days, my morning walk to school has been a little crunchier, a little whiter, and I'm loving it! Even the lake and river are showing signs of freeze-up. Maybe fall ice fishing will commence on time after all.

Another long-awaited event (at least for me) occurred just last night. The clouds finally parted momentarily and I was able to catch a brief glimpse of Jupiter and its moons! I wasn't sure I'd be able to see anything. I don't have a powerful telescope at my disposal, but I do have some nifty (and gargantuan) binoculars.



Jupiter was easy enough to see with the naked eye, but I could only see the moons through my binoculars and (surprisingly) through my camera.

Catching sight of this very cool cluster made the cold legs and frozen fingers completely worth it!

Wind	from the WSW (250 degrees) at 13 MPH (11 KT)
Visibility	10 mile(s)
Sky conditions	mostly clear
Temperature	19.0 F (-7.2 C)
Windchill	6 F (-14 C)
Dew Point	17.1 F (-8.3 C)
Relative Humidity	91%

I know this is not impressive photography. I wasn't really expecting to get great pictures, but I thought it couldn't hurt to try.

I had no tripod and just set my Sony DSC-H50 on ISO. I know there are probably settings that I could have used to get better photos, but I am admitting complete ignorance here. I have not read my owner's manual and have not experimented with settings much.

And still, my little camera does the best it can do under the circumstances. (Great little camera that it is).

This was the best shot I could get without a tripod (I held my breath a lot).



And this is a cropped view of the same shot. It's not pretty, I know, but it (not-so-clearly) shows Jupiter with two moons on the right and one on the far left. I think I saw three moons on the right through my binos, but I can't be completely sure because...well...I'm fairly ignorant of astronomy too.



I'm still happy. I saw Jupiter...and it's moons....more than I've ever seen before.

And there's fresh snow on the ground!

Life is good.

Cold War

The transition from autumn to winter is a gradual, practically graceful, thing. Like two old friends on a quiet walk, no matter how much fun they have conversing, the time for parting ways inevitably comes. Winter winds up. Autumn falls silently away. The seasonal shift is gentle, barely noticeable.

But...the springtime changing of the guard tends to be characterized by a very different tone. Unwilling to relinquish control, Winter’s grip is strong, but Spring is youthful and wages a ferocious battle of its own.

With snarling teeth, it devours Winter's hold bite after bite...





...while the Sun aides the arrogant upstart with pounding rays both day and night.



Still, Winter’s allies, Wind and Cold, keep the old one in the fight.



But in the end, things never change....

Winter's loss is Spring's delight.

What can you do with a sled @ +32?

Snow Bath of a Different Kind

So...

I'd just finished observing the snow bunting giving itself a snow bath (previous post). I walked through the school to the front deck. It was a glorious day and the front deck of the school offers a great eastern view of the tundra. There are caribou out there...if only I had the lens to prove it!

Anyway, as I stood there, camera in hand, breathing in the fresh, frosty air I heard the slow scraping sound of a sled on the icy road below. Sure enough, a sweet pair come into view. A devoted young mommy and her extremely curious three-year-old son are enjoying a peaceful stroll in the bright spring sunshine.

It made me sigh inside to witness such a wholly unspoiled scene painted upon a canvas of pure white, simple and clean.



Then...

BAM!

Teenagers tumble into view.

And a snow bath...of a different kind...ensues!



Pounce...



Bounce...



Denounce...



Flounce!

No preening or cleaning with this snow bath, but there were plenty of ruffled feathers!

And you'll notice the little guy observed it all...significantly out of reach.

Me too.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Until this weekend, springtime has been a reality (pretty much) in name only.

Then... yesterday ambient temperatures shot from -20F to +1F above zero. I thought that was really something, but this morning I opened the door and was slapped in the face with a major blast of warm air sporting +28F degrees!

Now, I know that doesn't sound very warm, but after months and months of subzero temperatures, twenty-eight degrees above zero is practically toasty.

And signs of spring are finally creeping into view.



Very nice.

Favorite Foto Friday

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.

Sweet Sunshine Sliding

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.












What a blast!

Favorite Foto Friday

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?

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. :)

Darkness Subsiding

Winter darkness is on its way out.

I took this photo on Christmas day while standing in the doorway of my apartment. Rudy had just ventured out for his afternoon scratch-n-sniff session and, in spite of the biting cold (that haze is the humidity that escaped from the house when I opened the door), I stood there for a moment, admiring the sapphire tones and azure hues of our southern sky in December.

Reminds me of a mood ring that I had in junior high.

Compostionally, this is no great shot, I know. It would have been better if I'd walked down toward the lake, away from the telephone poles and power lines, but the idea of bundling up and getting out there was less than appealing. I settled for a cluttered shot and hurried my dog along, so I could shut the door and get warm again.

Then I realized that the winter solstice had come and gone without my even mentioning it. Not that it's a big deal, exactly, but it does mark the point when we begin to gradually gain light again.

And that's a good thing.

Toward the end of January, the sun will peak above the horizon for the first time in about sixty days and by spring it will be our constant companion again. But, for now, this is the light we see...in the afternoon...when it's not cloudy...or blowing snow...like today.

Wind from the E at 30 MPH (26 KT) gusting to 33 MPH (29 KT) Visibility 5 mile(s)
Weather Blowing snow
Precipitation last hour A trace
Temperature -4.9 F (-20.5 C)
Windchill -32 F (-36 C)
Dew Point -8.9 F (-22.7 C)
Relative Humidity 82%



Looks peaceful, doesn't it?

Recipe for a Flaky Crust

Temperatures have dropped back into the normal range for this time of year. I checked the airport website a few minutes ago...

Temperature -36 F (-38 C)
Windchill -56 F (-49 C)

That's about right for December. It's definitely nippy.

Our little heat wave last week was immediately followed by several days of fog. Many of you probably already know (or can guess) that fog does some serious shape-shifting when the mercury begins to drop, but not before wrapping itself around every conceivable surface it can find.

Recipe for a Flaky Crust?

1 part temperature (extremely cold works best) + 2 parts Heavy Fog

Mix thoroughly and allow to set.

This produces a very flaky crust that will keep for weeks and weeks.

However, avoid exposure to wind!

And, if you can't avoid it, watch your head!



It's difficult to see in photographs, but some of these lines have about three to five inches of frost surrounding them. That's a six to ten inch diameter!



Fences add an elegant variation to the recipe, don't you think?






The snow (still) piled up on the railing of my porch has acquired a layer of frosty feathers.



I guess that's it for now. Stay warm out there!

Who tinkered with the thermostat?

Friday and Saturday were blustery days full of stiff wind and lots of blowing snow, the kind of blowing snow that wreaks havoc with airline flights and deposits impassable drifts across roads and between buildings. That's always bad news for those with travel plans...or groceries on the way...or hopes of getting mail.

On the other hand, it's good news for kids of all ages who will play for days and days in those nice, deep, wintry troves of frozen fun. It's also good for those of us (who are not waiting for groceries or mail) who adore the look and feel of fresh layers of snow.

After two full days of the blustery stuff, I opened the door Sunday morning and was greeted by a wall of about four feet of snow precariously balancing on the rail around my porch (these photos were taken the next day after I'd cleared the steps and the piles had settled some).





I was also greeted by an even thicker wall of warm, moist air. Warm, moist air? Was this...June? July? August? Okay, it wasn't straight-out-of-the-shower moisture or steam bath mugginess, but 28 degrees above zero feels like a whole different season compared to -10F or even -30F!

Kids all over town spent most of Sunday building snow structures and sledding. The whine of snow machines began around 9am and still haven't ceased. Weather like this is perfect for long snow machine rides on the tundra. There is always a race to see who will be the first to tackle those powdery fresh drifts or break the trail.



The warm reprieve inspired quiet walks as well, a pleasure usually reserved for summer.



Yet, as I write, temperatures are already dropping. I suspect the air is drying too. Sub-zero will be the norm again. Then all this beautiful, silent fluff will revert back to its former state as a styrofoamy solid, squeaking with every step, making quiet walks a physical impossibility.

Yippeeeee!

We've had blowing snow all day and it's still going strong. Drifts of snow, piles of snow, whirling, swirling flurries of snow, all creating slippery slopes perfect for sliders of all sizes.

Finally!

This is how fall is supposed to be! Frost is nice, even beautiful, but just not that much fun.

I've already heard the growl and whine of snow machines around the village. Rescued from no-snow limbo, they are free, free, freeeeee!

I guess my motor is pretty revved up too, huh?

Happy, happy, happy! I am a cold weather person!

I'm not sure, but I think the duck might even agree.

This is October?

On Friday afternoon, one of the young men in my Literature class looked out the window of our classroom and sighed, "I think we might have a brown winter."

I sighed as well and had to admit that I'd been having similar thoughts. Then we comforted each other by agreeing that certainly we'd get more snow soon, but with three snow falls come and gone, it didn't look hopeful.

The river and lake have frozen over and ice fishing has commenced, but temperatures in the mid-thirties have stolen our snow at least three times since September. One morning last week, the ground was covered with a thick layer of very slippery ice, but no snow.

Then today it snowed again, a nice thick layer, and everything looks clean and white, at least for the moment.




Many of you have asked for more information about Wanda and her progress. I haven't asked her many questions because I know she's fielded quite a few since her return, but I don't think she'd mind me giving a short update.

On the day she was rescued, Wanda was first taken to our clinic here in the village and then boarded a flight to Barrow. The hospital there checked her out and treated her feet which were suffering from 1st/2nd degree frostbite. A few days ago, she was able to return home where she is resting and healing.

At least I hope she's resting!

She didn't require surgery on her feet, but it is still painful for her to walk. Also, her fingertips are numb. Both of these are conditions that she should be able to overcome. It's just going to take some time.

I do want to thank all of you who have thought good thoughts or said prayers for her. I know she appreciates it, as do I.

And, again, I can't say enough to commend our search and rescue volunteers. They worked round the clock for five days and nights. They are a credit to this village!

Nature's Abstracts

Hot or cold? Damp or dry? What will it be today?

The elements subtly play their cards while puddles and piles await their fate. The Sun seems to hold a winning hand, but the Arctic wind may conceal an ace. Chips stack up on either side as round after round is perpetually played.



Nature's abstracts abound in spring...





...for she has no poker face.