Friday Theme, Something new

The theme for this Friday is Something New, and everything is relative, right, so a lot of things can be new, even though they are a little older ;)However, I actually did buy something new just the other day, and it made me kind of broke. But, this will keep me safe on the roads :) Actually biking in cold weather is not as horrible as it seems, it's exactly like biking any other time, you just have to make sure you are dressed well enough. Being cold is not Fun. I might do a blog post about winter clothing and biking or doing other activities in the cold, cause I feel like I had experience enough to have a say about it :) So if this is something you want to learn more about you should stay tuned..

Other new things I bought was a pumpkin. 10$ at Freds, pretty good I must say. Remember that a lot or rather all of the vegetables being sold up here off season is shipped from somewhere else, guess that is kind of the price you have to pay for living here.. Trust me, it will be carved...eventually, I never done it before so I was planning on doing it with some friends who know more than I do :) One good thing about living up here around this time is that the outside can serve as an extra freezer, so no worries about this pumpkin going bad if I carve it too early. The biggest problem would be the neighbors dog eating it, or the fox or the moose.

This summer we moved into a new cabin, it's not ours, we are just renting it. Bit it is new to us, and spending the winter in it is new too.

It might not look as much, but this little cabin is called the dry cabin mansion by our friends. This is really an upgrade compared to what I/we had before. The outhouse even has a door, now that's some serious upgrade right there. And the house has a foot pump and a 35 gallon water tank. A wood stove, two floors, and yes you can actually walk around upstairs. Nice kitchen area, living room/dining area, workspace, bed space and tv space. So definitely an upgrade and new for us this winter.

Anyway, now its back to work, Happy Friday

Lately

Being so far up in latitude has its up and downs. In the summertime we have sunlight almost 24 hrs a day, its actually pretty warm here too, warmer than in stockholm actually which people always are surprised about. When I planned the trip for my parents to come ove I deliberately picked middle of august as the arrival date. August doesn't have any mosquitos (and this summer was soo bad, even the blackflies were out), we still have a fair amount of daylight, beautiful sunrises and then by the end of August Fall already has arrived. And that is also the downside, The seasons are so short. We have snow from middle of October til late april early May....that is about 8 months, out of 12 months in a year. But I love it :) This picture was taken on september 29th, we had a week or so of temperatures below freezing.

The low temperatures before the snow had us prepare for the winter, with firewood....unfortunately we were pretty late in this planning and no dry birch was available, only spruce...but we need wood so that is what we got. Here in USA you order firewood as cords, and neither I or W new exactly how much that is and how much we need, so we ordered 2 cords.

Thats a lot of wood, fortunately it is delivered already split, which is awesome, less work for us, but we still needed to stack it.

After that we had to use the wood stove of course, and Tycho was ecstatic  he really loves the wood stove and can spend hours in the chair in front of it.

Olive on the other hand, loves hanging out outside, in the sunshine on the porch where she can scope the neighborhood.

So, as I said, fall is pretty short here, so whenever I have any business on lower campus I take the trail through the woods, its so beautiful in the fall.

I took this next picture a couple of years ago when we went to creamers field. Creamers field is a big hub for cranes that are flying south in the fall and that arrives in the spring. Cranes are really an indication for when fall arrives or spring arrives for us here. When you see the cranes in the spring you know that summer is almost around the corner, and likewise in the fall, you know that winter is around the corner.

Just like the fall colours,  the snow on the peaks are reminding you that winter will soon arrive.

One of the great things about fall and winter here, is that it gets dark, really dark, and having a woodstove and living in a dry cabin makes it really cozy, until you need to get water or go to the outhouse...but that is still pretty ok and I still enjoy it.

Summer is really colourful in some places but I think that fall (at least here) shows off way more colours, intensively, or maybe its just the mix of red and yellow and orange that makes it so intense, just like a sunrise or a sunset.

We live right by the power line, and an open field, and Olive loves it, she catches so many rodents here....sometimes the yard looks like a mouse cemetery..

Although, the last couple of days, we have had a visitor....someone else who also likes the powerline, and might pose a threat to the cats. We tried to scare him and make him run away, but he acted more like a lost puppy, and only had one eye. So we are keeping the cats indoors for a couple of days now..

Earlier this fall, actually late august I had a crazy schedule in the lab and was going there around 8 in the evenings and coming back home again early in the morning...Anyways, I biked through the trails a couple of times, and man, its so beautiful. I love having this acces to trails.

Anyway, right now this is what we have to look forward to:

Happy Friday!!