...but I've been told I was born to endure this kind of weather...

As the temperature drops below -40 again it makes you wonder what you are doing here. Isn't there any other place you could have gone? And once again we managed to almost run out of water at these temperatures. The propane is running low too, or just not running at all, who knows. As the title say, I guess I am born to endure this kind of weather we have here. The Swedish girl duo First Aid Kit sings this in their hit song "Emmylou" which you all should go and discover. W wonders how I can not get depressed here. Sure, the darkness gets to me too sometimes, but probably not as hard as on him, or someone from say Texas.

The landscape is still beautiful in these low temperatures, as always.

I am so amazed by the ravens, they are pretty tolerant to this weather it seems. I don't know how they survive. I also don't understand how they can have enough energy to even fly in these low temperatures.

Yesterday I went to work and happen to see the reflection of the sun in the building opposite to mine, and I got this "need" to go and take pictures. Sometimes the light is just right, and the icefog gives the whole landscape a kind of mysterious veil.

Sun, Spruce, Icefog, I love it. Not all the time, but sometimes.

The sun is an amazing source of energy. Not only actual but mental energy. Everyone who lives somewhere where it is dark during a long time of the year probably knows what I mean.

We tend to get happier this time of the year. We have snow on average 7 months of the year. That usually mean temperature below freezing for at least 6 months of the year. Darkness is such a central part of the life here. But as soon as spring hits, we all forgotten about it.

Cold weather do not come for free. With the inversion the cold air gets trapped, together with the pollution. Air quality here is seriously considered unhealthy. And every day on the radio when temperatures get down to around -40 they tell you: elderly people, children and people with respiratory problems should stay inside.

The mountains too will make an appearance every now and then. And when the sun is just about right you get this silhouette of the mountains, it is beautiful.

The other weekend we got a visitor at our house, a moose stepped on the porch. He was probably searching for some food. You know that pumpkin I wrote about around halloween, my very first carved pumpkin? You know, the one I said would last til the summertime or until a moose eats it. Well, this moose (or a moose) actually ate my beautiful carved pumpkin.

Usually we appreciate January, cause it mean the start of the spring (well you know technically the spring starts in like April) but we gain a lot of daylight everyday now. Last week I even went skiing, it was pretty warm for once.

The trails were just groomed, and it was a beautiful weather, and the sun is creating beautiful patterns in the snow.

And the weather has created a birch arch over the ski trails.

And, this is what keeps me happy during the wintertime. Obviously I can't ski right now, with these temperatures, but they say the temperature is going to get warmer next week. I am looking forward to it.

This is prime time to bake, and the other weekend me and W made some food for the Football game, we made sliders and I made the buns. They were so good!

I also made bread the other day, and cookies...

But now it's too cold/we are out of propane, so no baking.

Have a nice week and stay warm.

Friday Theme, Accessories

I have been missing in action again, and this time it is because I have been on Christmas holiday. We usually don't go anywhere in the summertime, since that is when I have intense fieldwork so having a break for Christmas is always nice. This weeks friday theme is accessories, and I have a lot of accessories. Well I guess it depends on how you define accessories. From the dictionary, accessory noun 1 camera accessories such as tripods: attachment, extra, addition, add-on, adjunct, appendage, appurtenance, fitment, supplement. 2 fashion accessories: adornment, embellishment, ornament, ornamentation, decoration; frills, trimmings.

So, in a sense a lot of things can be an accessory. Whatever extra add-on you need in order to do something specific, or to dress in a specific way.

I have a lot of accessories, and actually just recently bought a very well needed accessories for a dark place like this. I know you guys are so eager to hear what that is, it is so essential in our life's, note that I mean our as in mine and W's life :) A headlamp. Not so boring and non essential as you may think. Also my dear W bought me a new camera lens! And I am so excited, unfortunately I didn't receive it in time for our roadtrip so I haven't been using at all almost. I will in the future though.

This beautiful star is still hanging up, we keep it up all the time. It generates such a nice light, a really cozy light. This picture is from our previous cabin. I kind of miss it in one way, it was a really nice cabin too. But so small compared to the one we have now

W is a kayaker, and he brought his kayak on one of our weekend trips last year, something that I should probably write more about in the near future :) I am showing this picture of him cause his kayak is kind of an accessory for him I guess, maybe not strictly the right meaning but still.

When you go camping here in the summertime, there is at least 2 essential things you need to bring. Your bear spray and your bear barrel. The bear spray is suppose to protect you from being eaten by the bear, and the bear barrel is suppose to keep odors away from the bear. I also tend to bring my sitting pad, I love it. It is so awesome to have something soft to sit on, although if you bring your sleeping pad too, it is kind of redundant. I of course lost my sunglasses in the field or somewhere this summer, made me sad. Luckily I had a spare pair. Still miss my old one though..

I also got a life west last summer, I guess if you are dating a kayaker, you need one :)

I guess I haven't really felt inspired to write in a long time, but there is still much to show and stories to tell so I will try to update a little more frequently in the future.

Now, lets finish up with some mountains, since I love mountains :)

Friday Theme, 6 Month Check In

July In July, the day before my birthday (8th) we decided to go hiking Granite Tors. Granite Tors is one of the really accessible hikes from Fairbanks, well by that I mean only about 1hr drive from Fairbanks. The hike itself is a loop and you can do it in a day or camp at the top of the tors. The loop itself is 15 miles. Elevation wise you start at around 700 feet and continue up to around 3100 feet when you hit the top. We did the loop backwards, which mean we had a lovely 4 miles gaining 2400 feet. Out of which 1000 feet was gained in 1 mile. It was steep to say the least.

This picture above is showing the start of the hike, before we started to climb. It is a really nice hike, but bear spray is a must. I know a lot of people do not bring their bear spray on hikes like this, cause they think it is not necessary.....and then we get the stories like the woman with her two nephews? can't remember, two kids anyway, and they ran into a bear hiking Granite Tors. She did everything you can do wrong. If you are going to hike in bear country you have to know what to do, in case you do run into a bear.

This is a picture showing part of the steep climb. We were really lucky cause the weather was so nice.

The view itself is pretty amazing, and you have all these tors to climb around on.

August

My family arrived here in August, and we went to Denali, Palmer and the State Fair, Homer and back up to Fairbanks again. August is such a wonderful time of the year, the colors are Amazing!

We also have a lot of wildfires up here in August, well actually starting in May and ongoing. But this picture was taken in August.

September

In September the temperatures begin to drop and before you know it, winter is around the corner, well almost. Still amazing colors, but also rainy weather.

But you know what they say in Sweden, there is no bad weather, just bad clothes.

We got lots of beets from our garden this summer, so we canned all our beets, they were so good!

I also took my parents to the watershed. But my mom refused to leave the car since one of my friends saw two grizzlys running back and forth on the road when she was there a couple of days earlier.

I showed my dad and mom how to operate the ATV, fun times :)

After that we had lunch at the famous Chatnika lodge.

October

Snow and darkness, but beautiful sunsets.

Before the snow we also had the Forest Festival, but I already mentioned that in a previous post, but that called for some nice pictures. At this point it was mainly a long wait for the snow to start falling for real, so we could bring out the skis.

November

Finally snow. It had been snowing for a couple of days and we decided to drive up murphy dome and hike in the snow. Do I need to emphasize any stronger how much I love snow, and playing in the snow? Me and my traditional handstand. We also have excellent ski trails on campus, which means we can easily get a nice ski in during lunch break. Olive seem to like the snow too, most of the time anyway.

Tycho on the other hand usually doesn't wander off outside, he likes to stick around in front of the wood stove.

December

December arrived and we went to San Francisco for a conference. And I took some pictures from the plane of Alaska.

As of now, we are already past the shortest day of the year, and we are gaining around 6 minutes every day.

With all the snow we have gotten so far, I am sure we will have lots of spring adventures in the snow. Happy Friday!