Friday Theme * 3, Glass, Wood and Porcelain

I have been missing a couple of Friday Themes recently cause I have been busy again. But, that doesn't mean you wont be able to see my interpretation of these last three Friday Themes. Lets start with Glass. When I think about glass i think about the handblown glasses from Stockholms Glasbruk at Skansen. You are not allowed to take any pictures there while they are working, but it is amazing. They are celebrating 80 years this year and I have heard they are releasing a DVD with old pictures and scenes from the start of the glassworks. My mom has bought me lots of glasses and alike from there.

One thing that I had never seen before coming here was mason jars. First, mason jars are very common in Alaska because you make jam of course, or other canned goods. And it reminds me of Greg Browns song canned goods. Second, some places serve drinks or desserts from mason jars. Personally I think mason jars are beautiful. Mason jars with beets in them, from last summer. They are so tasty. Cloudberry jam that me and a friend made last summer. Dessert served in a mason jar in San Francisco.

I really like the growlers that you can buy here, that is something you can't find in Sweden. Mostly cause Sweden doesn't have that many microbreweries.

During the summertime Farmers Market is also open and they have lots of things in beautiful glass containers.

Last May we went down to Talkeetna for the weekend and visited one of many micro breweries in Alaska.

At the breweries you can order tasters so you can get a taste of all their options.

Last summer we also celebrated Midsummer and Marie bought "snaps" glasses in honor of Alaska

One of our friends here in Alaska has her roots in scandinavia and her dad of course has a Swedish flag in glass in his living room

The second Friday theme was Wood. When we were down in Talkeetna last summer I saw this wooden sculpture, it was quite funny to see something like this there, in Talkeetna, which is so far away from any other town. Quite suprising.

I am pretty sure that none of you have missed the fact that we live in a beautiful cabin in the woods, made out of logs from the Rosie Creek fire back in the days.

I love love love the forest I work in, it is so beautiful. Parts of it was burned in the 2004 Boundary fire. The Boundary fire actually burned 10% of Alaskas burnable forest....that is almost 27000 square kilometers. That is almost the size of Jämtland in Sweden. All burned.

But only parts of the forest is burned. There are other parts that ar completely unburned.

Wood and forest can have such beautiful colors. I especially like the fall, and the beautiful colors you get there. Can you spot the moose in this picture below?

Since we are on the subject of Moose, (even though the theme is wood) I thought I should share this next picture. It does include wood, as in trees. A pretty wet forest along the road system, just what moose like. There they were munching food all day probably. A pretty rare sight to see so many moose in one place.

At my dads summer house up north in Sweden we have a handmade wooden boat that turns 51 years this year.

I think that is pretty impressive. Unfortunately it is not in its best condition. But it is still beautiful.

Moving on to Porcelain. I don't have that much in porcelain. But when me and W visited my moms old job we drank coffe from some really beautiful porcelain cups.

And that will actually end this blog post. I will end with one of my favorite pictures from last summer. Some of you may already have seen this picture. Mom and dad visited Alaska and Alaska showed it's best side, with warm and colorful summer nights. Have a nice weekend, and lets hope for endless summer nights soon again.

When Heaven Explodes, aka Aurora Borealis

The other day something extremely rare happened so I decided that it is my duty, as one of the witnesses to this and also as a photographer, to show you some parts of the whole experience. When it comes to night photography and aurora, I am a complete beginner, so while my quality might not be as good as the very best, I still feel I should share it with you. Also, since I do not have a top of the line camera, I have the cheapest SLR camera you can get, a Canon Rebel XS. In my opinion, if you are not a professional photographer you do not need more than 10 megapixel, and a big part of a photograph is in the eye of the photographer.

Anyway, enough writing about that. Now to the story. We had been backcountry skiing a ways outside fairbanks and bored as I was during the car trip back (around 3 hrs) I was looking things up on the internet with my phone. I found out that the Aurora was suppose to be extraordinary due to a specific solar event. All of us in the car were excited about this and a friend lent me his extra tripod. When we came home I was so tired but put my alarm on 12.30 AM...

So, one of the problems with the aurora is that it doesn't come out, until late, really late, and that is why I usually miss it. This time however, I got a text message at 11.30 from one of the friends saying "the lights are INSANE". Now, i was extremely tired, and had earlier sent my friend some pictures from the ski trip so I thought she was referring to the pictures having an insane light. I woke up again by my alarm, looked out the window, and sure enough the lights were out.

I started to mess with the camera, trying different settings.

And after a while it REALLY started

Aurora Borealis is pretty amazing, it turns and switches extremely fast, or slow and takes several different shapes.

One thing though is that the aurora usually only comes off as a small strand in the sky, sometimes larger, sometimes takes shapes as a circle, swirls but very rarely large (at least the ones that I have seen).

At this point you started to hear the Aurora, sounding very much like sparks. It almost seemed like the aurora was trying to reach for earth.

As I said, I am not used to the aurora covering large parts of the sky. After that it started to get extremely intense (see below). Next, the aurora switched form again and then, back to previous stage, although this time a little bit wider.

Started to widen and separate, and the next stage was swirling,

..increasing in intensity (both light and size) After that it seemed like it took a deep breath, breathing in

And then, breathing out, almost like exploding ...getting bigger and starting to curve

At this point I just had to go and get W, cause this was too big to miss. It started to center around a point again, ..Increasing in intensity again ..getting even more intense, larger and brighter (again)

This was really fascinating to me, I had never ever seen anything like it before. Extremely amazing, and INSANE as my friend called it. It continued like this for a while.. ...until it started to separate again ..decreasing in size

..and almost disappearing. Switched shape and position after this ...changing color ..switching position ..switching shape and position again And then...back to the aurora that I am used to see, just a thin band in the sky, as if nothing happened.

And that my friends, was 3 hrs of intense light in the sky. AMAZING. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, even though you were just watching pictures. Have a great rest of the week.

Friday Theme, In my Environment right now

Ok, so this weeks Friday theme just had to be one day late. I feel like this is something that occurs quite often. It is not cause I don't want to do them, it is because I haven't had time (read taken time). This Friday theme fits right into my life right now,  since that is what is causing me to be late....again. This, my friends, is what I was doing yesterday evening til 8.30 in the evening. Lab work. Once I spent 46 hrs in the lab, straight, cause I just had to finish the experiment and you can't pause it. Research is hard work to say the least.

Or when W helped me out in the field and we left around 6 in the morning and didn't finish until 7 in the evening, and then the 3 km hike, 30 minute ATV ride, and 1 hr car ride to get back into the lab (ate dinner somewhere around there), put everything in the freezer/fridge, Shower and then BED. And it just had to be around 86F that day (30 degrees C), and SUN and we ran out of our drinking water, so exhausted. Hauling soil back from the field, after coring for soil. On top of that, parts of the ground was still frozen that made it so much harder and exhausting.

This picture below (left) is from another day in the field. But I love my job, even though it takes up a great amount of my hrs, especially in the summertime. And it is so pretty out in the field!

W has been gone this week, and since I don't have a drivers license (yet) I have been using other modes of transportation. Like my bike. Problem is, parts of the way is completely un plowed. Anther part of the way gets plowed every now and then. I biked Monday, tires didn't have enough air in them....cause the bike had been standing for a while, and that made it so much worse. Going home, a little better. But still...with the amount of snow on the ground it was like biking in sand. Biked to work again the next day, but then decided to change that mode of transportation.

I decided to give the skis a try, cause the worse thing that could happen is that you run into a moose :) I love skiing, and it is so beautiful in the morning and in the evening. It is not that far at all. Around 2.5 miles, depending on what trail you pick.

And the trails are so beautiful. Skiing in the dark is a little scary though, considering the moose...

But in the morning you can see all beautiful details of the Spruce forest.

The other day I even brought my Canon along on the ride.

We will probably have this snow until april, at least...so a couple of more months. But I do like it. Even when it's really really Cold.

The other week me and W were hosting Super Bowl at our cabin. Weather was just amazing in the morning when we were out running errands.

The day before I made ciabatta bread and chocolate bread for the super bowl festivities! really yummy!

Of course I can't leave out these two for this specific theme:

Have a nice Weekend!!