And then summer arrived...

Since I have been so busy lately, I haven't had time at all to update. I was updating so infrequently as it was before the summer, so yeah, the updates have been closer to zero than anything else. But summer finally did arrive, late, much later than what I have been used to. W left in June to do his PhD in Madison. So we have two cats, Olive and Tycho, but Olive is his cat, and Tycho is my cat (even though i secretly think Olive loves me more...). I had both cats for a while and then I shipped Olive to Madison in August. But I will see her soon enough :) This below is Olive:

And Tycho, Tycho was a stray cat and he lost his ears because of frostbite (like many other cats at pet-pride in Fairbanks).

This summer was so dry, almost no rain all summer, and anyone who knows Alaska knows what that mean, fire.

One of my favorite flowers, fireweed, the color is just stunning when it's all in bloom. I love seeing the color of fireweed, makes me realize summer is here for real.

They say that when the fireweed has bloomed out, summer is over.

This summer did feel extremely short and long at the same time. Short in the sense that I kept busy, and long cause I felt like I had so many things to do, and I missed W of course.

I had a nice garden this summer too, I grew potatoes, cucumber, zucchini, beets, lettuce and basil. The cucumbers did great, mostly cause this summer was so hot.

I didn't do that much hiking this summer, I guess I was too busy. I did get to travel south, to Ninilchik, close to Homer. That was a blast. Not the 12 hr car ride it involved, but the trip itself :)

The sky in the summertime is beautiful, well I guess that is true in the fall, wintertime and spring too....but the summertime is the only time you get amazing colors and shapes even though it is really late at night.

Often times I don't have my "real" camera, only my iphone, but I use it a lot more than the regular camera. And the pictures do come out pretty well there,

Hope you are having a wonderful week!

Friday Theme: In My Neighborhood

So far I have lived here about 4 years, not in the same place but the neighborhood is still the same. Well, it depends on the perimeter you use, I use a pretty large one, which mean I can show you more. But it's walking distance to all the places. The University is about 2.1-2.4 miles from here depending on what way you choose, but I still count it as my neighborhood. During the summertime you usually see smoke, cause there is always a fire somewhere, and everything kind of centers around Fairbanks no matter what it seems like. That same view, the parking lot (above) is probably the most common view I have, leaving my office to go to places, and I always make sure I take a picture every once in a while. I also like the fields down the slope from campus.

The mountains of course, and the sunsets. I like our campus, it's really pretty, and in the summertime it is really calm, no students (almost) but lots of tourists, mostly around the museum though. We have the university trails around there, walking and running in the summertime, and Skiing in the wintertime.

The pretty lake. Closer to home we have the dogmushing trails. We have a nice field right outside our cabin, even in the bitter cold it's pretty. On the other side from our driveway, there is a restaurant and a golf course. In the wintertime the sun always sets between the restaurant and the end of the field, and calls for beautiful sunsets.

And of course we have our cabin, and the neighbors cabin to the left, but most of the time it is empty.

And that is about it, I think I showed you a lot of my neighborhood. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Friday Theme, May, May Welcome

Well, I guess I could start by saying: What, where? Is there May anywhere near?We do not have any regular may weather here right now. There is a never ending winter that linger around Fairbanks as we speek. The forecast calls for temperatures around 32F, so around 0C. We will see when fieldwork starts at this point.

I was recently back in Stockholm though and we saw the typical May weather (even though it was only April) maybe a little on the colder side, but not compared to here.

Flowers are usually one of the signs for spring. I remember last year we went kayaking right around this time. And while there were some snow here and there, there still were some buds blooming (below).

It was warm enough to be kayaking (above), and the weather was pretty good, that is Alaska good. No snow on the ground in the forest where we camped (below).

Even the Tanana was ice free (above). I do not think it is ice free today. By 1st of June last year everything was green again (below). At this rate I am not 100% convinced that it will look the same this year on the 1st of June.

A couple of years ago I went on a hike on May 30th and while there were some spots where there still were some snow, it was pretty green, and warm. AND wildfire season had already started.

So, for now these pictures represent May for me, cause in my mind it is not suppose to be snow on the ground in May.