The Past and the Present

April 17th 2015

It's always nice to go through old pictures on the computer and realize how different the season called "spring" can turn out. Last year for instance we had a lot more snow during the wintertime and so it took a bit longer for the snow to melt away, compare to this year. 

These pictures below are from late March- mid April last year, I would say we are maybe one or two weeks ahead of last year right now.

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And then here below are some from right around now:

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Field work will probably begin pretty soon, although not personal fieldwork for me, just the regular baseline sampling to keep it simple. I don't know if I will start going out pretty soon or not, although I am usually not a big fan of leaving for field alone in early spring. Previous years we have been seeing quite a lot of bear activity so I assume this spring wouldn't be different. We have both black bears and grizzlies in the watershed so quite a spread of bears, and of course there is a pack of wolves that are running through the area from time to time too.

Consider yourself lucky

It's not easy following your dreams, but you can if you really want to. I have lived in Alaska for 5 years now, and soon, very soon (hopefully) I will be moving to a different state. I am starting a new life over here, across the ocean far away from my original home. It's always hard to decide to move somewhere else, let alone to a different country, but sometimes you have to do what feels best for you. I consider myself very lucky, to be where I am today. The challenges and rough journeys I have taken has only made me stronger, or so I'd like to think. 

I consider myself lucky to live in the largest state in the US, to watch the largest mountain in the US from work, to have seen the northern lights so many times that I can't even keep a count of it, endless summer days in the field, being able to go to Denali national park for the day and lots of other stuff too of course. 

Right now I am happy that spring is on its way....well slowly.

Friday Theme - 6 Month Check Up N.O. 2

June 27thA while back I started with Friday theme through another blogger. I liked the concept because it was meant to show your pictures for a specific theme. One of the themes is always the 6 month check up. The Friday theme kind of "died" a while back but the 6 month check up persisted.

January Colors I came back from W in early January and landed in very interesting weather. Temperatures increased enough to make the snow start to melt, but then the temperature dropped again and created magical color shows. [gallery type="slideshow" ids="1948,1949,1950,1951,1952,1953,1954,1955"]

February Lights Temperature dropped and brought some beautiful light shows. [gallery type="slideshow" ids="1958,1959,1960,1961,1962"]

Cold weather and ice bar go really well together. [gallery type="square" ids="1967,1968"]

March and "spring madness": When March arrives people go crazy, not literally but we gain so much daylight and birds are starting to find their way back.

And I all of a sudden had done my very first marathon, it just happen to be a ski race, something I realized after the fact.. The day of the ski race I woke up to -30C...and I did not feel like doing any kind of race at that point. But i finished!

[gallery type="square" ids="1964,1965,1971"]

The temperature increased enough for Tycho to venture out into the snow. [gallery type="square" ids="1970,1969"]

We went to Denali, one of many trips to Denali this spring, just so we could get enough of it before tourist season came around [gallery type="square" ids="1980,1981"]

April: We went to Denali again and again. And I think that spring officially arrived with the blooming willow. [gallery type="square" ids="1982,1983,1984"]

May: In may we drove down to Anchortown to catch the flight to Portlandia, and that was about it for may, except a couple of days on the trails [gallery type="slideshow" ids="1985,1986,1987"]

June and summer madness!!!: June finally arrived, and so did the rain. We have had so much rain, but still quite a few sunshine moments. [gallery type="slideshow" ids="1988,1989,1990,1991"]

And the summer just keeps going and going. Lots of Rain, but still summers in Alaska are pretty fabulous.

Hope you guys have an Awesome weekend!!!