Posts tagged #fieldseason

In The Rearview Mirror pt.2

Flashback Friday

In regular fashion Alaska showed it's rollercoaster climate in 2016. We went with no snow, yes NO NEW SNOW from late December to March, a whole 105 days, until we received 4 inches early April, that of course disappeared by the end of the day. The 2015/2016 winter season was pretty mild, because we didn't really dip down to -40 that regularly, we stayed around -4 to -22 F (-20 to -30 C), which was welcoming. I think I was kind of done with cold winters in Alaska by this point, even though I miss it so bad now.

April

I received my green card, which actually went pretty fast! Life went on at the cabin, water chores, wood chopping but no shoveling...Just kidding, then we got snow, but it melted pretty quickly! I went out to into the field with the mega super large truck, that literally probably is twice my size. Ice was still on the rivers, thick ice. April also mean longer days. In the wintertime you loose up to 7 minutes a day, so come spring that is what you gain, every day. By April 22 you could see the sunset after 9.30 pm, and it would still be light out at 10pm at the end of the month. As always April turns into a wet and muddy ordeal as snowmelt starts, once you get passed the cold temperatures and new snow that is. We experienced the earliest bud burst in history, a whole week before the usual green-up. April also brought the first mosquitos...

May

All of a sudden May had arrived, with a record breaking pollen outburst. Rain showers mixed with pollenshowers. A friend of mine and I decided to go to Denali for one last hurrah before both of us moved out of the state. This was also the first time I went biking in Denali without running into a bear, the only animal we saw was the distinct ptarmigan. Had my last day in the field and at the end of May W arrived, and I packed the red Subi and life went on, and on for 4157 miles...6690 km. We drove through Alaska, then Canada, and Canada and Canada. The journey through Canada was the longest, we drove about 1962 miles (3157 km) give or take, through Canada. From Bozeman we drove via Yellowstone and Cody all the way to Madison, a journey about 1360 miles (2189 km). Through Canada we camped until we approached the Canada/American border. I had a sandwich we made from our own stuff, with turkey on it in Banff, that had gone bad and got food poisoning by the time we passed Calgary, thank god we had already decided to stay at a motel that night. Then on to Bozeman and Yellowstone for some fieldwork before our journey continued.

June

June 1st was our last day on the road and we finally landed in Madison by the evening, after 12 days on the road. One of the first things we did was to buy an air conditioner, which is how I survived all summer. Madison is so far south, it is actually on the same latitude as southern France so it gets very hot in the summertime, too hot for me, and for long haired cats. Everything is so green and lush in Wisconsin, and I went to the Botanical gardens on one of the hottest days. One day we were driving back from some errands and discovered one of the bike races in Madison, namely a naked bike race, looks extremely dangerous if you ask me. W went back to Yellowstone for more fieldwork and I explored Madison. I also received the very last package from mom around this time, didn't know back then that it would be the last one I would get from her.

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Rearview mirror 2016:

Feb 3, 2017

In the Rearview Mirror pt.4

Feb 3, 2017

Jan 20, 2017

In The Rearview Mirror pt.3

Jan 20, 2017

Jan 13, 2017

In The Rearview Mirror pt.2

Jan 13, 2017

Jan 6, 2017

In The Rearview Mirror pt.1

Jan 6, 2017

Driving in Alaska

When I moved here I didn't even have a drivers license, so I didn't know how to drive. After a couple of years I started thinking more and more about learning how to drive, and W was about to move out of state, and living in a dry cabin without a drivers license can be....tricky. So, I went to the DMV, picked up one of their tiny books on rules etc, and went back after a few weeks and took the written test. Passed, and got the permit. Then I went driving with a friend of mine, in his truck, and compared to Sweden most cars here are automatic, so driving that truck was pretty easy. I practiced with him, maybe 3-5 times.

Then W was going to teach me how to drive his car, that I later bought when he moved. Well, his (now mine) is a manual, and I remember up at my summer house in northern Sweden when my dad tried to teach me, for fun, on one of the back roads how to drive....that just did not work for me. Driving with W didn't really work that great either, and I stalled out almost every time I got to a stop. Then W moved, and I asked another friend of mine to drive me to the driving school because I booked a session (which is way cheaper here compared to Sweden). The car I was driving there was an automatic, I don't even think they have manuals at the driving school. At the end of the session my teacher said:

-well to bad you didn't sign up for the drivers test because I think you would have passed!

He went on to his next customer and I tried to schedule a new appointment for the test. But that was tricky, my schedule didn't quite align and by the time we were almost done with everything the teacher came back and said that he had some extra time if I wanted to take test. So I did, and I passed and then I had a drivers license, and a manual car that I didn't quite know how to drive.

I taught myself how to drive the manual by doing my errands very very early in the morning, or late in the evening, and today I have no issues driving any car!

When you go out in the field you drive a truck, so next step was getting used to drive a truck. Driving the field truck turned out to be really easy, and fun, also this truck is super old! Every time we go out in the field we also use ATVs to get around from one end of the watershed to another, and these can be tricky to drive in uneven terrain if you have a lot of stuff on them.

However, today I had to go out into the field and the truck I was given is a real "monster" truck, a "spaceship" it's literally taller than me. It's scary to be near other cars in it, I mean in the parking lot, backing up and turning because it's hard to see where the rear end is. In the end though it's just another vehicle and once you get used to it, it's like riding a bike.

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Alaska, Science and tagged Truck driving fieldtruck fieldseason ATV Winter Alaska 2016 Cabin Life Research Long-Term Ecological Research Forest.

Friday Theme - Six Month Checkup

Since me and W went to Chicago last Friday I completely forgot about the Friday theme. Some of the themes this year have been hard for me, and others I just haven't had time to sit down and write them. But one theme I do love is the six month checkup. Because you go through six months of your life, and present some pictures that you feel represent the different months and what you were doing then.

July:

July came and we finally had a real summer, with temperatures around 30 C frequently. It got that hot already in June too, which is pretty rare. Of course everyone were worried about the forest fires. But this year wasn't as bad as one would have thought. Although we did have a fire close to Fairbanks....but that one was caused by the military who had an artillery training during red flag...(no comments...)... so yeah that fire continued during the whole summer, along with a few others of course. The weather was hot, the mosquitos and black flies were really bad, and the smoke was pretty bad from time to time.

I always take pictures of the cats, this one on the left side is one of my favorites of Olive. The light was really special because of the smoke from the fire. And Tycho of course, above.

I also had a wonderful garden and made jam and pickles throughout the summer :)

I had long field days, early morning and late evenings

August:

In August it started to rain, and by the end of august a naked Fall had arrived. In early August i went down to Ninilchik to see Trampled by Turtles and Brandi Carlile. It was a typical Alaskan festival, with rain, Extra Tufs, and a little bit of sunshine.

As the leaves were turning colors temperature were starting to drop and the last leaves of the fireweed flowers were soon gone too. I shipped Olive to Madison and Tycho was wondering what happened to her. And then I got a full load of wood for the winter that was approaching.

September:

September came, and I went to Missoula and saw one of the most beautiful weddings ever! Such a beautiful location to have a wedding. I really want to move to Montana!!