live and slowly learn

A good friend sent me this puzzle, a great way to pass the long winter nights. I am truly an idiot with puzzles, one piece, ten minutes...uh nope doesn't fit....next piece...ten minutes..er ah...can't jam it in yet...and so it goes. This one was 1000 pieces.
They are fun and so very satisfying once completed. This one is particularly beautiful with the use of colour and light and it was relaxing to build.

Frequently snow or ice crystals are forecast. Snowing here means anything including micro-snow which you can barely see, but blurs the horizon and magically accumulates to some depth. You may know it's snowing by standing outside and seeing if your coat gets whiter.

Ice crystals; until now I hadn't made much notice of ice crystals in the forecast. Then suddenly one day I coughed, or hollered or something and OWWWIE those ice crystals hurt! You can't see them. They are tiny invisi-razors when inhaled! Best inhaled through a scarf or balaclava in case you come across them in your forecast.

tagged

Jennith of The Blog Bog of the Tundra has tagged me!

Since I routinely archive my photos, my 'puter didn't have six directories in the photo file. So into the archive I go...this is my sixth pic from the sixth directory in a randomly chosen flash drive. The date on the photo is September. One of many taken here of the remarkable fall colours that blanket the tundra.
At the time it reminded me of Christmas. I'm not keen on it as it is over exposed making the leaves look silvery and not as red as they should be. Voila.
Tagging six people to play!
M&M of Cape Dorset, (you two crack me up!)
Periples
Adventures of Matt and Kara and Baby Hunter
Baffin Blogger are you still around?
Beas Blog
365 to 42

sticky stuff

Mythbusters did an episode on busting the "myth" that if one were to lick a cold metal pipe in winter their tongue would stick. Sure, Canadians don't need a couple of Cali boys telling us the facts in that scenario. Probably everyone has done it at least once or coaxed a buddy into checking it out to make sure.
This week I have managed to stick a finger to an outside door handle, stick 3 fingers simultaneously to a door and the most weird stick up I had this week, was my shoe to the door jam.

The dry, frosty metal door handles and my toasty warm, moist finger make like tongue and metal and stick fast together. But the shoe? It was weird, repeatedly pulling at my foot until viola in a three stooges moment the shoe came free of the frost nearly sending me on my tush.

Lesson of the north: Tongues aren't the only thing to become victim to waiting icy metal.
Repeat to myself "Keep gloves on"..... especially when pulling doors, or starting car or setting up tripod ..well just keep em on.



-gassing up northern style

halo and ribbons

These photos were taken with a long exposure. My tripod is broken which is why the moon looks bumpy. However, the Aurora Borealis and giant halo around the moon were what prompted me to return outside with the camera.
Holding my breath with frozen fingers these are the shots I managed. Now they aren't perfect but I had never seen a night sky like this before.

kamiik for qimmiq?

This new year brings Caesar a bittersweet gift. Booties. While he may appear as a large intimidating, ferocious animal, at heart he is a big baby. Often the extreme temperature of the snow and ground will have him stopped in his tracks. Literally, he wouldn't move, turn his eyes towards me as though I could change the snow under his feet. He's an old feller, turning eleven this year. Sometime pushing his rear end to get him moving again would be all that he needed. Which falls under the " I can't believe I have to do this" category.

This big hairy baby starts to tremble and clack his teeth while he is being shod. Which probably falls under his " I can't believe the humiliation" category.

The minute he is outside VOILA, the boots don't matter, and he doesn't run around trying to shake them off.
Maybe inside his little dog brain somewhere, somehow he will see the boots and think "walkies".

The booties worn on his back feet (as these seem to suffer the most in the snow), are shown here in a bright orange with a reflective stripe. They are fleece lined.

In other dog news, the only sealift we did this fall was dog food. Yes $1500 to bring dog food up here. As it turned out there was a small error in judgement (ahem) and we ended up with 2 yrs of food. Guess who decided he doesn't like it anymore? Yeah. So now to encourage him to eat enough calories each day of dog kibble, we've resorted to mixing in gravy or other enticing aromas. What puzzles me is he had eaten one bag of this brand last year and enthusiastically gobbled it up each meal. He's lost weight in his protest and we struggle to get him to fatten up for the cold weather.