sun wind and snow

From tiny snow drift (below) to large masterpieces; all winter I marvel at the beauty of the snowdrift. Pristine white, glistening yet dangerously deceiving to the eye.


As northerners know, flat light is the worst; leading to snow-blindness, disorientation and increasing the risk of getting stuck. Even walking can be dicey trying to navigate the invisi-drifts.

Last week, thrilled that I had found a shortcut, I mean it looked like a road, I proceeded to navigate the truck between houses. Upon discovering that the shortcut was actually a snowmobile path through the playground and not really a road, I decided to turn around and take the real road. Too late. Truck sunk. Dressed for dinner at a friends and not for digging, I made my way to her house.

and sheepishly sought the help of the men attending. Not a great introduction. Fortunately with skillful rocking to and fro the visitor was able to un-stick the truck without the arduous task of digging.




Today's blog is an homage to the snowdrift. Like many things northern, the snow drift is schizophrenic; alternating between tempting beauty and dangerous deceit.

doodling and stumbling

My Frobisher Bay

One evening a friend installed Stumble on my computer. Life changed that night. Simultaneously I curse and thank him. While it takes me to interesting places, it also takes me late into the night. With Alan still away recovering from his surgery, I clearly have too much time on my hands.I stumbled upon a creative website and before I knew it the clock was hinting bedtime. It was 3am.
While not earth shatteringly beautiful; here are a couple of my doodles.Right Red Bird

The fact is I'm left handed. Equally comfortable using the mouse with righty or lefty generally I use the mouse with my right hand and this is mouse work.
Not too bad for wrong handed painting.


Circles through space

I've spared the patient reader from the truly terrible attempts and take times like this to enjoy a little anonymity.

some Mondays are just Moan-days

As far as Monday goes, this one really wasn't good. The day started with an early call from work. Literally one foot stepping out of the shower, towel in hand, and that set the tone for the day.

Experience should dictate that when the mercury hovers around -37 everything will be cold. But no, somehow this escaped me this morning. With bare hand I grab the metal snow brush and grimaced through the task dusting the morning snow. The truck barely started. After a grueling 10 minutes of praying, turning the key, pumping the gas and at last she rolled over, sputtered and went again. Whew! Still my fingers are not gloved and are properly frost nipped. Off to work. Firstly to deal with the reason for the call and discover what they need, we can deliver.

Now it's so cold that we decided to close the department door to preserve as much heat as possible and I stubbornly keep my sealskin kamik on, usually I change into work shoes, but that's too risky today.

After some thought I considered that perhaps the problem with the truck was the block heater. I called the mechanic and he gently suggested I check the power cord (replaced it-check) the breaker panel (flipped it-check), the outlet (tested in the fall-check). He was kind enough to squeeze the vehicle in at lunch for me.
Before departing Alan's voice in my foggy head reminds me to pour the gasline antifreeze into the tank. ONCE again, no mittens. The thing with gasline antifreeze is it doesn't freeze, it just gets very cold, in this case -37C. Just picking up the bottle hurts. Sure enough the nozzle doesn't reach far enough to penetrate the valve. Out come the handy car keys and I pour, drain, pour drain, sometimes simultaneously resulting in me pouring cold antifreeze over my cold fingers. BAH!
After what seemed like an hour, the bottle was emptied. My fingers were in excruciating pain but the truck was idling and the task was completed.
Lost mittens during lunch. Yeah I do own several pairs, I just carry them around in my pocket in case I need them...
Kind cab driver hunts me down behind locked departmental doors to return mittens.

Verdict- block heater okay.

Today I called the airline to book a prepaid ticket which I purchased on a seat sale. Up-charge, guesses? Sit down, here it comes $600! Flying out anyway, stinkers!

On preparing dinner; lift pan to put into preheated oven. Something falls off near the element. A small fire ignites a package of peanut butter on which I had inadvertently placed the pan. Peanut butter, plastic and that foily stuff is alight! Oh brother, turn off the oven, get off the phone, extinguish small flames, scoop liquefying peanut butter onto tin foil and mop up the rest.
8pm dinner is finally in the oven.

On detailing my day to Alan, he suggested there is an unmarked switch in the storage room which sends power to the outlet for the vehicle. Ooops better go check ~~~it is set to "off".

Hoping Tuesday starts off on a gentler and drier foot!

Batten down the hatches!

Am changing my setting on comments to avoid being spammed by Asian porn link in the future. One such link was left in my comments tonight. While I was able to delete the comment and report it as spam via gmail, some bloggers report they are unable to disable, delete or hide this link once it is published in their comments.

The setting change will require me to approve the comment before publishing. While I dislike that I have to take this step, I want to keep the blog family friendly and block any further inappropriate spam.

Shelley

Dog whispering not for the north

Cesar Millan did an episode in NYC in the autumn. Mostly he stays in the warm places, where dog owners hike around in shorts and flip flops.
Here's my challenge; leash train an ambitious puppy when the north wind is blowing, the ice crystals hurting your nose, the bulk and weight of winter wear slowing your reactions and blocking the view of the said dog in training. Now it's not so easy with a little psstchst-tap, aiming for a jumping jelly bean at the end of the leash whom you can't actually see past your hood.

The northern dog is hardy, strong and strong willed (CM doesn't say stubborn), and very well equipped for the climate. Even extreme temperatures and winds don't slow em down. By extreme I mean colder than -30 with windchill giving a -45C brrr. Anything warmer than that is a fine winter day.

He also recommends waiting til they become "calm submissive". For Kamik to become calm submissive may actually take 2-10 minutes. Now my feet may go numb, hers not so much. The only boots to keep my feet warm here are my seal skin kamik, the downer; they can be very slippery on the roads. So sneakers it is, they keep me just as warm as my -35 rated boots.

Options; wait til the wind stops blowing and hope it's a weekend or courageously attempt dog training even though the wind blows over your vocals, the ice crystals causing pain with every breath and stinging ice on your face leaves you exhausted.

Preparations:
1. Don parka, sunglasses, hat, mittens, and scarf. These must be warm and wind proof
2. Dress feet
3. Find leash, camera, training collar and keys
4. Don't trip going down the steps, especially the last one which has victimized me many times.
5. Approach dog.

He says it's all about energy be " calm assertive"..hmm.

1. Wait for dog to settle into submissive attitude- ~ 5 minutes
2. Attach leash; this generates new excitement. we wait.
3. Initiate exercise eg. walk on leash...we're off!
4. Correct with psshscht noise and with precision timing speed tap or pinch dog's neck, shoulder, or ribs..... Mittened hand swinging through the air, unable to see dog beyond hood, puffy shoulders while she artfully dodges my reach, psschst drowned out by the sound of saws, snowmobiles.
5. Bear an attitude of composure, leadership....I'm sweating in my parka, but my face is numb and toes are wooden
6. Distance traveled....25 feet
7. Dog happily sniffing while I shuffle along the shiny, slippery, wind-blown-snow-imitating-ice surface of the roads.
8. Use every distraction to remind dog who is in charge; correction if goofy behaviour starts at the sight of another dog, snowmobile passing, familiar friends truck. This brings us back to item number 4.
9. Repeat training, walk frequently and for lengthy periods...hope she doesn't slip her collar.

with the sun came wind

It's very difficult to take pictures with mitts on, so I struggle-- take mitts off and freeze my fingers or clumsily try to press the shutter with mitts on. Today; mitts on won. (Temp -30/windchill -43.)

Alan had remarked to me that he could hear a jet behind us, when I looked up, it was in front....wrong there were two jets streaming across the cloudless sky. Alan took this picture before the jet streams broke up and leaving a trail of dots on the sky.

The recent strong winds have filled in and buried Nanuq's house. She finds shelter under the steps.
Underestimating the depth of the snowdrift, the truck got stuck half way into it. The drift blocking the driveway is not enormous, it is about 2 feet deep but fooled us into going forward.



Nanuq and Kamik playing nicely. At first sassy Kamik tried to dominate the much bigger Nanuq by mounting her; this went poorly for Kamik. It now seems they've come to an agreement about who's who.Frosty face and icy nose.