Monday is Winter Solstice

At 8:47am Alaska Standard Time, we will begin our Winter Solstice. Our days, in the beginning, will slowly gain minutes of daylight. In honor of this, on Sunday night as I type this, our temperature has been slowly climbing all day and all evening with a mild Chinook pushing up from the south. A few days ago we were at -4. This evening, we've gone all the way up to 30 degrees! Which means of course the snow is getting heavy and we will now spend our time shoveling snow off any tarps or equipment before it gets too heavy and wet, turning to solid ice a few days from now. For Alaskans tho, Solstice means the gaining of daylight, and the slow approach to summer, albeit months away. Anyone with a little Cabin Fever will feel just a bit better too.

Happy Winter Solstice!

And it started again!

Well........sometime last night the snows started again, and kept going until this afternoon. Another 4 or 5 inches on top of what we already had. Best guess is we got about 18 inches of snow. It's deep.......where it hasn't been plowed we're walking in snow up to our knees. I have to say I bought a new pair of boots late this summer on Sierra Trading Post, made by Columbia, and they are neoprenes like the Muck Boats out there. I only paid around $35 for them........wow, what a great expenditure! They are easy to stretch over your jeans too, and my feet have stayed very warm in them. I'm really happy with them and it sure was money well spent. They have kept the snow out very well. The sheep were all white snow balls today too.......seems they thought it more important to eat non-stop than to stay in where it was dry!

The snow stopped for now...

The snow stopped at quarter to four this afternoon. We now have a fresh 13 inches on the ground added to what we already had. Gee, how exciting! HA!

ok, turn off the snow now....

ooops.........seems that someone forgot to turn off the snow making machine! Instead of getting a few inches like they originally thought, it's not stopped snowing since yesterday, and the forecast is looking kinda ugly! They just sent out a winter advisory.......funny, the word advisory makes it sound like it's not a big deal. We've already gotten at least 8 inches of snow, now they've changed it again. Since when is an additional 8 to 15 inches on top of the already 8 inches we've had an ADVISORY? I'd say that's a frickin' snow storm, wouldn't you?

I can just see those men sitting at the forecasting office adding up the data, drinking their Starbucks skinny latte's, giggling their butts off as they issue a WEATHER ADVISORY..... wouldn't ya think it should be a winter storm warning at least? HA!

Hope you're snug as a bug in a rug wherever you're at........can I say I LOVE MY WOODSTOVE???!!!!

Snow!

Yay!! We have fresh snow coming down - a little fine snowfall all day long and it hasn't stopped yet. We needed fresh snow. And, here anyways, when it snows it's usually fairly warm... and it was 18 degrees above zero for the high. That's a wonderful temperature for sure! They are predicting temps to go down to at least -10 by the end of the week, so while it's warm, and the beautiful snow is falling, us Alaskans work outdoors to catch up and hopefully get ahead of chores on a farm! I went through the kennel runs tonight and pulled out all of the water buckets, half filled with ice now. All got thawed out, scrubbed with hot water and soap, and all put back into the runs - waiting for the morning warm water to arrive. That's a weekly job I usually save for later in the week, but when it's warm you do what needs to be done! Tomorrow, if we still have these temps, I'll bring out the portable hose reel from it's warm safety and I'll wash down the chainlink and exterior walls. They accumulate allot of dust - how you might ask? You see, our cold here is usually a very dry cold. Like freeze-dried. As the dogs run and play most of the day, they loosen up the surface of their runs which is sand. Our sand up here, even the washed sand that we buy by the dumptruck load, still has fine silt in it. That silt gets loosened up eventually even with shavings down. And it floats into the air. And gets all over everything! I hate it! So, before I put in fresh shavings, I'll wash the kennel runs down - and some of the spray will freeze down the dusty sand again too. Then after that sets up overnight, the layer of shavings will go over that. It will make a huge difference. I always have to watch when the dust starts to show up again - which always depends on the weather , temperature, and humidity or lack of it. I don't want the dogs breathing in the dust either. Keeping kennels tidy in these conditions during the winter up here can be challenging! Since they have a roof over their outdoor runs, it never snows INSIDE their runs........just in case you were wondering why it is so dry. But what IS fun is that the dogs all looooooooove the snow. So I'll take the big feed scoop shovel and go down the line, scooping a big shovelful of fresh snow over the top of each kennel run and they pounce in it and roll in it and have a great time eating the fresh snow.

Snow! YAY!!

And here's what they said...

I also got a few interesting emails too...and here's what they said....

Topping the list was take a NAP!

2nd was cruising the internet for items at least 50% off regular price.

And 1 person replied going out to the sheep or goat pen and just sitting there for an hour in the sun, watching the animals and greeting them as they came over to investigate.

All of the above sounds great to me!!!

What do you do in the winter with 2 extra hours?

Just a thought - what do you do in the winter with 2 extra hours? Email me your ideas and I'll post them here!

Right now, for me it would be a toss up between taking a much-needed nap or else shopping online for a Christmas present I can't find in the stores!

How about you??