Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! 

We took Seca and Neka out to the glacier for a walk.  It's beautiful outside with all the fresh snow (and more snow expected!).

Neka is the chocolate lab we're taking care of over the holidays.  She and Seca are getting along great!  But Neka has a lot more energy than Seca...

Best wishes in 2014!

Plowing

Steve plowing.

Part of our house sitting duties include plowing this house, keeping up our place, and plowing a construction site.  We got ~5 inches of really wet, heavy snow and spent about 2 hours cleaning up this morning.  Now it's raining, yuck.  Steve's getting pretty good with a plow though!  I went along for the ride and had to reign in my OCD impulses a bit...I'd have spent another hour tidying up things if I was in charge.  Good thing I'm not.  :)

Snowy Irv.

playing hooky

Fog over Mendenhall Lake

I didn't go to school today - such scandal.  I'm done with exams and took the day (and probably most of next week) off.  Yay me!

Mendenhall glacier after a snowstorm

I took the camera and headed up to the glacier around sunset (otherwise known as ~3 pm).  I was happily snapping away, tripod embedded in the snow, when I turned to look behind me to see what the trees looked like (picture below), and saw that there was someone standing behind me taking pictures of me!  Whoa.  Weird.  As soon as the guy saw me notice him, he introduced himself...he's a photographer for the local newspaper and came out to take pictures of people enjoying the nice weather.  After snapping a few more pictures (mostly of me standing there awkwardly at that point), he got my name and moved on to take pictures of the kids sledding nearby.  I think I prefer being behind the camera to getting my picture taken!

Winter storm + final exam

Of course there's a winter storm on the one day I absolutely have to make it out to the lab for my statistics final exam.  The lab is 5 miles out of town and on a road that seems to always be the last to be plowed.  I made it here though!  I left very early (it's still dark for a couple of hours!) so I would beat most of the snow (didn't work) at the risk of beating the plows and finding an impassable road.  It was sketchy, at best, but I'm here and not even the first one in.

The capacity for snowfall in this area absolutely amazes me.  If I can, I'll take a picture to post when it's a bit lighter outside.  Snow is falling about 1-2 inches per hour depending on what part of town (more out here, less in town), which is a pretty good clip...but that's nothing compared to the other day, when we got 4 inches of snow in one hour.  I honestly didn't know that was even physically possible.  It was falling as fast as a hard rain.  Incredible.

Wish me luck!  This should be my last test, EVER!  In theory.  Other than my comprehensive exams that I need to pass to continue on with my PhD.  When I'm done I'm going to celebrate by (shoveling, then by) watching a movie at home with Seca and Neka (we're house-and-dog-sitting again).  Maybe I'll even light a fire in the wood stove!

Oooh, and I almost forgot!  We saw what we think was an ermine (in it's white phase) in the snow on our way home from the gym.  They are so darn cute. 

Everyone needs to pet a puppy during finals week

My advisor got a puppy and brought her into work today so I could meet her.  She's a 12 week old collie from a breeder in Washington, and she's adorable (obviously) and very well behaved already!  Her name is Mochi (pronounced 'moe-key').  She reminds me of a more-hairy, differently colored Seca.  :)

Makes me want a puppy again! 
Oh yeah, and we have a lot of snow here. 

snoooooooow

We've had about 2 feet of snow at the Irv in the last two days.  So, it's pretty, but we're totally running out of places to put snow.  That's mostly because of how we're parked in a corner, and surrounded by other RVs.  Steve got up on the roof yesterday to shovel off some snow, since it was wet, heavy snow.  It's supposed to rain (ugh!) tomorrow which we leave a huge mess if it actually happens...all the street drains are covered in snow, and the surface of roads still have snow which will just turn to ice if it rains (given past experience with rain on top of snow around here!).  And if it does rain we'll have to get up on the roof again because the snow acts like a sponge with the rain and things get really heavy quick!

Snowy parking lot at school

But the worst part of all the snow is that the power keeps going out, especially here at work (where I sit typing this right now).  My laptop has a pretty good battery, but the other day the power was out for 3 hours and that's a bit longer than my battery lasts and of course today I just started backing up my computer to an external hard drive moments before the power goes out.  I hope it finishes before my battery dies. 

Happy winter!

Vibrant sunset last night

Yesterday while Steve was at work, I took a break from working on my statistics class project to take some sunset photos.  The weather is supposed to turn back to snow and rain so I wanted to take advantage of the clear(-ish) skies before they were gone for who knows how long.  I drove out to Eagle Beach recreation area, about 20 or so minutes from home, and was surprised that there wasn't any other people with cameras.  I was out there for more than an hour, and I kept thinking "Oh, this is it! This is the peak of color!"  And then a few minutes, it would be even better.  I didn't leave until it was pretty dark (and very cold!).

So even though I froze my butt off waiting in the cold next to a creaking, groaning river (as the ice broke up while the tide was going down), it was worth it!  What a beautiful sunset!  Just as I was about to pack up and leave, a seal popped it's head up about 15 feet from me.  I don't think it knew what to make of me, since it would rise up and look at me for a few seconds, then pop up from another angle and get a bit more of it's head out of the water, then again from another angle...finally, it drifted away and seemed unconcerned with me.

Science meets art exhibit

None of these are mine!

Friday night was the formal reception for a "Sscience Meets Art" exhibit put on by UAF.  Students, and some faculty and staff, submitted photographs from their research and a professional artist selected the final images for printing for the exhibit, which was held at a downtown Juneau restaurant.  There were 21 images in total, I think, and one of mine was chosen! It was also First Friday, where stores and galleries stay open late and it seems like everyone in Juneau comes out to celebrate winter and the holidays.  It was a fun night!

But this one on the left is...

Seca visits the veterinarian....

The vet gave us a prescription for Rimadyl for Seca's sore joints and after only 24 hours she's a new dog!  She's still got some stiffness, but she so much improved that she was running around outside this morning on our daily trip to DeHart's gas station, where Steve gets coffee and Seca gets a treat (either a milkbone or if she's really lucky, a piece of real bacon). The staff at the store LOVE her.

It was also a beautiful morning for a walk. The sun rises over the mountains at about 8:30 am or so (it's light before that though) and it's been so clear out lately that the sun is pink on the snowy mountains in the morning.  

Finally back home

We're back home in Irv!  After being in Seattle for a week, I was home for about 12 hours before we packed up (or in my case, just left the suitcase in the car) for a house- and dog-sitting gig Thanksgiving week.  Darwin, the dog we were watching, and Seca get along great, so it was an easy week in that sense.  The house we were at had lots of slippery floors and not enough rugs though, so it was a tough week for Seca and her bad hips.  We have a vet appointment scheduled for her this week, hopefully he'll have something to help her.  In all fairness, she's 13 1/2 years old now, which is pretty old for a big (100 ish pounds) dog.  She's very, very happy to be back at home!  (And so am I!)

We're having a bit of a cold snap right now.  It was about 10 degrees or so last night, and only 53 in the Irv when we got up (at 4:30 am...it's a million times harder to crawl out of bed at that hour when it's that cold).  Actually, it was probably only 49-50 degrees back in the bedroom, which doesn't get as warm as the living/dining/kitchen area.  Our little heater just can't keep up when it's that cold outside, and we had the backup furnace set a bit too low last night.  Tonight, we'll kick it up a bit so it's not quite so cold in the morning. 

Happy December all!