We've had quite a few days of balmy weather, with temps up to 30 degrees above zero, dangerously close to melting things... I hate it when that happens. The dogs and I skated home in the truck last night and I was happy that no one decided to tail-gate me as I went over that big, steep hill I must travel on the way home. Some idiot in a sports car did pass me while I was going up it though. They must have been going at least 70 mph on solid ice. I found myself thinking, "I hope they hit a moose, the idiots!" and then stopped myself. No moose deserves that. Actually, no people, no matter how stupid, deserve that, either. I gave them a good honking as they zoomed by.
Last night the bottom dropped out and right now, as I type, it's -20F° at my house. It's colder down in the town, to the tune of ten degrees colder. Plugged the truck in last night so I wouldn't have to worry that it didn't have enough time to warm up this morning. But I still had to suit up and go out and edge up the heater in the water tank room since it was down to 37° in there, according to my remote temperature monitor. Yay for technology! It just has to stay above freezing to keep my water working in the house.
It's still dark outside, though the sky is starting to lighten now at 9:30 am. You can see by the little banner on the left when the sun comes up and when it goes down. I think we are up to about five and a half hours of sunlight a day, thank goodness! And we are gaining at a rate of six minutes per day.
The last two days we've had lots of wind! That's a rarity in Fairbanks. Since we'd just had a bunch of snowfall, the trees were loaded and the wind made it look quite blizzardy outside! It was quite fun to watch a big gust come by and have the whole world go swirly whooshy white! It wasn't as much fun to be outside with the dogs unless you went prepared to keep the snow from going down your neck when a big gust made a tree drop a huge glob of snow on you. I used the hood on my jacket for the first time for just that purpose. Worked great!
I think the wind is over with, the "warm" is over with, and now we have very, very cold temps and clear skies. The two go together, of course. Now maybe we can finally see some Northern Lights! I love the snow, but snow means clouds, and clouds means no lights. Can't have it all, you know. The sky was clear last night but there were no lights to be seen anywhere. Let's hope tonight we get a good show.
