BEAUTIFUL BARROW, COLD SPRING DAYS, SHOPPING AT AC

Good morning from sunny Barrow.  We’re entering my favorite time of year when there is still snow on the ground and on many days, the sun shines for hours over the treeless landscape.  For me, the effect is something like an expanse of light infiltrating my soul and transposing thoughts lacking gratitude to ones completely filled with them.  Life holds challenges, setbacks, and worries for others at times, but these all fade into a feeling of knowing that all is really right with the world on a level that transcends the physical.  I’m reminded that there is always something to be grateful for, even in the most challenging of life’s situations.  

    

I was in Kaktovik last week, staying in the upstairs quarters of the clinic and putting in 12 hour days.  I loved just about every minute of my time while there, but missed my daily bike rides or walks to work so I came home to Barrow determined to resume my daily outdoor exercise routine to include weekends. 

Yesterday afternoon I was drawn to walk the beach from Browerville to Barrow.  I usually take the route along the road when on my bike or across the lagoon when walking.  It was wonderful to see the ocean ice, white and with interesting formations, resting under the almost setting sun.  I wonder how much of it is ice bergs that extend far into the ocean giving stability to the whaling crews during Spring whaling and how much of it is surface ice, frozen because of the cold temperatures.  I’m hoping that much of it is the former. 

My attempts at photographing parts of my walk are hindered by how cold it is today.  Although the base temperature is minus 22ᵒ F, the wind drops it to minus 40ᵒ F.  My fingers burn and feel almost frozen in several minutes of maneuvering my cell phone camera.  At one point my phone shuts off and attempts to revive it yield a black screen with no seeming life.  It must be frozen.  I walked to the clinic, clocked in, and began writing my trip report for Kaktovik.  After warming up, I was glad to see the phone come back to life.  I had a wonderful digital camera when I arrived in Barrow 16 months ago, but the elements were hard on it, especially on a day when I forgot to zip an opening in my backpack where the camera rested.  It was covered with snow and inoperable from then on. 

I’ve found myself writing so infrequently in the blog and am wondering if I’m largely motivated by being able to share pictures with you all.  Downloading from my cell phone has been very cumbersome until recently ordering an adapter for the SD card. These photos are ones of the street leading to the ocean, some of the buildings, including the North Slope Borough Veterinary Clinic, a view looking east and ones of the ocean ice.

  

I enjoy my work quite a bit and found the quite of a Saturday afternoon restoring and productive.  I was able to finish a large part of the several reports that I hope to turn in early in the week.   It was dark when I left the clinic and magical outside.  I felt at once enveloped by and between the whiteness of the snow on the roads and the path across the lagoon and the deep dark sky filled with stars and a full moon overhead.  I really do love it here.  I was tempted to take pictures of the moon, but am thinking that I’d better upgrade to an all-weather camera first on these cold days and nights.

I read in the weekly flyer that tomatoes would be on sale Friday and Saturday, so I stopped by our local AC, also needing some other produce and a few more items.  I haven’t posted photos of grocery prices for a long time, so thought I would today.  My family always laughs at me when I’m in Washington while grocery shopping with them.  I am always incredulous that I can purchase a large cucumber for .79, sometimes two beautiful grapefruit on sale for .79, leaf lettuce for under a dollar, kale for just over a dollar and beets for just 1.99 a pound when there.  I don’t eat iceberg lettuce which is a good thing...it's $5.99 for a head here.  Yes, you're reading the signs right...those cantaloupes are $8.99 each.  Every once in a while I buy a grapefruit for $3.99 a piece and enjoy every little juice cell it holds, but have given up buying orange juice all together.  While I have no intentions of being a bad host, when you come to visit and if you want some, I'm afraid it's "BYOB" = )  The high prices, of course, reflect the cost of transporting groceries here.  

My apartment is cold some of the time.  The controls on my baseboard heaters have an encrypted code of some sort that I haven’t been able to solve.  Sometimes when I think I’m turning them on, there is heat and at other times there is no sign of life.  Sometimes I’m surprised when they begin generating heat with no action on my part.  My tea kettle is perpetually on and warm clothes and two space heaters help to keep the chill off.  I’m thinking that purchasing gloves without fingers is in my future so that while typing, at least most of my hands will be warm. 

My Tower Garden seems to be thriving with a winter crop of kale, chard, chives, spinach and Asian greens regardless of the apartment’s temperature, most likely kept somewhat warm by the lights surrounding them that come on for a half hour every hour.  

It's 11:36 am on Sunday morning...it's glorious outside, but a bit nippy with a wind chill advisory in effect.  Here's our forecast through Thursday from the National Weather Service in Fairbanks:  

Today: Partly cloudy. Areas of fog. Highs around 17 below. Northeast winds to 15 mph increasing to 20 mph. Wind chill around 50 below.

Tonight: Partly cloudy. Areas of fog. Lows around 23 below. Northeast winds around 20 mph. Wind chill around 50 below.

Washingtons Birthday: Partly cloudy. Areas of fog. Highs around 17 below. Northeast winds around 15 mph. 

Monday Night: Partly cloudy. Areas of fog. Lows around 27 below. Northeast winds 5 to 15 mph. 

Tuesday: Mostly cloudy. Areas of fog. Highs around 20 below. North winds to 10 mph. 

Tuesday Night: Cloudy. Lows around 25 below. 

Wednesday: Cloudy with a chance of snow. Highs around 20 below.

Wednesday Night And Thursday: Cloudy. Lows around 25 below. Highs around 20 below. 

Thursday Night Through Saturday: Mostly cloudy. Lows around 25 below. Highs around 20 below. NE winds.  

Wishing you all the best sort of days wherever this finds you!