where o where did the snow go?

i arrived in alaska to blistering, biting cold. like 4F. my parka holds up like a champ and aside from needing to own more tights, 4F in AK isn't nearly as cold as i thought it would be. This is the view from the kitchen window. It was a white wonderland of coldness. It would only snow at night, where i couldn't delight in the falling of the the powder.

My singular trek out each day to the mailbox involved bundling myself up and rueing the fact that i didn't have a full head covering--my nose hairs were freezing within give or take five breaths of the front door. It's a very strange sensation really--the nose hair freezing thing--like your whole body tells you all at once that little humans were not cut out for this because (at least most of the female population) doesn't have fur or hair to cover and protect the nose!

You get the idea. Cold. Here are a few more of the cold pictures:
Including one of the sliding door freezing shut from the inside.

door frozen from inside

plowing the drive

parking lot at 11am

Adam and i were feeling a little alone in the world and decided that maybe we should get a cat. We spent a whole day cat shopping--mostly at adoption centers. Adam fell in love with this huge gray furball named Emma. And all i heard for hours was (in rapid soft hinting tones) "Emma the cat". As we ate pizza at Moose's Tooth and ran through the pros and cons, we started talking pros and cons of dogs--and timing issues.  We were pretty sure there wasn't actually an Australian Shepherd breeder up here (we were pretty particular about the kind of dog we wanted). But, some digging turned up one--with a current litter of pups ready to go home. The breeder brought the last puppy in to meet us. She was the first to get out of the crate and is brilliantly smart. She has ginormous paws and is very cuddly.  We couldn't part with her.  So, here's our baby girl: Neah (named after Neah Bay on the far tip of Washington). Click to make pictures bigger :)


Neah




she tied herself up with her leash.



 



the battle for the squeeky skunk.