We’re just past summer solstice, so the days are getting shorter. The slow descent to winter has begun. Eventually, it will get dark again at night, and we’ll have to start using headlamps and flashlights when we go outside to walk the dogs.

But for now, it’s light all the time. It took some getting used to, and I still fell like I’m wasting precious daylight when I go to sleep.

Here’s what it looks like around here in the middle of the night.

And here’s our little house we rented three days after losing the house we had intended to buy.

Don’t worry, all the windows are on the other side.

We had another moose by the house. We saw this one through the window…actually, the cat saw it through the window. We always know when a moose is outside, because Cousteau starts to freak out. He paces between the windows looking extremely concerned. I think he deserves a little credit.

Anyway, we watched the moose approach through the window. When it was about 50 feet away from the house, it stopped to munch on the many green plants growing around here. I, of course, grabbed my camera and slowly moved in for some pictures. This one had no babies, so I was slightly less worried than last time.

“But Ryan,” you might be saying, “couldn’t you put fear aside and get even closer to this gigantic and dangerous beast, so we may see it more clearly?”

To you who say such things, I reply “No” and “Shut up.” However, I would put on a bigger lens, and stay at the same safe distance. Behold the moose in all her beautiful, moosie glory!

Eventually she tired of eating our plants, around the same time I got tired of taking pictures of her. It worked out well for both of us, and she moved on to eat someone else’s yard.

As summer solstice approaches, we are in the full throes of Alaskan daylight. The sun drops below the mountains just before midnight, but it is only just out of sight. The world is cast into a long twilight, negating the need for flashlights unless traveling into the cover of the woods.

The sun rises again around 4am, and always seems high overhead throughout the day.

Driving home one night last week after dinner with friends, I was inspired by the setting sun to drive past our house and continue another 10 miles down the road to the Anchor Point Beach. First, we stopped at the Baycrest overlook, just outside of Homer.

At Anchor Point, the sun set close to the currently active and obviously smoking volcano, Mt. Redoubt

Even after the sun disappeared, the beach continued to reflect the sky.

And finally:

This week, on top of my 40-hour job at the Tribune, I’ve had tech support appointments every evening. Tonight, I start a contract job at the hospital, installing panduit and ethernet cabling in an annexed building.

Just a couple of months ago, I was worried about not having steady income. Ha!

The other evening, I was out in the yard with the dogs, when I heard a crackling from the other side of the house. This being Alaska, and Ashlee having an irrational hatred of mammals significantly larger than her, I immediately grabber her collar and pulled in Macgee’s leash.

This is what peeked around the corner of the house:

I shuffled the dogs inside, and grabbed my camera. Mama moose was on the other side of the house, so I tiptoed around and managed to get a few shots before they got tired of me leaning around the corner and pointing the camera at them.

I also took a short little video with my D90. It’s a little awkward to hand-hold, so please excuse the shakiness. I was not very interested in fumbling around with a tripod, for obvious reasons.