I’m currently experiencing my first Alaskan winter full moon. It rises in the early evening, and doesn’t set until mid-morning. With the snow cover, the effect is something akin to blue daylight. It feels like we’re on an alien planet, though not as alien as we experienced under the full moon in Canyonlands National Park.

So, of course I’ve gone out the past couple of nights and taken pictures. The first few are from the 11th.

I also captured some of the setting sun, apparently.

This is a 30 second exposure. I’ll try a full minute tonight, if it’s clear. The neighbor lights up their trees, I don’t know why.

Last night, we came home from the ski swap (no luck finding skis), and I convinced Skippy to stand still long enough for me to take some pictures. Thanks for modeling for me, honey!

Without the moon in the shot, I can do a longer exposure without it looking like the moon is big glowing worm in the sky. Seriously, in shots longer than 10 or so seconds, the moon and earth move enough to show, like in the first picture of this post.

It started snowing early this morning, with wind gusts up to 50mph. It was totally overcast, with no view further than 1/4 mile. All in all, a mildly depressing day. So why not make a video?!

Today was another tough day. On top of normal dog duty and running a team for a couple miles, Skippy and I got to dig two dog graves. None of the dogs are sick, and the 8 dogs that are 14 years or older are all doing fine, but better to be prepared now than have to dig one in 5 feet of snow.

We took a shovel and a pickaxe, and spent 2 hours breaking through 12 inches of frozen ground, roots, and rocks. After breaking through the frozen top, the rest of the digging was comparatively easy. Once we had two holes big enough, we carried down large pieces of plywood to cover the holes.

We also rolled two 55-gallon drums of fuel oil down from Libby’s garage to our cabin. On snow. In the dark. 55 gallons of water would weigh about 450lbs, and fuel oil is more dense.

I haven’t taken any pictures in almost a week, so I got out my camera this evening and took some pictures around the cabin. I would have gone outside to shoot, but it’s dark now at 6pm.

My Muck Boots sit by the door with fleece liners, ready for my feet.

Macgee curls up on the couch, waiting for dinner and walkies.

Jacques peeks over our colorful blanket.

Skippy’s handmade driftwood coat rack

Skippy’s handmade driftwood leash rack

Cousteau waits for dinner. The animals think darkness equals dinner-time, so now they’re often confused when we aren’t feeding them until the normal 9:30 time.

Our gravity-feed water tank. The top pipe comes from a Rubbermaid tub with an electric pump in it, where we pour the buckets of water. The bottom pipe goes to the sink.

Our wireless router, on a shelf above the bedroom window.

I had just fallen asleep tonight, when my cell phone rang. It also acts as my alarm clock, and my first thought was “Nooooo, it can’t be 6:30 yet! I just closed my eyyyyyyyes!”

Instead, it was Libby telling me to look out the north window. Without my contacts in or glasses on my face, everything is blurry. But what I saw was a bright green sort of blurry. Skippy and I suited up (it’s 13° right now, at 10:50pm), and went outside.

I’ve never seen the northern lights before, so this was an amazing, first-time experience for me.

I managed to capture some of it, as you can see, but a lot is still missing. It was moving very fast, with the fastest bits turning red before disappearing.

About 1/4 of the visible sky was green, though most of it was just hazy. All the action was happening just above the trees.

I had just woken up, was wearing glasses (makes it hard to look through the viewfinder), it was 13°, and I found that the best shutter speed for capturing the action was around 45-55 seconds. My camera’s slowest built-in shutter speed is 30 seconds. I had also left my remote shutter release back in the house. So I got to stand there, holding the shutter button with my exposed hand, counting seconds out loud, while trying not to shake the camera. I think I’m going to have to prep my equipment before going to bed, so I’ll be better prepared next time. But, I think I got some decent shots despite the sub-optimal circumstances. :-)

Big post tomorrow. Tonight, it hurts to move my fingers. On top of the normal daily hauling of multiple 5-gallon buckets of food and water, I:

• Lifted and stacked roughly one hundred 40lbs bags of dog food
• Moved two 55 gallon drums of fuel oil (part of tomorrow’s post), one half full and the other 1/5 full
• Lifted the 1/5 full drum and attempted to pour it into the half full drum
• Gave up on that and got Skippy to help me lift and pour the now 1/8 full drum (most of it had gotten into the other drum, honest)
• Hand-pumped ~25 gallons of fuel oil into our tank
• Lifted twenty 75lbs blocks of frozen meat out of a truck and placed them into a freezer

That’s it for me. Me and 2 Aleve tablets are going to drink a beer and listen to The Arcade Fire. Good night!