High noon
posted in Alaska |While OmegaDad and OmegaDotter were waiting for the icing to set on the gingerbread house (a kit), I stepped outside to snap a picture of the neighborhood.
It was 12:03 p.m.
This is what it looked like:
See those long shadows? That weak, slightly melancholy, golden light?
High noon, folks. That’s as good as it gets these days.
Today is cold. Right now, the temp is 14F. The wind is averaging 24 mph, with gusts up to 36; supposedly, gusts up to 80 mph. Wind chill is -8F.
The lights have been flickering all day with the wind. The internet has gone out intermittently as well.
But we’ve been inside, listening to Christmas music and decorating gingerbread houses and washing clothes and reading or watching TV. Snug and warm and cozy (so long as the flickering doesn’t turn into all-lights-off-for-more-than-a-minute-or-two).
Last night, we had A Visitor. I was outside the kitchen again, having a smoke (yes, don’t shout please), and heard crunching and rustling. Thinking it was neighbors, I peered over the railing and down. There, in front of the neighbors’ garage (not pictured, it’s to the right and behind me from that pic) was a moose.
He thumped. He rustled. He crunched snow and ice. He moved ponderously down the driveway, into the finger of woods between our house and theirs, then plunged down the hill into our yard and thudded his way through, then was gone in the night. The howl of dawgs followed him through the neighborhood.
Gingerbread pics tomorrow.
