Halloween has come and gone and with it the short, unremarkable time that passes as fall on the shores of Norton Sound. There are no trees here so there are no leaves to fall and no woodsy, musty smells to herald the slow march until winter. Instead, there is only a moment between the end of summer and the first snow that feels a little like the earth holding its breath as if to ask, "Are you ready? It's almost time..."
And then the snow arrives.
It is slow at first, teasing. Will I melt off in the daylight, or will I finally begin to hide the earth from you? Is this the beginning of the end of the brown gravelly ground and the beginning of the white depths and endless shades of grey?
The week before Halloween gave us our first permanent layer of white. Since then, there has been a slow and gradual covering, occasionally beaten back by the sun but never fully letting go. They tell me soon all we'll see is white until May.
The most interesting and surprising transformation for Mike and I has been the sea. A day or two after Halloween, right around my very first parent-teacher conference day,* The ocean started freezing. We are far enough north that this is perfectly normal and we've been told by the end of the month it will likely be safe enough to walk on. No one thinks much of this, but both Mike and I are fascinated.
The ocean. Is freezing. Like, solid.
Next month, WE WILL BE ABLE TO WALK ON THE SEA. Holy f***, that's cool. (Literally. Ha!)
These are pictures from last weekend, as the shoreline was beginning to freeze over:
As the tide came in, water froze in layers over any piece of debris that was handy. Kinda like layers on a pearl, I'd imagine.....
This used to be a bike tire. I suppose sometime in June it might become one again.....
Here is the same shore, a week later (today). The ice is starting to reach out onto the water:
Last month we also had the rare pleasure of watching a beautiful Aurora display, which I described last post. I finally got my lazy butt in gear and edited pictures from that night, so go look!
Also, here is a blurry picture of the local dogsled team out for a practice run. Because that is the sort of thing you see when you drive over to the next village on a saturday afternoon for groceries.
On a final note, I miss you all terribly. Election night was particularly heartbreaking, mostly because I couldn't celebrate properly with all my like-minded lovelies on cap hill. I won't get into it on a public blog (I'm not about to bring that wackyness down on myself), but suffice it to say I was thrilled that my guy and my ballot issues won and I feel optimistic about the future. I hope all of you are doing splendidly. I will see most of you soon (6 weeks! Yaaaay!).
*It went fine. People were generally nice. No one yelled at me. All was well.
