Who needs power?

So this past week has been very interesting...we lost electricity, water, heat, Internet and telephone. We haven't even had school since Tuesday. I even had to distill water from melting ice. We found a puddle with ice still on the bottom of it so that stuff from the soil wouldn't seep back up. Then, Alex made a make shift distiller. First, we ran the water through coffee filters to get out any large particulates. Next we boiled the water to kill the bacteria (like from dog poop). Then, we ran it through the coffee (when we had power) to steam and condense it. Finally, it went through the Britta filter because that is a charcoal filter to get out any last stuff. We even had to fill up the water tank in the toilet to flush it. Good thing Alex was here or Puffin and I would just have been drinking dirty snow!!

Here is the bucket that I am storing my water in -


Candlelight is not that romantic when you even need to cook by it! Luckily, we have gas stoves so I could just use a match and light the burners. My LL Bean hat came in use wonderfully so I could actually see what I was cooking.
Here I am modeling it for you (those are little LED lights on the front) -
I also brought Alex up to the airport today on a 4-wheeler and got a bit of frost bit on my hands. They are fine now, but they feel and look like they are sun burnt mostly so kinda red with little white blisters.

Before we lost power and had to go all "roughing-it", Alex and I had a really good visit. Here are some picks of us actually walking on the river. It was only last Sunday we took these pics and since the temp has been so crazy the river is already melting!! (I will try and get picks of that)



Here is where two pieces of ice butted up against each other -



Here it is up close -
Wicked cool swirls in ice there huh?

This is Long Bluff from the River. I pick berries on top of it and fish beneath it in the fall.

To show how safe the ice is, here is a snow mobile pulling a sled riding on top of it -

No Blog would be complete without a pic of Puffin - so here she is running on the snow on top the river. She eventually got cold and tired and Alex carried her in her little backpack (he looked VERY manly :) )


Well more adventures and pics will be coming soon. Everyone bothered me about not updating my blog often enough so I will really try and work on that. Also, I had a wonderful time when I was home - so thanks for making me feel so loved!!

Decemeber

So far December has not been too bad. Actually it has been pretty mild. We have even had weather in the teens and twenties. Somedays it is even in the thirties, but that not good because then the snow melts and freezes over night.

Today I went out snowmobling with my nieghbors and got some AMAZING pictures Here are a few -









Last weekend Puffin and I went out hiking. She was so cold by the time we were done that she actually RAN into the apartment all on her own!!

Some of my students came over to visit the other night and leaned how to use the self-timer on my camera so this is what I found on my camera after they left -

This is my classroom door all decorated for Chirstmas. It was supposed to be like a book cover, but I didn't read direction that well...we won "Best use of Geometric Shapes and Patterns" :)


This is the tree the kids cut down for the Christmas show this week. The one in the bottom of the picture is what the freshman and sophmores brought back, but of course the juniors and seniors brought back a bigger and better one! Don't worry neither will be wasted. We will chop the wood and use it in the steam houses.

Funny Pics

These are pictures of the outside of my place. This birdhouse is right on the corner of my roof.

This is the snow above my living room window. It has just been hanging there for weeks!

21 Below

Yes - the title means exactly what you think it should...it is NEGITIVE 21 DEGREES here!! It's a little crazy, but honestly I would not have known it was that cold just by feeling it on my skin. I have not gone out much today, but the walk over to school (all 40 feet) was not too bad. I only have a sweatshirt and gloves on - I am sure that doesn't shock anyone! Usually, I am getting teased because I always have snow pants and long underwear on. It must be cold though because Puffin feet were too cold so I carried her most of the way.

So, I went to another village for Thanksgiving - Manacottic (KMO). I have a bunch of friends that I met at in-service (orientation) live there so I went there for thanksgiving. It is closer to Dillingham, only a 10-minute flight. So, I flew from New Stu to Dillingham (about an hour) and then from Dillingham to KMO.


Here are some pics of KMO -



This is my friend Whitney, who I stayed with while I was there. We are walking through the village to the post office -

Here are some pics of Thanksgiving there -


Don't you love the Birthday Turkey Cake -






So I found a house for my Aunt Gracie, it is just a nice as the one we found in Bermuda!!

It's getting darker

We are definitely getting shorter days here and the sun may not rise until about 9 am, but this is the view of the sun rise from my classroom window:


It is really beautiful and it is like that EVERY morning.

Puffin and I had a pretty relaxing weekend. I made lesson plans and she slept. I baked some bread and she slept. I did my homework for some classes I am taking and guess what Puffin slept!

She probably slept so much because we were out hiking twice this weekend. We had a really good time and now that the tundra is pretty frozen it a lot more fun. We were able to hike up through some trees and saw the river freezing. Here are some pics from us standing on a precipice overlooking the river. We are probably 30 or 40 feet up from the river bed here.





Here are some big pieces of ice bumming into each other at the river bed:

This is Puffin looking over the ledge...if she thinks I am getting any closer she is CRAZY!!


When we were out hiking, we saw some hair like stuff on trees. I (madame nature) had NO idea what it could be so I took some pics and asked Alex. He explained that this is beard lichen and it is similar to Spanish moss, which is found down south.


Puffin is a hiking machine!! Here she is hiking right out of her sweatshirt -


But, I guess we were out for too long because our hike ended with me caring Puffin for a while. Once we were out of the woods and back on the trails, she was ready to run like a little maniac again though!!