The light...it burns...

So today I was up by 4.  The sun wasn't up yet, but it was still bright enough to trip the toddler's circadian rhythm.  A few attempts to return her to sleep failed, and here we are.  Nobody else is awake yet, so I figured I might as well update the blog.

Excuse the screen.  This was taken at 4 am, when I finally admitted there was no going back to bed.

Taken a few days earlier at sunset, roughly 10 pm.  The sun is strong here.

The melt continues.  A few weekends ago, Rick--who has been busy sharpening his land-nav skills for an upcoming school--decided to share the joy with all of us.  For those of you not in the know, land-nav is basically hiking to several specified coordinates using a topographical map and a horribly complicated square compass with multiple indecipherable tables on it.  There's a real compass involved as well, but--fun fact--we are so far north that the compass actually finds roughly a 20 degree difference between true north and magnetic north.

Anywho, Saturday we dragged the kids out for a lesson in land-nav.  It wasn't the smartest idea.  Echo and Claudia were happy as clams in their carriers, but Jane's little legs couldn't keep up, especially since the walk was more vertical than horizontal. (Fun fact I learned: if you're walking uphill and get tired, it's actually easier to rest if you stand facing uphill and just lean forward a little bit.  That's a Ranger-trick.)  Rick showed everybody how to shoot an azimuth.  Everyone was more interested in the squirrels.  Leah refused to walk on the path and fell into hip-deep snow several times; she was surprised every time.  Bren packed snacks like a responsible adult should have.  Overall, educational for everyone.

That was a few weeks ago, and now the snow has melted in all but the highest hills and forests.  Since then we've added 5 minutes of daylight every day, and will continue to do so until the solstice.  I've put up blackout curtains, but they're not helping much, as evidenced by this morning.  The mud is mostly dried up, too, which happened more quickly than I expected given the sheer amount of snow we had.  The weather is gorgeous, with the mornings still crisp and chill, and the afternoons reaching into the sixties.  There are little explosions of dandelions everywhere.  They're pretty brilliant after the monochrome of winter.

Of course, we've had an explosion of another kind with the arrival of warmer weather. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the state bird.

They are huge, and they are everywhere.  We'd been warned, of course, but we shook it off.  People tend to cry wolf, so you learn not to take their word for it. I still remember when we first arrived and Rick brought home all of his gear, which included mosquito netting, and he just looked at me and shook his head. "I've been issued treated uniforms, but never actual netting, even in Georgia." That was when we started to believe, but decided to withhold judgment until spring.  Well, they were right.  The little mosquito bear traps, collars, and "skinning knives" they sell for tourists don't seem quite so far-fetched and touristy any more.

More and more critters are thawing out, too.  No bears yet.  (I'm not too fussed about that.)  The ravens have been replaced, oddly enough, by seagulls.  Swans, geese, and cranes use our town as a stopover on their way north to their breeding grounds, which is pretty cool.  And we have voles!  Voles are small rodents, like fat mice with short tails, and they are my spirit animal (and my Patronus, for all you Potter-heads in the know).  I don't have pictures (yet) but there are holes all over the yard, and if you're quiet sometimes you can catch one peeking out of the grass.

Dancing in the rain...around 7:30 at "night".

The kids have enjoyed being outside more.  Leah was absurdly happy about our first rainstorm and made it a point to dance in it; she has also been whittling wands out of fallen birch branches.  Aeryn is delighted that she can wear her fancy shoes again instead of just snow boots; Jane doesn't wear shoes at all, and Echo tries to bolt continuously in various stages of undressed.  Even Bren takes her books outside.  All of this is good, because now that the weather's not lethal I can throw them outside instead of listening to one more fricking-fracking episode of Octonauts or Naruto.  And I have.  And it was wonderful.

We're walking, we're walking...got to make up for winter.

Well, it's almost breakfast, so I suppose I should get started with my day or something.  With any luck there will be a nap involved.