No glove no scrub

I made myself wear rubber gloves to wash the dishes in an effort to help my poor dry hands heal. I shot this random photo yesterday because I wanted to note that I've now had more than 40,000 hits on this site since I added my hit counter.

Photo from last post

The Skies Celebrate Canada's First Gold Medal on Home Turf??

Skydancers

:D brrrrr.... I'm still cold though... although I'm toying with the idea of going back out

NORTHERN LIGHTS

Okay... so they aren't perfect... but I think they are some of my best yet.

Class Flag

We had a good time putting this together. Its probably the closest thing I've done to a patchwork quilt... one day.. when I have time to tackle another hobby.

I really hope it works out that I get to watch the opening ceremonies tonight. Oddly... my itch to paint is up too.

Life is a crazy place. I'm glad I'm crazy enough to enjoy it.

Olympic Flags

I've really missed art on fridays from my days in Kash - too much fun!

Sunrise

I managed to catch the surise this moring en route to work..... We are spoiled here in the north!

The Ever Elusive Aurora Borealis

I have had very little luck photographing the northern lights since I've come up here... I have a few excuses, like well its the deepest solar minimum of my lifetime and really there hasn't been that much activity. It probably also doesn't help that we are a bit north of the optimum viewing latitude. Its cold.... I'm not out and about at night that often or I don't have my camera, my tripod is heavy and my camera doesn't seem to be that great for shots in the dark. So, here is the best I have gotten this year... but I'll keep trying. Those of you in Iqaluit it looks like you guys have had scads. I'm jealous.

Those of you wondering about the sights I'm using to track the lights here are the links...

http://www.spaceweather.com

http://www.spaceweather.ca

http://www.solarcycle24.com

http://spaceweather.ca/generated_plots/forstackr.png

http://portal.cssdp.ca:8080/ssdp/static_content/ssdp/rt_oval/index.html

Precursor to a Purse(-like object)

This is my insomnia insprired knitting. It should end up being a small handbag once I'm done, I'm not sure what I'll do to put it together.. I've never knitted a bag before... I'll keep you posted. I really like the way the colours worked out... Yeah for Noro!!

Other news... there are a record 71 sunspots on the sun... which for those not following the sun for the last year and a half has been blank as often as not and this replaces teh record of 51 spots that was new in the last few days. The far side of the sun also seems like its got spots too.... and there have been flares and so I'm still hoping to see a good display of the northern lights.

I made stew for supper (and tomorrow's breakfast, lunch and dinner and the next day and you get the idea.) I need to make up a salad. I have the requisite ingredients... but I've done a fair bit of chopping already today... so maybe tomorrow night. I also need to come up with something to do with a bunch of Potatoes.

I am also now in Possession of Robin Hobb's new book "Dragon Keeper", but I've put it out of site and out of mind. I'm hoping that my will lasts until the weekend at least, and preferably until PI week. I can sometimes put books down, but Robin Hobb isn't one of those kinds of authors and my sleep schedule has been bad enough this week.

So... watch for the northern lights... and be merry.

Sunrise Silhouette

Apparently... 7:30 am is already too late to get a good sunrise shot. Here is the school this morning.... its looks a bit like some kind of monster with 1 one glowing eye and some pretty sharp teeth.

Fireweed Fluff

Well, obviously this photo was taken some months ago. It does match the sweater that I'm wearing - if that gives me an reason for picking it for today.

I've been keeping my eyes on my array of norther lights webpages. Tonight has potential and tomorrow has a bit more as aparently a CME (Coronol Mass Ejection) is headed our way and we are entering a recurrent coronal hole solar wind. The lights were out tonight, but not bright enough to even bother trying to photograph them. I did find this cool site though that actually shows the readings for Baker Lake hour by hour + a 6 hour forecast.

Otherwise, its been a useful day, even after having a tough time sleeping last night (due to unusually gurgly pipes and too much thinking). I shut my brain down with a bit of nocturnal knitting and I have a neat scarf started. Its a diagonal stripe pattern using two different colourways of Noro Kureyon - oooh... knitting nerd tonight. (I seem to be leaking lots of lingo between knitting and the northern lights). I'll post a picture in a day or two probably unless I get some outside shots before that. Its supposed to be fairly warm this week, so maybe I'll go far walk at some point and try and get some more pictures. I'm actually leaning towards making it into a handbag. I don't know that I have enough yarn to get a scarf the length I like out of it, but I think there might be enough for a bag.

My other creative project for the weekend was a cranberry cake with lemon icing that turned out delicious, if I do say so myself and while I'm congratulating myself - I think the more impressive feat is that I've only had 2 pieces today. Its wicked heated up with a scoop of vanillia frozen yogurt. I should go make stew, but at this point, I think I'll leave it for tomorrow in favour of wading through the last things on my to-do list.

I still haven't had a chance to play my new killer bunnies expansions yet, but I did finally get to breakin my Crokinole board after having it 7 months. I also tried out Fjords - a two player tile based strategy game. We only played one round, but I think its going to be a favourite.

So... thats all for now. I think this is hopefully the start of a more frequent blogging trend. I've kind of let it die the last few months. Its always hard when I'm not taking many outdoor pictures - because I always feel like I'm cheating when I pull out pics from months ago, but the day light is getting longer and longer and the sun seems definitely to be showing signs of life after a year and half of being nearly spotless.

Cheers,

J

Its a beautiful day in the arctic

I was shocked when I checked the weather and discovered that it was -32 C. It feels way warmer - although the fact that its calm surely helps. Its been both a lazy and productive Saturday so far. I'm making chicken/cabbage/carrot/corn/green onion soup (if I had chives to keep the "C" theme going I would have used them. I should commence some working out shortly as soon as I get a bit of soup into me and stop reading the news.

This is the hat that I finished on the ride home from Rankin. I'm not sure about the decrease in the top, but I do really like the garter stitch look. (The pattern for the hat was inspired by this pattern: http://mustaavillaa.blogspot.com/2008/02/three-reasons-to-love-garter-stripe.html

There should be northern lights tonight - well at least there is a 35% chance according to www.spaceweather.com.

My plans are to make a cranberry cake - I think. and work on some stuff for my bio and env. sci courses. I spent two hours reorganizing the back room... I'm sure I could spend a week and not have it perfect, but its a lot more to my liking. Okay... I guess I'm going to have to bounce off as the music says its time to get back into the groove. A week away from home has killed my momentum of getting fit, but I think I'll be back on track after this weekend. I'm going to try.

Stranded and Stranded

Here is my latest stranded colourwork knitting project completed while (ironically) I was stranded in Rankin Inlet. You'll note their great similarity to my last project. Why did I do it twice... well the first pair was a little to big. These ones are just right. The tree pattern was borrowed from the generous

http://ifihadaboat.xanga.com/

I'm glad to be home in Baker Lake. I was even glad to go back to work. I, oddly enough, acutally really like my job and frankly its a lot less work to acutally do my job than try to write instructions for someone else to fill in in my place.

On the cool side, I did get in an awesome visit with some friends in Rankin playing Carcasonne, Settlers of Catan, Killer Bunnies, Ticket to Ride and a few games of Canasta (still the best card game in the world in my head). I think my Killer Bunnies expansions have made it up here too. I also got to meet Page Burt. This is exciting for anyone, as she happens to be a pretty cool person. But I'm not just anyone, I'm a plant field guide junkie - and she is the author of Barren Land Beauties - one of the few available field guides for Nunavut and one of the few people I know who understand my dream to one day own the Lichens of North America book.

I really need to take some time to update the links on my blog. Oh - and my blog is going to have to move URL's (again for those of you who remember me back when my url was bogblogjp.blogspot.com) Blogspot is discontinuing remote blog hosting, so I need to return to blogspot by March 26th, 2010 - obviously, I'll try to beat the deadline - to allow for the disaster that occured when I first moved away from blogspot (requiring me to manually tell it where to find my picture for 300 + posts - that was a joy). Wish me an easy move - and watch for updates. There is a silver lining - this should allow me to use some of Bloggers fancy new page tools - so it'll be easier to play with the format of my blog and add things like word clouds and change the banner without having to email files to my brother.

Back to cleaning, reading and exercising for me though...

There is no place like home, no place like home, no place like home

The three shots above were taken from the plane as we left Baker Lake on Monday night (a week ago). It was a lovely flight and I was graced by the presence of northern lights. You really can't beat seeing the northern lights from a plane. I was also lucky to get a nice view of town, although, taking pictures through the window of a plane is always tricky. I like the way they look so twinkly. It was actually pretty windy (not compared to today, obviously) which I think is what makes the lights look the way they do.

I am dilligently coming up with new and exciting lessons on blizzards for my Gr. 12 science students - possibly to be taught in my absense if I'm unable to get back to Baker tomorrow before the school reopens. Currently, they are supposed to clear up by tomorrow, while the blizzard is expected to rage on here for another little while.

This is my first time experiencing travel difficulties due to weather or a 4 day blizzard for that matter. I guess the good news is that there is a utilidor in Rankin which means that water shouldn't be an issue here, which I'm sure it is back home.

I've done some good stash busting having knit a pair of mittens and a hat and I'm currently, row by row, working on a second hat, which will hopefully fit me. So far, I like the style, I'll post pictures soon.

Cheers,

J

Northwest Impediments to Passage

So... I did make it to Rankin, but now it seems that getting out is going to remain a challange. So far, 3 flights in a row to Baker have been canceled and no one has sounded all that optimistic about there being a chance to escape tonight - still - a girl can hope.

Being stuck here is hardly terrible. I'm staying at the Nanuq Lodge which is quite pleasant and the owners have been very kind and helpful and supportive. I do also have some friends here, whom I don't get to see often, and I've enjoy playing Killer Bunnies, Carcasonne, Ticket to Ride, and Canasta - but I have work that I'd like to do - not to mention that I'm pretty sure that my supper that I forgot to eat as I rushed out the door Monday is still in the microwave and is most definitely starting to mould. I guess I can hope that nuking it for 90 seconds followed by sealing it in the microwave will hopefully have eradicated the spores that would lead to mould, however, that is likely optimistic about the resilance of mould and the seal on my microwave.

But - such is the nature of blizzards - they blow until they are done blowing and you can't land a plane on a runway that you can't see - at least not without expensive technology that we do not have up here.

So I'm plodding away at knitting, trying to make up sub-plans for Monday without having access to text books and any other materials and figuring that this would be a good time to get some jobs done, like blogging.

The weather prognosis seems slightly more hopeful. They've removed the word windy from Monday's forcast. There are about 9 hours before my flight is due to leave... so I think I can still hope. *Finger's Crossed*

J

Hockey For Haiti

haiti1, originally uploaded by jennith peart.

We may be small, and we may live in the frigid middle of the tundra - but that doesn't mean that our hearts are small or cold. The student council with the help of several enthusiastic staff members, community members, local businesses, the Anglican Church Youth Group and the community in general worked together to put on a number of fund raisers to support the people in Haiti.

The grande finale - depicted here - was a staff vs. student council "boot hockey" game where the student's pretty much crushed us. However, we raised a good bit of money and had a good bit of entertainment.

I'm testing using Flickr as a source for blogging - since I seemed to have gotten sucked into upgrading my account. I guess I'll find out if it was worth it. I do actually use Flickr a lot for my Ravelry stuff, so all in all, it does solve a few problems there - I suspect that I'll continue to use Picasa as my main blogging platform, since this online bit is a pain even with the new and improved Qiniq speeds. They are noticeably better, but why make your life complicated.

Tall Trees that Reach the Sky

The fact that I feel the need to start every blog entry I write lately with a reassurance that I'm still alive does not bode well for my efforts as a blogger in general. Still, I have other concerns that rank first and the last 2 weeks are part of the busier season of teaching. Now that the marks are in, I can briefly gasp and find a few minutes to actually put a post up on my blog or even finish the mitten that I started 3 weeks ago. Now, I just have to knit another one.

The voting phase of the Nunies (aka Nunavut Blog Awards) is over. (I think) The results arn't officially up - but they should be up here sometime soon. I guess I'll have to write more and better if I want to be a contender for next year.

Aside from knitting and working and occasionally sleeping, fretting about my thesis and neglecting my guitar and failing to blog or take photographs, I have a few odd thoughts and stories in my head, but I should have typed them a few hours ago when they were fresh, now I'm going to have to dig them up.

The northern lights were out last night (apparently a good show for those of us not occupied with finishing a mitten and watching the last episode of the second season of Heroes). The K value reached 5 which is pretty decent for recent history. In general, the sun is starting to seem like its thinking of ramping up to a solar maximum after tormenting me for the last year and a half with endless blankness, punctuated with a few teasing sunspot clusters. Still, it could be teasing now - but sunspot 1040 or 1041 produced a few M class flares (The first of Solar Cycle 24). I also found a new site for monitering auroral activity.

Today, our community is running a number of events to raise money for Haiti. Including a teacher-student game of boot hockey. Its pretty exciting the amount of effort and energy people are putting into all of the events.

I'm hoping to have more time to play board and card games in the near future. I played (and lost badly) a game of canasta for the first time in a long time online and I'm waiting with great anticipation for the expansion for my Killer Bunnies game to arrive. Robin Hobb's newest book is also on sale this week - so I'm looking forward to reading it at some point in the near future. My other bit of excitiment is that I finally replaced the horrible deskchair that I had here. So, hopefully, I won't be driven away from my computer by discomfort. The new chair is much better and makes working here much nicer. Perhaps this change will translate into future blog enteries on a more regular basis. I've missed out taking pictures of some beautiful sunrises and sun sets the last little while. Its amazing how much longer the days are already. Its still light out at the end of the school day and almost light out on my walk to work.

I'll try and get some pictures soon.

Cheers, and I'd better actually put up this post which has been 2 or 3 days in the making before my computer crashes and I have to start over from scratch.

J

The Nunies

The Nunnies are in the voting stage. These are awards for the best Nunavut Blogs. There are some really worthwhile blogs to read. For more information: click here.

Wild Clouds