Spectacular Sunset: Part 1

The clouds were just cool and then add the awesome lighting from the sun and you've got this sky.

Failure to Launch - Moon stuck sitting on the Ground

The moon appears to be resting on the ground just beyond the sewage lagoon.  It was the start of a great little evening walk for pictures.  Yesteraday I think the temperature beat 14 C - which is like late summer here and the sunset was incredible - see pictures above.  Today it seems overcast, but I guess we'll see what happens, as its supposed to be sunny and 8 C.  After the weekend the temperatures are supposed to go back to seasonal (read hovering around and slightly below 0 C) with snow predicted for the end of the week.  Winter is coming.

Its been a busy couple of weeks with Science Camp, work, barge order and everything else.  Things are approaching normal here which is good.  Molly is curled up on my laptop case purring away and looking quite content.  Zoe who was perched on her favourite chair has wandered over hear too and is sitting on one of the chairs under the table.

One last flower

Fall is well upon us in the north with a fairly impressive bit of snow the other morning.  Still I managed to find this one flower straggling to bloom last Monday.  The land has gone from red to brown and the temperatures are starting to get cold.  It'll rain probably a fair bit for the next month.

I was reminded that this time last year I was heading to Kugluktuq for my journey aboard the Amundsen with Schools on Board.  I remember the first night aboard there were crazy snowflakes swirling in the ships lights and that the rocking of the boat put me right to sleep.  I hope all of the folks I met there are having good years and still doing interesting things.

Me, I'm tackling a long to do list this weekend, hoping to get kind of caught up on all sorts of things.

In the news, and I mean that literally - Molly ended up in the Kivalliq news when I accidentally sent her picture to the editor with some of the Grad Pictures.  My photos have made the local news a couple weeks in a row now.

Otherwise, the cats are doing well.  I had to kick them out of the office because Molly was having an epic battle with the laundry on the drying rack and I didn't think the end was going to be good for her or the sweaters.  Molly continues to grow and Zoe continues to settle in.  Molly is, of course, going through her teenage rebellious stage where she needs to be on the kitchen counters and table.  Our big fear is that she is going to try to play on the stove while it is hot, so we are trying to deter her with water, which works temporarily, but her memory is short.  :D  We keep a good eye her when its hot and try to keep hot burners covered with the kettle.

I think I'd better go make some breakfast and maybe some pumpkin chip muffins (which I've been thinkin of making for at least a week now)  Enjoy the beauty of turning maples for those of you in the south..... we'll be starting our snow season early maybe this winter here.

A Beautiful Weekend

Yesterday, in spite of being crazy busy, we ended up on a nice little walk around town.  Probably good for us considering we clearly had no energy until after we went out.  Its beautiful again today, but there isn't much wind - leaving at risk of being bothered and bitten by milugiaq (black flies) - so less tempting.  We certainly are appreciating our lovely view out the window at the lake and the sun shining on everything.

Our walk included company from a friend and sightings of siksiks, 2 pairs of sandhill cranes and a flock of white-fronted geese (I had to look up nearly every kind of goose found in Nunavut on Wikipedia to figure that out).  They were quite handsome, but beyond the range of my camera to shoot.

I'm ramping up to get ready for our Kivalliq Regional Science Camp this week.  Its one of the excellent programs that KSEC (Kivalliq Science Educators Community) runs.  It brings kids together to learn in the outdoors and in fact is pretty much the only camping I've done since moving here, other than a handful of days in Jasper 3 years ago.  I'm sure its going to be a tonne of fun and that I'm going to be exhausted, but happy when it is over.

Hoping for beautiful weather and not too many bugs.

Otherwise, we are settling into our new place well and have lots to look forward to in the coming year - not the least of which is euchre with friends and the occasional brunch.  I hope to get my real camera out during science camp and get some really nice pictures.  I've been mostly using my little camera lately because it is light to carry.

Oh! Picture number 2 is proof of our shiny new street signs taken at the corner of 1st Avenue and Cul de Sac.

Undercover Kitten

Molly is in hiding.... does she suspect me of wanting to clip her claws or is Zoe lurking in the background waiting to pounce (the actual case).  Zoe has been pretty angelic lately, while Molly, being a teenage kitten, has been prone to mischief.  She has taken to launching off the floor, onto your back, off the wall and around again.  We've been working on wearing her out with the laser pointer.  I think she is about to grow as she has gained a sudden intense interest in food, where before we practically had to pick her up and put her nose in her food (unless it was wet food - she sure likes that) to get her to remember to settle and eat.  Now she has been meowing to take a second run at what she didn't finish at earlier times.  I think when she is done growing, she'll be a sizable lass.  She's all  gangly paws and long tail for now though.  She has also taken to exploring the counter with the dishes - in spite of discouragement from a spray bottle.  She is currently sprawled out on top of a very patient Zoe.  I might just go sneak up on her and see if I can get that left claw clipped.  I'm sporting lots of scratches currently - so I have lots of motivation to get this accomplished.

Yogic Cat #2

Zoe is practicing her relaxation pose on my yoga mat.  I'm quickly learning that Yoga Mats are not as good floor coverings when you have cats.  The other one like this has been clawed significantly - although to their credit - the Yoga mat is the only victem of cats to date.  Zoe is not as fat as this picture makes her look.  We've gotten good at keeping her out of the kitten's food and weaned her down to a normal cat diet -  she's about right.  The kitten needs someone to sit with her during meal times or she forgets to eat or gets lonely before she finishes unless there is wet food involved, then she vaccuums it up, Hoover-style.

Yogic Cat #1

Molly is practicing her cat in a bag pose.  She loves bags even more than boxes and toys attached to sticks. She is growing like a weed and is catching up with Zoe fast.  Currently she is curled up beside S.'s head probably purring loudly probably dreaming about practicing her high speed particle motion or wrestling with Zoe.

Molly Scales the Laundry Drying Rack

 

 

I told her it honestly was not a jungle gym for kitties, but she kept insisting on playing on it.... leading to many drying socks ending up on the floor.  I have to give her credit for her ability to navigate slippery bars and climb the thing.  And in spite of needing to clean up and worrying me that she was going to fall.  You have to love her enthusiasm and the fact that she came and flopped down beside me in the middle of the night, purring quietly, and didn't try to get me up to feed her - unlike her older sister.

Cuddling Kitties At Rest

If you would believe it, these two, particularly the smaller one where racing around in circles and bouncing off the walls only a few hours ago.  Now they are soundly napping on the couch.  Its so quiet in here with the kitties sleeping.  They are about to watch the BC Lions game, while I continue to work and think and philosophize about tomorrow.

Light on Blueberry Hill

Here is the rest of what I saw out my window this morning.  Not exactly a sunrise, as this is facing SW and the sur rises in the NE this time of the year, but its the light from the sun rising lighting up blueberry hill in a really neat and beautiful way.  To be honest, my camera really doesn't do it justice.

This, for those of you who follow my blog, is what the lake looks like when its unfrozen.  

Sunrise Rainbow

One of the exciting things about having a window that doesn't look into the back of some house and a hillside, is that I can see things like this.  It sounds like we just missed the Northern lights last night, but when I looked out my window at about 5 am (thanks to the powers of hungry cats), this is what I saw.  So, I went for a short walk down the hill to try to take some pictures.  I just brought my little point and shoot, but in retrospect, I should have probably brought my real camera.  It'll take some getting used to after a summer of pointing and shooting and carrying around a camera whose weight is measured in g rather than lb.

Zoe likes the new toy too

She may have been mom to many kitten's but Zoe is still young and still likes to play.

Mollycule and the new toy

I don't know what is more exciting - the new toy, Molly's energy or the fact that my office floor has been located.

Who's that kitty in the window?

Zoe is checking out the action in front of the building.  She sees Hondas and Trucks driving up and down the road which now have...... [DRUM ROLL PLEASE]..... STREET SIGNS!!!!

I live on 4th Street near the intersection with 4th Avenue!!!   What will happen next?  On the down side, the stop sign at the bottom of the hill seems to be missing along with the street signs that go with it.

The ledges on the windows are just wide enough for a kitty to perch.  They both love them.

Momma Zoe's adopted kitty

Just in case you are wondering where the cat pictures have been, moving has led to the stowing of my camera until I could find a safe place to put it.  The cats have adapted well considering the 14 hour flight and then the immediate move across the hall.  Here is Zoe giving Mollycule a bath.  Currently, Zoe is sitting on my laptop cover grooming herself near my feet, and Molly is snoozing on the rug behind me, tired out from playing with new toys!!

Evening Baker Hike

Its funny, I forget just how beautiful it is up here when I'm in the mountains - then I am surprised when the right light makes it just as beautiful here.  Featured in this photo is the snow fence and blueberry hill.

Its been a busy week back to work, moving back up to Baker and then moving to a new appartment.  We are almost settled in - the kitchen, bedroom, living room, bathroom and bedroom are in pretty good shape, but the office still needs a fair bit of work and there are still some random items that need to find a home.

Molly and Zoe are going to miss having the chaos of boxes and bins everywhere to explore and climb.  Molly is perched on the windowsill looking out at the lake - looking more like a small adult cat than a kitten, but she still has boundless energy.  Zoe is perched on the back of a chair staring at a wall or down the hall at something I can't see.  Owing to the change from somewhat normal sunrise and sunset times to  northern silly sunset and sunrise times - Zoe really wants me to feed her at 4 am.  We are working on that, but I suspect before I convince her of my side, the sun will be rising much later.  It is gaining about 3 minutes a day... or 20 minutes later a week so in 3 weeks we'll be back to 5:30 and in 6 weeks we'll be talking 6 am.... which hopefully means in 12 weeks she won't demand food until 7 am.  I'm usually up by 6 on weekdays though.

Molly changed her mind and decided to curl up beside me on the couch - one pet and her motor starts a purring away.  I'm sad that won't be a kitten much longer, but I'm certain she's going to be a great cat.  On an aside note, I had a terrible "why didn't I think of that moment" when my friend K. suggested that she should be named molecule rather than cinnimolly - so renamed, and aptly so the way she moves around with great speed and energy - Molly is now short for Molecule and I have two cats with good science names.

I promise some more cat pictures soon.

Alpine Meadow without too much hiking uphill

One of my big disappointments this summer is that owing to my gimpiness I could not do any serious hiking.  In the last week, we tried to take the bus up to sunshine meadows so that I could get my alpine meadow fix, but due to a combination of cramming in a pile of appointments in the last week and some miss informatoin, we arrived to find out that there was no 2 pm bus and that we'd have to wait until 2:45, and the come down about 2 hours later.  Usually we skip the bus altogether and just hike in and out, but that really was going to be too far for me and I was going to be too slow to hike to where the flowers are abundant in 2 hours.  So we hiked around Banff instead.

I finally got my wildflower fix when we went for a hike around Baker Lake last night - I even got to see some alpinelike wildflowers - such as the paintbrush pictured above.  It was one of those perfect arctic nights when no matter how much other stuff you have to get done, it would be wrong not to get out for a little bit.  It was a mix of sun and cloud, cool and had a stiff enough breeze to render the world bug free and the light was just warm and awesome highlighting the drifts of fireweed growing everywhere around town.

Bath Time

Zoe is still a mama in her mind and usually annoys Molly by trying to groom her, although sometimes, when Molly is calmer and sleepier, she'll join right in.

Bow River Vistas

I'm still a bit too gimpy for real hiking, but I managed a walk along the bike path along the Bow today.  It was supposed to be horrible weather, but it has been nice all day.  We just sort of wandered down and around the trail, stopping to procure pretty coloured socks.

 Molly is attacking the pile of recycling on my desk and Zoe has retreated out of the attention span of a very hyper little kitten.  I swear - I haven't even cat nipped the scratching post in a while.

Molly Kitten in a Bag with a Map

I have a similar picture of Loki from when he was a kitten.  Molly loves this bag - being in it, fighting it, pouncing on it.  Zoe and Molly seem to be in wrestling mode this evening, although for most of the day they were quite sweet to each other.  I managed to distract them a while with toys, but I'm decidedly low energy tonight - either recovering from 2.5 days in the sun watching the folkfest or fighting a cold or both.