Short Days and Long Nights

Day Light Hours

The old squirrel is streaming live on Cam 2.  One of the most asked questions about the old Permafrost Ranch and Alaska is our length of daylight in the winter and summer.  If you look on the web pages Cam 1 page right above the live picture is a Weather Bug that shows our Sunrise and Sunset times.   It's always fun to watch our dwindling hours of daylight this time of the year.  On that shortest day of the year, we will be just under 4 hours of daylight.  So, stop in and watch the darkness grow says the old squirrel.

Short Days and Long Nights

Long Arctic Nights

The days are growing shorter and the long Arctic Night begins.  I noticed yesterday the sun doesn't clear the trees anymore.  The sun makes a low circuit on the horizon and it never climbs high in sky.  Even this old squirrel was up early this morning while still dark he was out on the feeder.  Maybe the flyers woke him up early or he was just hungry this morning.  The weather bug on Cam 1 gives you sunrise and sunset times.  Watch our day light shrink quickly.  Sunrise this morning will be at 8:44 a.m. and Sunset will be at 4:24 p.m.

Life in the Boreal Forest

Winter has settled in here on the old Permafrost Ranch

It's here, the hawk as it is called.  The hawk of winter.  Winter comes early and leaves late in this part of the Boreal Forest.  It sure changes the pattern of life for the squirrels and birds who frequent the feeders.  As the daylight hours shrink towards the long winters night the snow covered forest grows quieter.  At least that is the way it seems except the cold air really transmits sound quite efficiently.  You can hear the neighbors better, the crunch of footsteps out in the road or drive way.    The cars passing by out on the road or the trains lonely whistle over three miles away, all come through loud and clear.  The barking of dogs at night carries for long distances in the deep cold air that comes with the season.  The old squirrel agrees with me when I say us humans are a noisy bunch.  

Winter Mode

Winter is locked and loaded

The old squirrel was telling me this morning over coffee.  Winter has locked and loaded and we are getting both barrels he feels.  ACS, tore up the road in front of the house and had us blocked in the drive way all day yesterday.  They were laying new cable and my driveway took the beating of all the digging.  I don't think they will put it back to normal it's going to be a mess next spring he said.  They had to dig under the culvert that was there.  They dinged it a couple of times.  Not only that they didn't compact the dirt under the area they dug and  or over the pipe when they recovered it.  It's liable to subside with the moisture in the spring and cave in the pipe.  I suspect I'll be asking for relief from ACS before it's all over with next year.  Not only that they still accidently got into the cable for the phone lines that run around Victoria Circle.  It didn't affect our service but the rest of the neighborhood was down.  I suppose then they had to splice the cable before they reburied it.  

Decreasing Daylight Hours

Days are growing shorter

This old squirrel was complaining to me today about the increasing hours of darkness.  He said, he didn't want to hang around the feeder when the crowd of flyers shows up.  I asked him, why he felt that way, and he said  "you know they are a rowdy bunch always jumping up and flying off the handle so to speak"

Midnight Raider

Red Squirrel in the Dark

Caught this little guy on the feeder long after dark.  Our days are growing shorter by the minute, the leaves have mostly fallen and there is a hint of snow in the air.  The hawk returns.

Solstice Day

Yesterday was Summer Solstice, and it was one of the warmest days of summer so far. Living in the far north has it's advantages and the one that I love the most is the long hours of daylight. There is a photographers or videographers term that this time of the year brings to my mind. It's called the golden hours. It's those hours of daylight, before sunrise and sunset. It's a special light with the sun low on the horizon. Living here in North Pole, the sun makes a long slow circle of the sky and it barely sets before it rises again. What it does is lengthen that time that the golden hour exist. The longest day of the year was a pleasure just to sit and watch the squirrels here on the Permafrost Ranch. Don't tell anyone, but Alaska is a very special place to be in the glow of those long golden hours of daylight.