Spring Has Sprung!

Change is a-happenin’ up this way. Spring has Sprung!

The sun is back! During the winter, it would hardly show itself. Now it doesn’t leave. The other day, I got really sick, and was up all night--literally. I can now report that the sun pretends to go down about 1 AM--but the sky doesn’t actually get dark. By 4:30 AM the sun is on its way up again. I like this MUCH better than the winter when we hardly got any daylight at all. But it does reek havoc with the internal clock. Our poor bodies don’t know when it’s time for bed. I lay there at night, staring out at the still partially-lit sky, and wonder why I’m in bed when it’s not dark out yet. When I was a kid, I would fight going to sleep when it’s still light outside--and I still do. Some things never change.

And along with long daylight, we have warmer temperatures. It has been in the mid 30s every day for a couple weeks now. That means that the snow is beginning to melt—a lot. Instead of mounds of snow in the road, we now have mud and lakes. Snow boots have been traded in for big old rubber boots. We look like farmers. We’ve even been able to shovel off the boardwalk that goes around the teacher’s housing. Yay!!

This is the boardwalk that runs past our front door. The picture was taken at almost 10:00 at night--without a flash.

One good thing that goes along with mud instead of snow is that we don’t hear the roar of snow machines round the clock. During snow season, the kids would be out there doing the Alakanuk equivalent of “dragging Main Street” all night. And I mean all night. But it’s like living next door to a train station or airport. After a while, you just tune it out—kind of. But with no snow for the kids to race around on, the nights have become much quieter. It’s sssooooooooooo nice!

But from what I hear, this is really just a hiatus. As soon as the lakes dry up, the kids will “drag Main” with their four-wheelers--all night. But the lakes won’t dry up for a while, because the river has to flood first. So this town has about two months of peaceful slumber. Then--watch out!

And with the change of seasons, the geese are returning! So now we hear the bellowing of moose and the honking of geese. I love it!

Buds are popping. Before long, we may even have some green leaves around here…and then wild flowers. I can’t wait!

We are celebrating!

Yup—Spring has Sprung!

This is the view from our back door right now. Notice the reflections of the buildings in our newly-formed lake.