Village Current Events

1. The City and the Austin's (a family here is St. Michael) are not selling gasoline anymore...it is low or gone.
2. Stove Oil is running low or gone.
3. The sun is rising at 7:30am (dawn is an hour)
4. The sun is setting at 10:00pm (dusk remains for a hour)
5. The temperature has been above freezing for three days.
6. The snow is melting and the roads are gooey, muddy, messes.

These are the big events here is St. Michael at the moment.  The first one is important because there are people with crab pots five miles out on the ocean.  They need their snowmachines to go check their pots.  One man was talking about this earlier and said that the ice out there is five feet thick.  

Stove Oil is used in the village houses for cooking.  Heat is electric.

I'm excited to see the sun come back.  It is so warm when it is shining.  It comes in the windows of my classroom all day.  Sometimes it got so warm that we would open the windows (even below zero) just for a little bit for some relief.  Today there was a funeral at the church and everything closes down.  We released our students early from Head Start and from the big school.  I was so warm leaving work that I didn't even put on my parka.  I walked outside and was amazed at how warm it was.  Even with the wind blowing I didn't get cold.  I took advantage of the beautiful weather by going for a walk.  I hung up my parka, put away my snowpants, put on my fleece jacket and went for a walk.  I took my mitten liners with me but never wore them.  I walked for 30 minutes through the mud puddles covering the bare roads out over the tundra covered in soggy snow.  I saw tundra moss and plants sticking out where the snow was melted.  Through out my walk I kept thinking that the weather felt exactly like a day at the Oregon Coast.  A day when the wind was blowing so your ears and cheeks got cold but sunny so you wanted to be out walking.  

The big difference?  

Here it is 34 degrees and at the coast the weather would be in the upper 60's or 70's.  

What's the same?

I was wearing what I would wear on a walk on the windy beach with the exception of my snow boots.  Jeans, T-Shirt, Sweater, socks.  No hat, no gloves, no face-mask.  I believe that spring is about to arrive.

On Saturday the temperature rose from 0 to 30 degrees.

On Sunday the temperature rose from 28 degrees to 37 degrees.

Today the temperature rose from 33 degrees to 36 degrees.

Soon I will put away the snow boot and wear my rubber boots.  It will be a while before I put those away.