Time 12:06 pm

Current Temp.  46*F

Sunrise  5:39 am        Sunset  10:01 pm

(Did you see this, We actually have sun)

Length of Day  16h 22m 17s      Difference of   + 6m 57s

64 Degrees North, Sunset

I took these two pictures at the same place, just a week and a half apart.

Alaskan Sunset

In Alaska we have 4 seasons:  fall, winter, breakup and construction season, although fall is technically construction season as well.  Right  now we are smack in the middle of breakup (so named because the ice on the rivers breaks up and floats down river.)  Breakup is the most anticipated season of the year and is looked forward to with much fervor and excitement, especially once the rest of the world starts proclaiming the beginning of their spring.  It means the long, cold, hard winter is finally over, and summer will soon be here.   For those of you who don’t live in Alaska I am prepared to give you the good, the bad and the ugly of breakup in Alaska.

Here goes:

The Good

  • We finally have sun, glorious sun
  • AND  The sun actually gets high enough in the sky to warm things up a bit
  • My kids can play outside for hours
  • The birds come back
  • The snow melts
  • Don’t have to chop firewood (Jarom’s favorite)
  • Can use the hose to water the horse, instead of packing water from the house (Logan’s favorite)
  • Summer is right around the corner
  • There aren’t enough mosquitoes to carry you away yet
  • When the snow melts, it melts quickly
  • Time to start my garden seeds

 

The Bad

  • The world becomes a mud bog all around
  • Every yard has it’s own melting snow lake complete with migrating Canadian Geese
  • Oh, the mud, mud, mud, mud  (Mud deserves to be mentioned twice because of how much there is)
  • Breakup season is ugly.
  • The amount of laundry generated at this time of year equals, if not exceeds, the amount generated during the rest of the year combined
  • All of the trash and garbage on the sides of the road becomes visible once the snow is gone.
  • The mosquitoes come back
  • If you build a fire in the wood burning stove you cook to death during the day, if you don’t you freeze to death during the night
  • Too late for snow machines and too early for motor cycles  (from Jarom)
  • I can’t use my back porch as a freezer any more
  • Dirty floors ALL THE TIME
  • The dog sheds her winter coat all over my floors

The Ugly

  • Can see and smell 9 months of horse and dog poop

 

**Update–Our horse passed away in the summer of 2015, so while we aren’t missing hauling water and scooping horse poop we are missing our dear MudPie.

 

 

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