Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

Finally....my pictures downloaded for this blog. I've been trying since last night.Perhaps we could have a little rendition of the Hallelujah chorus from Handle's Messiah play in the backround . I was mistakenly thinking that having a satellite Internet provider would solve all my computer problems. How naive! The holidays are over again for another year and everyone has left the nest and gone back to their own lives. The boys caught the ferry last Friday- Brian went back to Juneau and Ben returned to North Carolina for some more intense training. Autumn left today. Things will go back to normal now I guess, whatever that is. No doubt it will be much quieter around here. For whatever reason the kids seem to think that visiting here requires staying up into the wee hours of the morning and sleeping in until the afternoon. I can't really complain too much since they spend so much time at Jen's house talking and laughing and carrying on. Our place is mainly for grabbing ...

Today is the winter solstice; I'm kind of glad. From here on out until June 21, we're going to be gaining daylight. I always look forward to that happening, although it's not really noticeable until about mid- February up here. I went out for a walk yesterday with my eldest daughter, Jennifer, or Jen as she prefers to go by. The sun was out full force when we started out, even though it was being really stingy with the heat. That's one of the problems with sunny days at this latitude. They look beautiful and they always entice me to step out, even though I know better, but once outside, their true nature comes to light so to speak. At first it's not so noticeable. You still feel toasty, having just left the warm comfort of your home, but about half way through our walk I start to feel the cold on my cheeks and forehead and the first chill from the frozen ground starts to penetrate my boots. I wear my X-tra tuff neoprene boots year round, even though they don't ...