more pictures

I just put some more pictures on my album.
today it´s cloudy and -12 degrees. yeasterday we finished putting up a UV-filter on our water supply and a new hydrofor.
we are still charing the batteries for the snow blower, untill then it¨s stuck in the garage. luckily it hasn´t snowed for more than 3 weeks. tomorrow we have a plane coming in... so hopefully no bad weather!
here is a picture to make you curious about my album...

yeaha C-130 Hercules with supplies...

yeasterday we had a plane from the danish airforce. it brought some supplies to us. a new snow scooter, a 40 inch flatscreen tv, a new oven for our kitchen, building materials etc... nothing to eat!
the plane made a night landing, which ment that we had to put some light on the runway. we have some old petroleum lamps, we put along side the air strip, all 1850 metres long.
it was almost lika christmas, the two of us ripping the boxes open to have a look at the goodies...
Small things are GREAT up here!!!

scooter crash...

todays scheduled flight from the airforce was cancelled due to technical problems. they will try agian tomorrow.
we have been putting a lot of snow on our pipelines, as we have had some problems with frozen water pipes... it's the same every year, no heating in the pipes!

then we went on a scooter trip. 12 km from the station in Minebyen I hit a rock and damaged the scooter. luckily we have already spare parts enroute, since they were damaged last season. It's not that funny to stand in the middle of nowhere with a 400 kg scooter, trying to get it back home. but with Hugger pulling me and trying to make the turns we made it back to Mestersvig.
Now we have to wait fore the spare parts before we can mend it. untill then we have our skis...

the dark time

the length of the day is shortening by app. 20 min every day.
today daylight will break the darkness around 10.
then we will have daylight until 1630, when the darkness will settle in again.
it's quite cosy with the dark time. just enjoying the indoor life or walking around in the night looking at the millions of stars and the northern light...

blowing in the wind and some more...

yeasterday we removed most of the snow on the runway, so we can be ready to recieve a herculs C-130 from the Danish airforce on Tuesday.
we had some problems with the Stevenson snow blower. it stopped and wouldn't fire up the engine again. this is a problem when it's -19 and everything freezes solid. after a couple of hour loooking for jumper-cables and big enough batteries we finnaly got the 20 ton machine runing. we managed to get it in front of the garage where it stopped again, and again and again. then the tower on it was frozen so it couldn't get in the garage. luckily we got it down and into the nice warmth of the garage. puh
today it started blowing, at the moment it's between 20 and 30 knots with temperatures aroun -8. this means that the runway has to be cleared for snow drifts, before the plane can land tomorrow...

Mortens aften

today is mortens aften. this is a Danish tradition.
usually people have a big dinner party where they eat duck or goose.
I have decided to have mortens aften, since I'm todays cook.
I found a suitable goose of 5 kg, so that should be enough for the two of us...

sun set

A couple of days ago we saw the sun for the last time, this year. the next time will be in the beginning of February.
due to these conditions we have the most beautiful sky. it's pink, red, yellow and blue.
the northern light has started to dance across the sky and we have started chasing it with our camera.
to day it was windy so I didn't manage my (almost) daily ski trip.
instead we spent the hours of the day by doing maintenance on one of the generators and filling up the fuel tanks in the tower. the filling went on quite slowly, so we used 5 hours!

I have put some new pictures on the net.

hunter...

while skiing today I met three ptarmigans/grouse/rype/rjupu. now they are laying on my floor ready to be eaten at the Sunday dinner. nothing like fresh meat...
the weather was cloudy today, but with no wind and -14 degrees.
we finished working with the runway. the forecast syas snow tomorrow, but we don't hope that, since we have to clear the runway again...

last civilian plane has been here

on the 31st the last civilian plane left the coast. the next one will be in february!
hugger and me have spent the last 3 days removing the run way of snow and preparing for the plane.
the crew and two scientists stayed overnight here, which was quite funny.
the skiing season has started so i have been walking around in the hills. it's very nice to just walk around in the beautifull and cold clear arctic weather.
in 10-12 days we will be entering a full dark season, which will not end untill january.