Here comes the dark...

Fall behind made the darkness all that more real.  It now gets dark here in Gjoa Haven by 3pm.  It's pretty incredible how it doesn't phase the kids in the least.  It's only strange to me and the other southern people.  We lose about 10 minutes of sunshine a day building up to total darkness on December 21st.  
 

And from there we start gaining 10 minutes of sunlight a day until June 21st.  I'm not having any trouble waking up (yet) and sleeping for me has never really been a problem. The only thing that gets me is that in my mind darkness=late so I have to continually convince myself that I didn't lose 6 hours and yes, in fact it is only 3pm.

Nigel's dog socks make him sassy!

The past few weeks we've been well below the friendly negative temperature numbers here in Gjoa Haven. Instead we've landed smack dab in the -20s and -30s.  Today it was -38 which with my super parka, I'm well equipped for BUT poor Nigel, my international man of mystery, struggles in.  On very cold mornings it is only a few minutes out in the snow before he starts to limp and look at me pitifully.  It breaks my whole heart even thinking about him suffering.  So, to combat this issue, I made him a dog coat.

I cut a few buttons off a spring coat and used them as fasteners for the neck and belly strap.  The materials itself is faux lamb inside and a microfiber swede outside.  You can't see it in this pic but I even sewed a turned out collar.  

The major issue currently, though, is his cold feet.  Until his doggy booty Muttluks get here in the mail (thanks mom!) the socks will have to do.  I've switched from mismatched white socks because in preliminary trials the lost socks were impossible to find in the snow... Special thanks go out to Melanie E for the cupcake socks that practically glow in the dark because they have made sock retrieval ever better.  So far so good!

Now, Nigel the dog may look defeated in this picture but not five minutes later he frolicked outside without a limp or a whimper and I think that's fantastic.