Scenes from the Keno Library

Spectacular views from the top of Keno Hill will follow, but first a look at the adorable Keno Library, housed in an old Anglican Church.

More Flower Photographs (Since My Mom Said She Likes Them)

When I planted a few seeds in May, I pretty much just tossed things wherever, and didn't worry much about planting the seeds at the recommended distances.  I figured if anything came up, I could just thin as necessary.  The parsley seeds in the garden turned out to be a bust, although I don't think this is my fault.  My landlady takes care of the lawn and has also done some work in the gardens--including top-dressing with a load of fresh soil directly on top of my tiny little parsley sprouts.  So no parsley.  But I have a box full of skinny little chives, and a barrel of cosmos.  The container gardening is working out surprisingly well for me.

The cosmos are a few inches high, and looked like they needed more space.  I decided to try transplanting a few of the extras into the garden (where my parsley should have been...), rather than just pulling them out.  I don't have much in the way of gardening tools, so I dug up the plants with a kitchen spoon.

This bit of ancestral silverware (the everyday cutlery at home for many years when I was little, and then I inherited it when homesteading during university) worked quite well as a gardening utensil.  And I could entertain myself taking spoon/plant pictures:

Besides putting some of the cosmos in the garden, I also planted a few in cups.  This is grade-school science project gardening, by way of a keg party:

If there are any survivors, I may try turning one into a house plant.  For now they look cute tucked on the bottom of the porch railing:

A few of the moonflowers I planted have sprouted as well, although they are really quite small still (as are the cosmos, in all honesty).  Dawson gardening lesson learned: start seeds indoors early on, or the summer will be half over before they are more than three inches tall.  Fortunately I like macro photography, and the moonflowers have great veins.

The other plants are doing well.  The garden is a wilderness of daisies--so many that they choke out all the other weeds.  But it's not all daisies.  I don't know what kind of plant this is, but it is gorgeous:

Even in bud-form it looks lovely:

There are these crazy long petals that grow off towards the back.  This is the sort of thing that will start walking around and eating us all after nuclear armageddon.

 I also really love the new foliage on this ornamental maple:

The rose is still going strong, and has put out two new blooms.  It is actually getting big enough that I think I should prune it.  Except that I am nervous to prune it.  Roses seem like one of those plants that require actual gardening technique; I'm afraid that if I prune it wrong, I'll lose the whole thing.  I'm growing rather attached--besides being so pretty, it was a present from Ben--and would hate to kill it.

His mint is still going crazy.  It's a total jungle, with the chocolate and orange varieties threatening to overwhelm the spearmint and peppermint.

According to one of my sisters-in-law, it's "big" that Ben moved his mint in, but really it reminds me more of a little kid who begs and begs and begs to get a puppy and promises that he'll feed it and walk it and brush it every day and please please please can I have a puppy canIhaveapuppy canIhaveapuppy???  Except that once little Rover is part of the family, it's Mom who ends up doing the walking and poop-scooping.  Ben has watered it a couple of times, and will sometimes make himself a mint julep, but really I'm the one responsible for the mintbaby.  It's hard to complain, however.  The watering (when necessary--we've had more than enough rain lately) is rather relaxing, and I have been drinking gallons of mint water.  So tasty and fresh!  And mojitos are definitely going to happen this weekend...

Solstices

I don't want to say that I'm over the whole 24 hour daylight thing, but this year I went to bed at 11pm on the 21st.  I've done the stay-up-all-night thing before, and just didn't feel the need this year.  It was a crazy week, with work, meetings and multiplying commitments all making me feel tired and old.  A good night's sleep--as good as I could get, considering just how bright it is in this cabin with its thin curtains--was more valuable.  I did snap a picture from my "desk" (the sewing machine table with my laptop on it) as I sat up reading resumes on Wednesday night.  At 11:04 pm, there was still bright sunshine out:

And yeah... the window doesn't stay open on it's own, so I use a rolling pin, and my grandmother's crystal lives next to a random cracked mug, some Ikea candle holders and my Donna Akrey sculptures.  I don't quite have the shelf space to display my objets d'art appropriately.

For comparison, here's a photograph from 2008, taken at 1:52 am:

Sunset-ish down at river-level, but up on the Dome above town it would have been even brighter.  The settings on the camera actually make it look darker than it was.

I was more diligent back in December, when experiencing my first winter solstice in Dawson.  I didn't manage to take a photograph every hour like I planned, but did get a few.  This is 10:18 am on December 21, 2010, before the sun was up:

I had to dress like this to go outside to take photographs:

It was only -31 outside--cold enough but not too bad.  At 12:36, the sun was just above the hills south of town:

And then the sun was pretty much set by by 4:36 in the afternoon, although the roses that Ben brought for me kept things cheery inside:

Looking at these dark photos it helpful for perspective: I shouldn't really wish these long summer days away, because once they're gone, there is a long succession of long winter nights to follow.  It's the balance and cycle that keeps it tolerable--and being able to go Outside and get away from it every now and again.  Going to the beach in January--even if it wasn't a tropical beach as such--cures a lot of things.

Botanical Beach in Juan de Fuca Provincial Park on Vancouver Island was chilly enough to require toques and scarves, but it was still fabulous.  And lovely to see the family--that's my brother, his wife and their baby-in-a-backpack watching the waves.

Another late "night" garden shot

Outside at 11:53 pm:

I wanted to work a little more on my composition, but was getting eaten alive by all the mozzies.  Nevertheless it certainly gets the point across: it's so light out!

I don't know what it is...

...but it sure is pretty!  I am loving taking photographs of it all (although there are a few mystery flowers out there--I am not so good at identifying).

After a spell of hot weather in May, June has been cool, with patches of clouds and rather frequent rain.  Everything is very green, and even the seeds I planted are finally poking up through the earth.  These little green nubbins are the (particularly exciting) first signs of the chives:

There are irises in bloom:

And the formerly indoor rose is flourishing outside--not only just lots of new foliage but also new flowers in progress:

There are wild roses, too:

And there are all sorts of lovely mystery flowers.  There is a shrub covered in dozens of these tiny pink flowers:

And these are all over the place:

These yellow flowers are also on some kind of shrub:

The mint on the porch is rampant--especially the orange mint: 

And whatever this plant is, it sure has interesting foliage:

It may even be some kind of thistle; the stem was quite spiny.

There are also poppies and fireweed, and lots of daisies and columbine (maybe) and delphiniums (I think).  Also weeds.  There are many weeds.  I'd say that I would take care of that this weekend, but I did get roped into working tomorrow and I have agreed to do some writing for What's Up Yukon this summer that needs to get started this weekend and we're working on residency selections this Sunday and I have my radio show to do and a sewing challenge to live up to, plus some reading I really want to get done, so...  Weeding is a little low on the list, I guess.  However: admiring the flowers remains high on the priority list.

(Almost) Midnight Sun

It's getting more difficult to sleep every night.  I should be sewing blackout curtains and not skirts!  It's just after 11 pm and the sun isn't even behind the hills yet:

The irises that are just about to bloom are really the only midnightish thing outside right now...

Midnight in the Garden...

It's my fifth (fifth!) summer living 64 degrees North--a mere 200 or so kilometres South of the Arctic Circle--and I still can't get over these "white nights" we have (to borrow a more Russian term for what is more often known hereabouts as the Midnight Sun).  Even though it is a cloudy night tonight, it is still so bright.  I couldn't resist taking a quick shot out in the garden at 12:25 am:

Not much of a photograph, but a pretty accurate representation of just how dark the night isn't.  I just love this crazy town.

Visuals from My Alaska Road Trip

It was a good trip through Alaska last week.  The ferry across the Yukon River wasn't in when I left on Monday, so I had to take the long way around (down to Whitehorse and then back north to the border, which adds over 1000 km to the trip)--but the effort was worth it.  Shopping in Anchorage, and visiting Seward and Homer was lovely.

View Road Trip in a larger map

I think I took fewer photographs than I sometimes have on previous trips; I had so many miles to cover that I couldn't stop on the roadsides as much as I like, and the weather was really off and on.  But it was fabulously relaxing, and wonderful to be out on the road again--especially knowing what a wonderful life I had to return to in Dawson.

Head on over to Flickr to view some snaps...