After the storm: Left is across the road, right south side our house and bottom after some banjo work.

I think if the winds had been from the west a lot more banjo work would have been required in the front of house. In years past the ski doo has been totally buried and snow drifts covered the living room window.

A collage of across the road yesterday.

Calming down today and cleared off to mainly sunny, planes are on weather hold at lunch time.
Spent an hour or so digging out the ski doo, the komatik, 4 wheeler was not so bad, had some snow banks to dig through to get the machines onto the road. Big oh snow bank on the south side of the house, but have had worse.

Despite the warming temperatures [it was up to -2 one stage] it was not the sort of day to venture out comfortably. Winds gusted up to 100 k at one stage with many sustained gusts in the low to high 90's.
I did creep out the back door to dig a path for Siutik to get to the bathroom, but that was it. I also keep watch on the front entrance, but because the winds were northerly there was no to little accumulation there.

So it was a good day to lay around, watch movies, check on twitter and Facebook etc.

Siutik has laying around down to a fine art as seen in the collage. The other is of Frans arrangement on top of the computer desk and the background is the south side of the house across the road with the wind whipping the snow into a large bank

Not sure what to call the dish below. BigLand had packets of raw peeled tiger shrimp, I had some Chinese noddles and some shrimp chips, what to do with them.
Ended up sauteing garlic and a little crystallized ginger, added chicken stock and white wine then the cooked shrimp, tossed in the cooked noodles and bobs ya uncle.

I enjoyed it anyway. At least it was a little more appetizing, and way more healthy than the stuff many people put down their gullets, get a load of this story.
 

Surfs up

on south side, gusts from north to 80 plus. Taken at 2:15.

 

Taken at 8:50 this morning, you can still make out the dirty sandy snow that was becoming part of the landscape, hope this wind subsides so we can get some accumulation on the roads, but I don't think that will happen. Gusting to 80 now.

The threatened storm threatened all day yesterday, more dandruff falls from my head than the snow that fell.

last night was a different story with some snow accumulation. When I looked out around 3:30 there was a nice build up on and around the four wheeler. Looking out again 5:30 the north winds had taken care of that, one photo is without flash and the other with flash. She is gusting to 70 clicks at moment, see what the daylight brings.

Carter has gone green, and taking to this walking thing with gusto while waiting to board in Goose Bay yesterday.
Good size group of family at the airstrip to meet him and his mom.

The lightest of lightest of snow falls yesterday, we have warnings issued for all the coast but me thinks we will miss most of it again, or if we do get a good dump it will be blown away.

The day after the day before. Cold lamb with bubble and squeak with a Greek influence, feta and olives.
Cold goose leg and wing with BS for Fran.

There is some light snow in the forecast for today, hope this doe not delay the flight of Carter and his mom this morning, someone will be climbing up the wall if there is any delay.

Update: No one will be climbing the walls today, Carter made it in in his lime green snow suite with light snow falling.

Please dont play with the humans.

Where the hell is the kids parents.

The leg of lamb prior to putting in oven. Lamb had been marinating for 24 hours in red wine/lemon/olive oil, I had rubbed garlic and herbs on the lamb prior to putting in in plastic bag and adding the liquid.
Things were a bit hectic later so i did not have time to take pictures post cooking.
Stephanie brought a cooked goose with stuffing, a nice young tender juicy one. The lamb was nice and tender and juicy as well.

The original intent was just four of us for dinner, but Fran had a surprise for Stephanie, she invited Brian John, Jane and Terrence.
Terrence took over the show in his entertaining way. After the meal Enrique and Matthew came up. After Fran familiarized Andrew and BJ with the game 'jacks' the two boys became locked in a macho battle to see who was the master, lots of laughter and well meant teasing. Just proves you don't need all these electronic gadgets to enjoy one self, a nice day all round.

The weather was mild relatively speaking, partly cloudy and light winds, got up to -13 with -20 wind chills, nice change from the past days.

Looks like no snow of consequence for the next while, long as the wind does not blow, but some good snow falls would be more than welcome.

The usual joy, giving, reflection, receiving time of year that is Christmas.

But there is always a little niggle in the back of the mind, one of caution or of expectation that some sad event is about to happen.

Invariably something does happen this time of year. Perhaps not effecting one directly but in a small isolated community you are affected more profoundly than if living in a large urban area, Fran being on the crises response team heightens that apprehension.

This year it hit closer to home. Edward Flowers, Carters maternal other great grandfather [atatsiak] suffered a stroke early Wednesday morning, the 21st.

Edward did not recover from the stroke passing away at home early afternoon Thursday the 22nd. Edward was 74.

Guest blogger Fran has this contribution:

Like our grand daughter Aimee, Brian and I feel blessed to have known Edward Flowers-not only know him but shared family with him.

I moved to Nain in 1980, not knowing how Edwards family or my family would be intertwined.

Edward was a walking wealth of Inuit Traditional Knowledge. I’m sure there are a lot of younger Inuit who called him their mentor-I’ve already heard many of them say that.

Edward cared about and was passionate about what Inuit should be concerned with. That our environment can sustain the food we depend on so much. That the land not be spoiled by mining activities.

Edward had intimate connections and respect for how the land, water animals birds depend on each other. I leaned that from him as I got to know him over a numbers of years. And he always had good oh Inuk food to share, and a great sense of humor.

Collage of action on the harbor yesterday afternoon.

Some taken from the ball park as the sun was setting below the hills, others taken from shore in front of Northern after the sun sank below the hills.

We have our first -30's wind chill of the season, -34 actually, no wonder the house is slow to warm up.

We did a run around looking at the lights around 7 pm last night. Seems like many more houses with lights, and some people were still putting lights up, in the dark, with the wind hitting them broadside, durh.

Our run coincided with the team judging for the best decorated house competition, we kept running into them as we did our tour. You have to enter the competition so that is why they were moving faster than us.

There is one short dead end street that was particularly nice with every house with some sort of lights, and the first house on the street was quite elaborate with quite a bit of thought and work going into it.  Seems they ran third.

We cut our tour short as my hands were freezing and Fran was missing her Days show.

This ones for Rick. Rick is on a pre Christmas diet and his only joy in life is looking at pictures of yummy food.

This was my first attempt at a Tourtiere, lamb, salt pork ribs, turnip, parsnip, carrots and spices.
There are so many ways to make this Quebec delicacy it can become confusing. I took several cooking suggestions and blended them into my own concoction.
If truth be known it is really just a deep dish meat pie, and lets not forget we have a jihad out against Robin Hood products until they reintroduce the Flaky Pastry range.

We attended the annual Christmas concert at the school last evening, it was very well attended as usual.
One thing that stood out, the number of vehicles outside, in many past years it would be all ski doos. The lack of snow is becoming bothersome for many.

I get the feeling that a few people will be testing the ice [on ski doo] today or tomorrow, folks with experience and knowledge of ice.
Unlike last year the ice should have ample time to set nice and thicken and stabilize, there is no snow forecast for the next seven days and temps into the -20's are on the cards.

After feasting your eyes on the picture above get out and go for a walk. 

We received this photo [edited by me] in one of the Christmas cards this year. The photo was taken around 1992.

Ros, who did some accounting for OK Society back in the day, is beside Fran in front of the mural in the TV studio in the building subsequently destroyed by fire.

The mural was painted by students and their arts teacher at the time Bill Wheaton. Bill was to my mind the best arts teacher JHMS has ever had for many reasons, but that’s another story.

On the chilly side out, -24 overnight at the house, -21 official. We spotted three people walking out on the ice yesterday, bit risky for most but if these conditions persist then there will be one big ice skating rink out there soon.

Have a Merry Christmas all.

Fran did a nice job of the tree, and I added a nice picture of Carter and his mom, one day they will post a good one of all three, but dad is away a lot being a first officer with a local airline n all.

I have been waiting patiently for some official news of the language Strategy paper that was tabled at the NG assembly early last week. Still nothing official but OK had a news brief on the tabling yesterday.

For a government that was established on the backs under the auspices of Inuit and their language and culture NG sure pays little heed to language and culture.

Maybe if they could have wrangled the word Uranium in the tittle page, or short term jobs for long term pain maybe the PR wiz at NG would have news of this culturally significant tabling out on the inter tubes in minutes.   

Temperatures are down, or up -21 at the house and -16 official, calmer winds have given the ice in the harbor time to set up, should see some crazy out on ski doo soon.
Those long string of little orange balls in the Enviro Can web site have changed to little orange balls with a dark puffy thing across the middle. No sign of sprinkley white thingies yet.

Harbor finely set

yesterday [for the most part]. Still some open leads but if the winds stay light the ice should be here to stay. The lonely seagull is enjoying the fruits of the bubble, that stays open all winter usually.

After all that wind walking was a joy yesterday, everybody commenting on how warm it was.
After checking the days temps later the wind chill had not been over -23, proving that it is all relative.

Santa hit town early afternoon yesterday.

Some observations from Fran; no ho hoing, but that may be due to not many people out on the ramp. Also a skinny Santa, this may be due to the global economic downturn. Before departure from the ramp Santa did let out a few ho ho's.
My observations; it was bloody cold [-27 wind chill], most people were hunkered down in vehicles waiting for the parade to start. The large amount of vehicles compared to previous years, this may be due to the economic upturn for some in Nunatsiavut.
Air Labrador was the conveyance of choice and the gifts to be given out at the town hall were of the good graces of a service club in Goose Bay [whose name escapes me].

Being sunny and so bloody cold it was a good day for pizza. I think this feeling cold thing may be physical as well as physiological. Clear sunny windy days with little snow on the ground sort of puts the chills right through the body, it seems less of an effect when there is lots of packed snow, it acts as an insulation to the mind and the physical.

Back to the pizza: Multi grain dough of course. On the left we have broccoli, sauteed onions, peppers, ham, sliced fresh tomatoes lots of cottage cheese, feta cheese.
On the right, pepperoni, salami, olives, sauteed onions, sliced fresh tomatoes, peppers, avocado, feta, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.
Not arf bad if I do say so myself.

So no matter if the cold thing is physiological or physical we better get used to it, nothing but big yellow balls and low temperatures for the next 7 days on the Enviro Canada web sight for Nain.

Santa update:  Santa's elves and helpers were from the Rotary Club of HV-GB, a stop in Natuashish preceded the visit to Nain. About 800 gifts were distributed to the children.

This n that: 
 Around 3:30 yesterday I thought I should take a photo or two of our my Christmas decorations outside before the wind came and blew what little fresh snow fell, and it did, the wind that is.

Not a big deal but it does add some cheer and color to the front of the house. Fran is in charge of the inside decorations, we are in a bit of a bind due to the fact I we don't want to stick pins in the new gyprock ceiling. I am sure things will work out OK.

I had a bit of an culinary heart stop at BigLand yesterday. Here on a bottom shelf of a cooler were a couple of bags with Feta Cheese hand printed on them. Crumbled fete cheese but non the less an extreme rarity up these ways.

It was not long before I was trying out the feta, damn good but needs to have some olive oil added to it if I am to keep it for any time, then not much chance of that.
Last evenings meal was left over night, the four
vegetable with left over fried rice croquettes came out unbelievable. The added touch was the feta on top.
Beer battered cod with some pork tenderloin made up the left over meal from on high.

Carnivore Fran complimented the croquettes, especially with feta topping, and mentioned that AJ missed out an a great dish, AJ being a veterinarian and all.

Oh the wind, it got up to 30 k by 5 and up to 89 k early this morning, not a lot of blowing snow as the warmer temps made it sort of sticky.

You will be happy to hear [thanks to my early intervention] that Environment Canada has given us back our Friday.
So it looks like maybe we will get some snow Friday and maybe Saturday. But we wont get overly excited as it looks like wind will blow the snow off. Then it is back into the big chill next week.

Should this woman go to jail gaol or be anointed a saint. I am leaning towards the latter.

This blog post puts an interesting question out there. Not that has not been asked before, but it has always puzzled me why such high standards on reporting how government monies are spent are put on aboriginal groups and entities inside aboriginal communities, yet many non aboriginal agencies can run deficits and have monies flitted away and no [government] one really makes such a big deal out of it.

Now I do agree that being accountable is the best course, but the double standard has always troubled me.

Another tragedy has hit this town of many tragedies. A young man decided to end his life Wednesday in the toilet of the high school. He was only 14 or 15, cant think of words to describe how his family and friends must feel.
I do not want to write on these issues, but at the same time not talking and writing about them does more harm that good.

Councilors on the ground are dealing with family [if they request it] and a group of councilors from the school board arrived yesterday to work with the school children.

All well and good but when will all this reactionary process lead to pro action, after all there are lots of kids hurting out there, you can see it everyday just walking around the streets.

I have taken an except from a Facebook post, I hope that person who wrote it does not mind.

there is a very powerful spirit taking over our young people and taking them away from us. Suicide. We desperately need mental health services for our young people because right now they have nothing. It takes months to get to see a counsellor in Goose Bay. I think it should be mandatory for teachers in our communities to have suicide intervention training, they are the people who see the kids everyday and should realize 

I post it just to give people a sense of what youth are thinking and saying in private.  That post has 24 likes at the moment. There are many many more people speaking and witting on social media about this very serious issue, yet the powers that be continue their silence.


For some perspective: There are counseling services available [though underfunded and staffed] on the ground. There is also an urgent need for the Nunatsiavut Government to start being pro active and leading their people in finding ways of dealing with all the hurt going back generations. You cant live in denial for much longer, action must be taken now.

Here is a link to what I feel is an uplifting little video put together by people from the small Yupiq Eskimo Village of Quinhagak, Alaska , it was a school computer project intended for the other Yupiq villages in the area. Much to the villagers' shock, over a half million people have viewed it.




Many thanks to TG from St. John's for sending it, I needed an uplift after that milquetoast bunch voted to lift the moratorium en mass. .

Environment Canada has changed the way they report the weather on their on line updates.

Little did we know they were also taking one day a week from us.

ForecastCompose

Tonight

•  
• -7°C* 
•  
•  
• Thu

• -4°C
•  
•  

Sat

• -14°C
• -4°C*
• 60%

Sun

• -15°C
• -19°C
•  

Mon

• -13°C
• -17°C
•  

Tue

• -18°C
• -20°C
•  

Wed

• -16°C
• -18°C
•