We now have 17 hours, 2 minutes, 5 seconds of daylight! That is an increase of 5 minutes, 2 seconds over yesterday. See how fast an increase of about 5 minutes adds up! Unfortunately, those 5 minute decreases will be upon us in just a couple months. Oh well. With the good comes the not as good.

Barrow won’t have another sunset for the next couple months. I’ve been there during the never-ending daylight of summer. It is still cold there, anyway. Today the village of Wainwright brought in the first whale of the year. It was 27 feet in length and should provide a lot of muktuk and roasts for the villagers. Wainwright is west and south of Barrow along the Arctic coast.

The trees still have no buds. BUT, they will soon as I just looked at the thermometer and saw that it read 60 degrees! The weather lady was right. She forecast that the temperatures would finally go past the lower 50’s. The snow in our yard is gone, however, there is still snow behind us from when it was cleared and piled.

One of our grandkids was on a field trip today and just past a sign stating to be aware that the bears are out and about, my daughter (chaperoning) spotted bear footprints in the snow. With as many kids as there were, any bear would have run away really fast to say away from all the hyper activity. The kids did think it was kind of a special treat.

A baby elephant seal was found down at the docks a week or so ago. It has been sent to Seward to the Sea Life Center where it seems to be doing fairly well. I remember standing on the deck of our apartment several years ago and watching an enormous seal on the side of the river where it meets to inlet. I don’t know whether it was a Stellar Sea Lion or maybe an elephant seal. Both males become enormous as they age.

Dinner tonight was delicious. We had beef meatloaf, steamed broccoli, and mashed potatoes. We rarely ever eat potatoes so they were a treat of sorts. I make them using rice milk and a bit of butter or ghee. Unfortunately, potatoes usually cause me to suffer a few aches for a day or so. Dr. D. is right again.

Watermelon was on sale this week for 59 cents a pound! Around early July it is often on sale for .39 a pound. That is one fruit that we seldom get to eat. When we do, I like to make watermelon pickles with the rinds.

I had another successful dentist appointment this week. WOW, the EFT really has helped out a lot there. I was originally supposed to get a mercury filling replaced with the resin one and then get a cap. Well, they want $990 for the cap and my portion after the insurance would be $490. That is just way more than pocket change, so I’ve decided to keep things as they are in that tooth for now. So, I had work done on another tooth instead. It is almost a pleasure to get the other dental work done. Never in my life would I ever expect me to be able to make that statement!

Hope you are having a good day. Till next time…..