Fort Albany, Sunday November 27, 2011

Well I don't have any pictures. But I saw a fox out on the ice on Thursday and a beautiful white rabbit in the woods on Saturday. Unfortunately all the snow that's been falling and melting and refreezing makes walking a very loud exercise lately so I was unable to get a picture of either of them.
It seems like close to a foot of snow has fallen since last night and it's still coming down. Quite a winter wonderland out there again. Belinda seems happiest when she's able to bounce through it while playing with all her other neighbourhood canine friends rolling around in the front yard.

Fort Albany, Wednesday November 23, 2011

It’s been a bit crazy around here. Depending on how you look at life’s glass of water, I guess you could either say that it’s been stressful as hell and testing our sanity, or that it’s just a way to better appreciate the upcoming holidays and all the joys they include J

The Northern Store is handing out sheets for a colouring contest for the kids, so I’ve grabbed some of those and it’ll certainly be a nice treat for them next week.

I stayed after school a bit later last night and almost finished decorating the door – pictures to be presented soon! The classroom and bulletin board are next on the list. We’ve also begun our Christmas play – a short comedy on losing Santa and how the elves figure out who’s a fake and who’s the real St. Nick. A lot of the kids wanted to be Santa so I added in a few more to the line up ;)

The weather’s warmed up quite a bit from the last few days and was a couple degrees above freezing today – everything’s melting!

 

This is a beatutiful house they're building down the road where we go for a lot of walks. They've been going mad trying to get the roof finished before the real snow falls and I think they've just recently succeeded. It's gonig to be a 'quaint' wood cabin with two levels plus, and only seven simple rooms. A stone's throw away from the river and cozily nestled in to the bush just so. Sigh.

Fort Albany, Sunday November 20, 2011

The snow is officially here to stay. It hit -20C last night and it's a beautiful day outside now. We had a PD Day on Friday so we've had a bit of a long weekend to enjoy it all.

Fort Albany, Thursday November 10, 2011

Tuesday night there was a light drizzle with dark clouds at one end of the river and a brilliant sunset at the other. It was another perfect set-up for a rainbow, this time reaching from one riverbank to the other. Definetly making it one of my favourite evenings to be caught standing in the rain.



Yesterday evening was parent teacher interviews so I was stuck in the school for just over 13 hours. I'm sure the weather was interesting.
This morning we woke up to wet wet wet snow. Belinda (and all the other dogs) absolutely loved it!

We were able to get out again this evening before it got dark and have another fun walk. A couple of the bigger stray dogs came along with us and were in very playful moods so the walk was a little more tiring on my arms than usual but I think all the dogs had fun at least. Everything's beautiful at the moment and I don't think it's stopped snowing once today. It's just all so wet though. Great packing snow - making the snowman population of Fort Albany appearing to be almost on par with the humans ;)

As well as snowmen, I've been hearing a combination of four wheelers and skidoes driving by the house all evening. It's almost all the kids could talk about at school today - which is saying a lot considering the MW3 video game came out just two days ago!

Well, keep dreaming of a white Chrismas - it's coming true :)

Fort Albany, Saturday November 5, 2011

The tide was low when Bel and I went for our morning walk to the river, so we had a chance to play a bit on the ice along the edge. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to go onto it at first but she was chomping down on it in no time!

The day ended up warming up quite a bit and some of the teachers started another bon fire out back behind the houses.

Bonus: All my progress reports are done - oh and it's Daylight Savings tonight!

Fort Albany, Thursday November 3, 2011

Halloween evening, around the same time the150-200 trick or treaters started trickling off I almost tripped over a puppy on the way back into my house. As it was below freezing and I didn't want to find an adorably frozen puppy on my front porch in the morning, I took him in for the night. Luckily, it turned out that he belongs to one of my own students so he was able to go back home Tuesday at lunch. He looks like a mini black lab and his name is Muskwa (No idea if that's how you spell it, but it means 'bear' in Cree).

Fort Albany, Monday October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!

Today was absolutely crazy! Everyone brought in sugar packed candy from a kid's chocolate cake to jello and cookies from the health centre ;) All was declicious! One of the teachers put on a dance for the kids in the morning and then a movie in the afternoon; Hocus Pocus! Unfortunately we didn't have time to finish it before the costume competitions. I wish I could show you pictures of some of my kid's costumes - they were fantastic and the grade 7's came around right after the bell to paint anyone's face who didn't have a costum. Everyone did a fantastic job!

 We had a class competition for the best jack o' lantern and the kids voted for the one above. So last weekend I carved and decorated as accurately as I could with as few embelishments as I could manage.

Fort Albany, Friday October 28, 2011

As Halloween is fast approaching we've had to throw something together in terms of festive decor. Most of the first year teachers, including myself, were unaware of the door decorating competition until after we'd finished decorating, but I like to think we all did a pretty swell job anyway!

Fort Albany, Sunday October 23, 2011

Returning home from an afternoon of work at the school I found the neighbourhood 'alpha' out front one of the teacher's houses munching on some leftovers; A lucky hunter was feeling generous and threw her a moose leg :) She jealously guarded and ate the entire thing all evening.

Fort Albany, Tuesday October 18, 2011

The weather's getting cooler with snow a couple of times and frost every morning. It only seems to thaw on our walking road by the time I get home from school. The mud has turned positively intricate while frozen though and a simpe pot hole can be seen as a true, and beautiful example of the changing seasons.

You'll notice the dog beside Belinda is getting noticably bigger each time he makes an appearance - he's almost as tall as Belinda now and clearly still has a ways to go. When I got here in August, he wasn't even up to my knees!