jules in antarctica: happy thanksgiving

hi... it is saturday the 24th for me and the station is celebrating thanksgiving today and we have today and tomorrow off from work. this is lovely. soon i will eat a big feast, even dress up a little (if you call wearing a dress over jeans dressing up). and then there will be merriment and hanging out with friends. i don't have much time right now, but wanted to post as many photos as i can to show what's been happening over the past few weeks. i have been well, all is well, i suppose not much more to say about that.

here is a video of a CONDITION ONE storm. these typically do not make it into town in the summer that often, and don't really last for that long, but it means that you cannot travel between buildings until it lets up. this was at about 11pm and i just woke up from a nap (really tired that day), so i was lucky i was in the main building where my dorm is. it was actually pretty warm, but the call was for extreme low visibility whereas it can be called for extreme low temps or extreme winds (more rare).

Here are is a shot out over mcmurdo sound of the transantarctic mountains. On clear days, the view is amazing and they seem right so close. I know the photo seems a bit washed out, but that is sometimes how it looks.

Here is a view of some of us going out for a very windy hike nearby

General random shot of the coffeehouse on a mellow night.

Last weekend I went and volunteered at the greenhouse to plant some lettuce. The greenhouse is warm, bright and smells good. Everything is grown hydroponically... only water and typically a growing medium called rockwool (highly heated and spun rock... it's soft like stretchy felt)... no dirt at all. We get fresh vegetables from NZ when we can, but we also eat the items grown in the greenhouse. The folks that stay for winter only get greenhouse freshies, so its got to be maintained well all year around. There are also a couple of hammocks in there, so anyone can go and hang out and get some comfortable humidity. I fell asleep in the hammock after all my hard work.

These are the lettuce starts I planted on the lower system (they grew from seeds in another tray).

This is some lettuce to be harvested in another few weeks... it takes about 4-5 weeks from seed to harvest for most of the lettuce. Below there is arugula, swiss chard, calallo, bok choy and above is butter lettuce. The black rubber is to inhibit the growth of algae in the watering trays due to the high levels of light and nutrients that it takes to grow the veggies.