Fairbanks, Alaska Interior, USA

Hello there.

Freezing septic tanks? We have an out house with a long drop, so we don't have those freezing issues - have to burn the toilet paper though.

We have only seen one moose on the side of the road as we were driving past so that doesn't count. We are looking forward to bumping into one in the wild!

Sun shine hours? Well it may as well be 24 hours, we sleep through the "dark" hours, so it may as well be 24 hours of light. You'd think you'd go crazy but it seems to just be like summer in NZ. We haven't missed the dark yet. We loose 6 minutes of light per day until the summer solstice, when we are going to a mid night baseball game to celebrate. Its 20 - 30C here during the day.

There is no concept of time here. You sleep when you're tired, eat when you're hungry. There is no concept of night. You could go hiking at 3am and the light is just like early evening in summer in NZ - so bizarre, but so liberating.

There are heaps of crazy/eccentric people here - always a laugh. We are having a party on Friday, hopefully we will meet some interesting characters!

There are 300 dogs in the square mile we live in - they howl at 'night' time. There are two dogs here - one is on heat and the boy dogs are around a lot! Last night apparently she had escaped from her pen by 1am and was back in her pen, just like nothing had happened at 6am - what a sneaky dog.

Sarah got chased by a beaver yesterday - apparently she got between the baby and the mum - time to run!

The cabin is going well, got the first row of logs on now - its really taking shape - hopefully we will get 2 done while we are here.

The mosquitoes are something else. They just come in swarms. They are attracted to dark clothes and carbon-dioxide (ie. our breath). They are now respecting the repellent, in alaska they will bite through your clothes, i think its better got go with out a shirt and layer on the repellent! We take a very strong anti-histamine every night, that keeps the bites down - not to mention puts me to sleeps for a very good nights sleep.

Ok, body says it time to go.