We got our first real snowfall last night, about two inches at our place. It probably won’t last (the second week in October is normally when we get the snow that stays until April), but it means the roads will be dangerous for the next couple days or weeks. Last week we saw our first great horned owl of the fall, and the snowshoe hares are rapidly turning white so winter is just about here. We’re hoping for a bunch of early season snowfall this year to get the trails set up for skiing and mushing.

What’s cool about the first snowfall of the year, especially when it’s a lot of snow like last night, is how totally different the world looks. You go to bed and it’s painted in yellows and browns, but when you wake up, it’s all cleaned up in black and white and blue. I know it’ll melt, probably later today and turn brown again, but as the sun comes up on the new wintry world, it feels fresh.

I finished wiring the shed yesterday afternoon. I was surprised at how long it took, but since everything is connected in series, each connection has to be perfect or nothing down the line will work. I’ve lived in enough cabins with funky wiring to know that it’s better to do it right the first time. The shed now has an outlet on each wall, an outdoor GFCI outlet on the outside of the building, a pair of lights in the ceiling, and an outdoor motion-detecting floodlight (that’s what’s lighting the photo on the right). The lights are wired to a switch next to the door. All that’s left is to clean up the inside and build what we need to store stuff in there. We’d planned on painting the floor, but I think it’s too late in the year for that now.

For the last month or so I’ve spent the majority of my time outside of work working on our new shed. It’s a sixteen foot by sixteen foot building with full eight foot walls, a nice high ceiling, a pair of small windows, and a large barn door. All of the materials came from Northland Wood here in Fairbanks, and except for the plywood and some sundries, the wood is locally harvested and milled white spruce.

I got the barn door hung last night, and today I built the ramp and added some window trim. All that’s left is a layer of tar paper on the back wall, installing a locking mechanism for the door, and doing the electrical work. It’s certainly the biggest project I’ve ever completed, and I can’t help but smile whenever I walk past it.

I took a lot of pictures during the construction process; some of the better ones are at this web page.

With hunting season about to start in the Interior, we got a great view of a cow, calf and bull moose from the comfort of our large windows. Last night I chased a solitary cow away from the dog yard, and this morning a different pair showed up. The cow and calf grazed on birch leaves and fireweed next to our west window, then wandered down the dog yard fence toward the road. When they got to the trees near the far side of the dog yard, a small bull showed up and briefly chased the calf. The bull wasn't legal (and it wouldn't be legal in our yard anyway), but it's the first male moose we've seen at the house.

I’ve started reading Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon’s masterwork. I tried to read it many years ago, and gave up after 100 pages. This time around, I’m familiar enough with Pynchon’s themes and style of writing that I don’t think I’ll run into the trouble I had before. I’m reading it with Steven Weisenburger’s Companion as well as Zak Smith’s page by page Pictures, which are helping to make it easier to discern the narrator and location of the action in each episode. Smith’s illustration for the following quote appears to the right. Page 49 of the book, which takes place during the Nazi V2 rocket attacks on London:

All over this frost and harrowed city…as once again the floor is a giant lift propelling you with no warning toward your ceiling—replaying now as the walls are blown outward, bricks and mortar showering down, your sudden paralysis as death comes to wrap and stun…and the sight of your blood spurting from the flaccid stub of artery, the snowy roofslates fallen across half your bed, the cinema kiss never complete, you were pinned and stared at a crumpled cigarette pack for two hours in pain, you could hear them crying from the rows either side but couldn’t move.

So far I’m really enjoying the book, despite the investment I’ve decided to make in trying to understand everything I’m reading. Pynchon, as always, writes like a brilliant madman.

Here’s a brief conversation, overheard on the Pynchon-L mailing list, for those of you on the fence about reading GR: