Green House Update and Mural

  The green house is really getting to be a jungle.

  The cucumbers are doing very well and it looks like we should have a harvest of those pretty soon. I recently started some melon seeds to hopefully have some melons for the midwinter dinner.

 

I was asked to do a mural on one of the walls of the skua shack a few weeks ago. Skua is where people donate things when they leave that they no longer want and others take things that they need or forgot (it's also named after the bird skua, I'm not sure why). I got a pretty nice sweater from skua a few months ago. I finally got around to getting outside to paint the mural today. The mural is of Amundsen's men and tent, it's one of the first pictures ever taken at the south pole. The plan was to paint it as life size as possible so people could pose with Amundsen's crew and be a part of the iconic picture.

Painting a mural in almost -50F/-45C with wind chill was a pretty difficult task. I could see the paint drying on the wall; it looks as if it was steaming. The paint in the roller tray would freeze/dry very quickly if I didn’t mix it every minute or so and I also had to add a good amount of paint thinner fairly often to keep the paint liquid and paintable.  

 As the paint roller was drying the water leaving it formed ice crystals.  The whole mural took four and a half hours to complete including three warm up breaks, clean up and walking back to the station.

Happy Camper

 It snowed real snowflakes!

Picking the perfect camping spot. 

 I'm moving in.

 Cutting ice blocks to build a wind break wall.

 I'm on saw duty.

 Castle rock looked cool with the clouds.

 Digging out my ice trench.

 The last block for the roof of my ice trench.

Roof is done!

Our little kitchen. 

       

Dinner was tomato soup, yum! Those are my two water bottles I filled up with hot water to heat up my sleeping bag.

  Getting ready for the night! Ice trenches are about hip width at the top and chest deep. The bottom is then hollowed out to have enough space so the sleeping bag won't touch on either side.

Ice blocks are cut to make the "cathedral" roof to give more head room. It took about an hour to dig and finish.

 The view from inside.

 Our camp. That's my trench on the far left, two mountain tents, a scott tent, and the quincy on the right.  A quincy is made by piling your camping gear in a pile and shoveling about 2 feet of snow on in every direction, waiting for it to set and then cutting a doorway and pulling all the stuff out again to leave a sizable sleeping area.

My trench with mount terror in the background. All the cracks between the blocks are filled with the surrounding loose snow. 

The next morning I moved one of the end pieces to poke my head out. 

It was the best sleep I've had in a while. It was warm and cozy and awesome.  

Random Other McMurdo Pictures

 A friend took this awesome picture.

 Also this one of a Skua coming to scope us out for any food.

 Better picture of the life we found.

 Hiking Ob loop.

 It's very steep.

 Me driving for the first time in a long time!

Flags marking the road. 

OB Hill Loop and Arrival Heights

I"m taking advantage of the fast internet speeds in McMurdo to bring you lots of pictures!

 Beautiful Mount Discovery.

 Slightly to the left of the round thing is a group of small black dots, those are penguins!

The variation of color in the rocks is really cool.

So many seals!

 This is the trail that loops around OB hill. That is White Island and Black Island, you can tell which is which by their color, those early explorers were very creative.

More Seals! When the sea ice breaks up and get pushed out to sea, this it where the whales like to hang out. Orcas.

 More ice and seals, there is plenty of that around here.

 I found a different life form!!! Some lichen!

 You can see one of the McMurdo domes through the valley.

 This is the pass that separates McMurdo from Scott Base (New Zealand base), there are two vans on the road.

Very interesting rock.

 That's Scott Base with the pressure ridges and the seals.

 This is a Skua, they look like giant seagulls and will attack you for your food.

This is OB hill from the side opposite McMurdo. 

The icebreaker has been moving back and forth in the channel, breaking up ice so the supply vessel can make it into McMurdo, this is where it turned around. 

I am living in "Hotel California" in McMurdo. I decided to instead spend a night up above McMurdo in an area called "Arrival Heights" where some of the experiments I am taking care of here are located. The view from up here is amazing and it is a restricted area so only working scientists and I are allow to be here.

This is the building up in arrival heights where I spent the night. 

And this is part of the view from up here. I should probably head back into town now for some lunch.