Snow assemblage

Life has been fairly uneventful lately. Apart from the regular weekly skivvy, general cooking duty, science-y work, and random bar nights, we haven't really been doing much exciting..
The weather hasn't been cooperating either, stormy weather on and off the last week, so going outside is also limited to when the wind is less than around 30kts (of course this only applies to times when we don't really NEED to go out, if there is a crisis or if we have a water shortage, then going out will be inevitable).

So, since I haven't blogged in a while (and thus my blog hits have decreased exponentially, and I kinda maybe have uber competitive teammates that like a little competition), this post about the ins and outs of snow construction (not really, I know absolutely nothing about how to build stuff on snow, but I have tons of experience of how to play in it and/or how to get it out of your clothes when previously mentioned competitive teammate shoved like a ton of it in there) might be a tad randomish.

Construction Project 1: The Igloo
This was started during takeover, and the wind kinda finished (aka demolished) it a few days later. The Windpompers hijacked it for a photo shoot before it was killed, so at least someone got some entertainment from our blood and sweat (and no, not tears, cause we are totally hardcore yeo!) that went into it.

Construction Project 2: The Ice cave
We have a massive sastrugi forming in front of the base, so it was decided that it would be perfect to build/dig an ice cave in. This was also a good exercise session, and not just in the sense that we were pretty exhausted after just a few hours, but also because it is good to know how to be able to dig an ice cave in case we are ever in an emergency situation where we need a makeshift shelter to spend the night in. Since we were all called back to the base for dinner and the next day was seriously windy, it kinda ended up just being an ice tunnel. The wind filled it up with snow a bit, but its still semi there, so maybe we'll still finish it sometime and camp out in it for a night...

Construction Project 3: The snowman
Can you believe that I have been living in snow for more than 4 months and I still haven't built a snowman?! Wrong on so many levels! So one day if/when we build this, I'll be sure to let you know. If we follow the same trend as the previous two, it might just end up being a snowball with a carrot in!