I got one chanse and I took it :-)
We started early this morning and were out before 6:30. We didn’t have any fog as I had hoped but the sky was almost totally clear so we would get sunshine. A bit cold so I wore a sweater beneath the jacket, I thought it is better to be a bit warm than to freeze. How stupid I was, it is better to freeze a bit because one will get warm just by moving around and wearing an extra sweater and at the same time being fried by the sun is like walking in hell 🙂 and that does not help with the temper when two leashed dog do what they can to tangle us all in to a lot of small trees and bushes 🙂
They were of course only leashed in the nature reserve, none of them have much of hunting instinct but a nature reserve with almost no smell of humans but loads of smells from animals can start hidden talents and that is something I really don’t want 🙂 We reached bridge three without and just as I walked across if one of the boards broke, thankfully it was close to the bank so it never fell down into the creek. I walked slowly backwards to land again and was thinking of going back home but then I figured that since it held enough when I stood at the middle of it I really should be safe walking across it. The creek isn’t deep but it is muddy and the water is a bit too chilly for my taste 🙂
Already here we could hear the Black Grouse roosters trying to impress the hens. There are very many out there now, it isn’t that long ago they were almost extinct in this area.
The sun warmed up the ground a bit too fast so long parts were more or less swampy, even where the path led us right. It was even worse when we reached the lake. It was impossible to go where we had been last week and that was quite annoying since I could hear cranes just nearby. I looked between all the trees towards the lake and suddenly there one was, a crane. There were too many trees to use the autofocus and I knew I wouldn’t have especially much time to get a photo. I focus between the trees as good as I could and suddenly the crane showed again. As soon as I got the photo the crane was gone again. We did try to walk around the southern part of the lake because I could see a small boat on the other side.
This lake is known as what we call poor lake. It isn’t very nutritious so either all the fish in the lake is tiny (we call those fish for thousand brothers, there are loads of them but all are tiny) or there are a few but rather big fishes in the lake. I did however find some folklore about it. It is said to have a powerful being living in it, something we call Sjörå (a kind of lake nymph), she’s also called the Lake Lady. She is unlike many of our beings not one to kill humans just out of blood thirst, unless one make her angry of course by for instance we killing or destroying the animals and surroundings. You will understand that it is her You see because she usually sits on stone in the water, combing her beautiful but green hair.
Here You can see how one of the boards are much lower than the other. I have to admit I got really scared when I heard the cracking sound 🙂
The ground was pretty good until we came out to the more open spaces in the bog.
She has a somewhat strange herd of cattle, they are striped and the cattle usually grace around the lake. If one should come too close to them the cattle then will run straight into the lake and vanish. If one would fish in that lake and happens to catch a big pike it is best to put it out in the water again because it could actually be one of those striped cows. She will help anyone who will sacrifice anything to her, like a few coins or silver. She will then make sure one will get a good catch if fishing in the lake or warn if bad weather is approaching. Make her angry though and she will most likely drown the one doing that. She also dislikes the being living in rivers and creeks which we call Näcken (and also the Creek Horse which also lives close to rivers and creeks(Bäckahästen), so it can be a good idea to be a good friend to her. Näcken and Bäckahästen will kill You just for fun.
We never managed to get closer to the lake than this. There is one path leading to the lake from another direction and I think I’ll try that one later this year.
I got one chance to get a photo of a crane and I took it 🙂
I tried to reach the boat but the surroundings were just too swampy today.
I won’t go there tomorrow because it was just too wet now (unless the night gets seriously cold so the ground freeze again) so this was the last time this spring I could go there because from Monday until the early summer this will be a bird sanctuary and no one is allowed to be there. The bird sanctuary actually starts here in the village so unless one is going straight home to someone one knows here one can’t wander around as one wish. We who live here are of course allowed to walk around but not out on the bog. We were out for over three hours and as soon as I started to relax all my muscles got cramps 🙂 It didn’t matter what I did it just refused to let go for a very long time 🙂
It is time to take another cup of tea, then some laundry because I had no clean t-shirts left and after that a nap I think.
Have a great day!
One photo taken with the Retinette.
For the first time this year.
From the Kiev 4. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
We had thick fog again this morning but since I start working an hour earlier on Fridays it was just too dark to take any photos. Too bad because I was all alone on the big road and could have stopped slightly illegal on the wrong side of the road to get a foggy river photo 🙂 I don’t think I would have dared even if the light was right 🙂 but it sure was tempting 🙂
I think it was on Tuesday evening I took these four photos.
I was looking for the cranes that You can see fly away in this photo and really didn’t see the deer until I took the next photo 🙂
Time just flew away at work and so did the fog outside, so by the time I was driving away from work the sun shone and it still does. I stopped at the grocery store and just as I walked in so did around fifty school kids from the nearby school. I must say they behave much better than we did when I was that age but they do have a tendency to be everywhere at the same time 🙂
I did think that it would take forever to get out again but they all just wanted one or two things each and it seemed as if they had just the right amount to pay so it didn’t take any longer than it usually does. It was so warm in the car when I drove home that I had to let the climate control start to cool it down 🙂
We could to my big surprise walk out on the bog despite the warm and sunny weather.
A smell reached me when I came home and opened up the car door, I can’t say what it was but it smelled spring for the first time this year. As if there were lots of flowers in bloom. It can’t have been that though since only a few snowdrops still flower here. I did however buy a small pot with dwarf daffodils, or as we call them Easter lilies. I’m not sure if they smell at all because only one of the buds has opened up some but I’ll know as soon as they do.
I think this is Eriophorum brachyantherum. Called Close-sheathed cotton-grass. We call it Myrull (mire wool).
I think this is what we call window lichens. It was placed between the one glass windows and the extra winter windows during winter to suck up all the moistness between the windows.
It is time to give the animals their food and I’ll have something as well I think. I think I’ll have cocoa even if it is warm and nice today.
Four photos taken with the Kodak Retinette. This is at work early in the morning.
The old forge to the right.
Perhaps I should clean the lens more often 🙂 but I do like the rays from the car headlights.
Have a great day!
So much fog, so little time to use it.
Taken with the Kiev 4. The Bertil photo I showed on Monday was taken with a Minolta 7000 and not with the Kiev as I wrote.
Sorry about not posting anything on Tuesday, I suddenly had lots to do and it lasted til Wednesday too. Now things are back to normal again and I hope it stays that way, I really don’t like unexpected work, to be honest I don’t like expected work that much either 🙂
The coming eight photos are taken with the Kodak Retinette.
Breakfast table for a squirrel?
We’ve had foggy mornings here and yesterday when the fog finally lifted we reached a bit over 15,5C (59,9F). I did feel that it was much warmer at my work place and I drank loads of water but not enough anyway because the headache came like a letter in the mail. We should have gotten much the same weather today but even if the fog finally lifted it stayed as thick clouds in the sky. Still it did get reasonable warm anyway and since I had to work I really didn’t mind if the sun didn’t shine 🙂
Note to self! If using a view finder camera check where the lens is if one is going to take a photo through a fence. The dark shadow in this photos is the fence 🙂
I brought old-time cameras with me in the mornings so I hope I’ll get some nice fog photos to show when those films are developed. I could only stop for a few minutes in each place if I didn’t want to come too late to work. I have some film photos to show already today though and I think I saw some fog in a few of them 🙂 I do hope that we’ll get fog on Saturday morning too, the Norwegian site say we might because if we do I’ll try to get to the bog lake again to take more photos there. They say that there’s a path going around the lake and I’ll see if I can find it, after all the sun is up until well after 6pm now so I will have lots of time if I start early in the morning.
The coming eight photos are taken with the Minolta 7000.
The other painter at work works beside the line where I work with a separate smaller oven and he usually take all bigger things that are too big to put on the line. Normally It is I who help him to place the things right before he starts to paint them. Today he only had nasty heavy things and all were soo big that we couldn’t use the lift (a chain and hook hanging in the roof) so we had to do everything using only our muscles, we don’t have plenty of that I’m afraid 🙂 At one moment I had to have my hands lifted above my head for over five minutes, that’s not nice 🙂 When I was going home I wanted to pick up some garbage from the floor and I barely could do it, guess if my back was stiff after today 🙂 🙂 I guess that one shouldn’t go on like this if one has rheumatism in the spine 🙂 I’m soo looking forward to tomorrow morning when I’ll try to get out of bed 🙂 🙂
It is time to get something to eat, I’m thinking hard flatbread with cheese and I think liver pate and sausages of some kind 🙂
Have a great day!
Today the fog came!
The day has passed relatively fast even if we painted the things I really don’t like to paint. chemical cabinets. They look just like lockers but are white which makes them harder to paint because of course no metal is allowed to show and white paint is difficult that way. Another reason I don’t like them is that they are the reason my shoulder hurts. We had stopped painting them but the factory who made them had enough parts to make 50 more. I wasn’t happy when I heard that. Now however we’re supposed to never paint any again.
I’ve gotten more films developed. These four are from a camera called Kiev 4. Made in the Soviet Union back in the days and tough enough to kill a moose if one would hit the animal in the head with it 🙂 I also had a film from the Zeiss camera but it looks like I once again have a huge light leak in that camera.
We had thick fog here this morning so I brought a camera with me. I don’t know why but the places which would give the best photographs are never placed so that I can stop and take a few photos. It’s always on the highway where they have no resting spaces. There is however a small lake just beside one so I stopped there. The fog was so thick that it was impossible to see the lake but I hope the trees will help me getting a few good ones. On my way home I stopped on a tiny road and walked to where I could see the river when I drive by.
Four from the Kodak Retinette again and this time I’m more happy with the result.
I had two photos left to take so naturally I did a double exposure on one of them 🙂 I do hope the second one will be that good that it makes up for that mistake 🙂 Nova’s ear is still not good but better. She now behaves like crazy when I come home which she never does when her ears are bad. I’m glad the medicine took care of the pain before anything else can be noticed. If now only the pus stops flowing things would be rather good. Sune tales care of most of it though, I’m so glad I don’t like things dogs like 🙂 🙂
There will be more photos from the old cameras later on. I have just taken a short glance on them so far. The rest of the photos are from the weekend or earlier in winter.
The cold is still taking its victims at work. I met one who came at the same time as me and he sounded as if he didn’t have long time left to live 🙂 The coughing was so bad that I told him to go home but he wanted to try to work anyway. He left shortly after I had talked with him 🙂 Another one was so hoarse that it was hard to hear anything he said and when he managed to say anything it sounded as if he was a teenager again just as the voice starts to break 🙂
It is time to make something to eat and then some tv watching I think.
Have a great day!
They are very similar, almost the same :-)
The weather has been more or less the same today as it was yesterday by slighty more chilly and the humidity makes it even less nice outside. The spring warm weather as they almost screamed out should come and stay for at least a week never did, now they say it will come tomorrow and maybe stay two days 🙂 They really just should stay quiet and never say anything more until they actually learn how to do their job. After all, they have been bragging about their new very advanced computer, one of the most advanced there is 🙂 🙂 🙂
The roads had already started to thaw when we were going homewards againI had planned on going to the lake i the bog again today but I skipped that and walked to the small lake in the forest instead. I could hear cranes, geese and trumpet swans, not many yet but many enough to actually saying spring is just around the corner, for at least two days 🙂 The roads had already started to thaw on our way homewards again so we were all rather muddy when we reached the cottage. We walked in the cow pastures later in the day just to avoid as much of the mud as possible.
I’ve done my chores, the laundry, vacuuming and scrubbing the floors and now I’m thinking of shaving off my hair again. It is so long now that the powder paint tends to stuck on the scalp and when it does it starts to itch and then the dandruff starts. It doesn’t matter how well I wash my hair, it still stays there and since we now will get two days of spring this may be the best day to do it.
Yesterday evening we had the big finale in the Swedish part of the Eurovision song contest and the winner is a 17-year-old boy with the song If I were sorry. It was well liked by both us Swedes and the international juries Swedish television always have (so we Swedes don’t chose the wrong song 🙂 ). I do like the song but it is a bit too much like another song written and sung by an American called Matt Simon and his song is called Catch and release. I’ll post both songs at the bottom so You can decide for Your selves if it is a copy that won here. My personal view is that it is but it was allowed to compete so I guess EBU (the European Broadcasting Union) thought different. It was my favorite song so I don’t care 🙂
The fun thing is that lots of countries think we make this contest soo good that they want to see it live too, so yesterday three other countries watched it live, they sais Iceland, Estonia and a third country I didn’t hear which it was looked at it live (they could of course not televote like us Swedes though.
The badgers are very active, You can see how muddy it is in the snow by the hole to the right.
It is time to give all the animals something to eat and after that I’ll have something myself.
Have a great day!
and there it was.
Thankfully the road was still frozen when we started walking, it wasn’t when we came home.
I do wonder why the ones working at the Swedish weather forecast service SMHI get paid at all 🙂 No sunshine, no warm weather and no fog what so ever. If the Norwegians can get it right why can’t the Swedes? All week they’ve promised sunny and spring temperatures and to be honest, we’re not close to that. It is however rather nice outside since there’s no wind at all and it is warm enough to make the roads muddy again after a reasonable cold night. It could be worse though, March can be a nasty cold month with lots of snow so I guess this is better after all 🙂
It sure isn’t beautiful down stream the creek any more but I hope it will be again.
Today I had decided that I would reach the lake in the bog and my biggest problem before we left was if I should bring the Hasselblad camera, loaded with B&W film. I decided I would left it at home because it does weigh almost 2 kg (over 4 pounds) and the bag has a tendency to squeek. At first it was like SQUEEEEEK, SQUEEEEEK, SQUEEEEEK all the time. I tried everything to stop it doing that and tape was the best thing I could find. Now the bag says sqrrek, sqrrek, sqrrek instead but at least more quiet but I can tell You that the sound does drive anyone insane after twenty minutes 🙂 🙂 >Naturally I should have brought it even if I would have gone mad long before we reached our goal.
So we walked down to the creek and the first thing I heard was a couple of cranes shouting in a field nearby, that is a wonderful sound at least as long they just are a few. When they reach over 20 000 it’s an awful sound 🙂 I saw a fox hunting out on a field and it too heard the cranes. It can of course not take a crane unless the bird is more or less dead but as the opportunist it is it started walking towards the sound. The snow and ice on the ground cracked with a sound of an explosion every time I took a step so I knew that the fox most likely would be the only animal we would see on our walk. We did however see a few cranes, trumpet swans and geese fly above us though.
I followed the beekeepers instructions on how to get to the lake and when the creek reached its end it split in two, one towards north and one towards south. We followed the one towards north and did after a while find something looking like a path, the snow-covered it pretty good but it was visible every now and again. It felt like we had been walking for hours (which in fact we actually had 🙂 ) and I was almost to the point of turning back since I thought I’d misunderstood the instructions when I finally saw it, the lake.
Here the creek splits in two, we followed the one towards north.
I think this might have been one of the places where one controlled how much water would leave the area.
The pines out here don’t look healthy 🙂 They are probably much older than I am.
The last few meters we mostly walked on ice I think. It is a swampy area where we finally reached the lake but thanks to the cold nights the ice still carried my weight. It is absolutely quiet out there, I think there is one property just beside the lake but that’s it and if I now the authorities right they have most likely forced the owners to sell because that is what they have done with all other landowners close or in the nature reserve. The authorities say they want to protect the area but since they now have forbidden any restoration of the ditches letting the water out of the area the water level will rise as soon as those ditches stop working. When that happens all the places they want to protect will drown so it is a somewhat strange way to protect anything 🙂 Well, in time I’ll get a lake property with zillions of biting flies all summer long, am I not a lucky guy 🙂
Finally! We’ve reached it!
The end of the creek. It felt like I had found the source of the Nile 🙂 All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The last part was filled with grass and Bog myrtle.
I think we were out for almost 3,5 hours and we all took a nap when we came home. To be honest, I’m not sure anyone of us wants to go out again today but I’ll make a try later. It is time to make a pot of tea and then some more sleeping in front of the tv 🙂 So was it worth walking out to the lake? Yes it was 🙂
We can only see a small part of the lake and I’ve looked at maps but aren’t quite sure where this is, I really need to buy that map which shows even the tiniest of paths and creeks. I will come back here again. There is an easier way, I can drive much closer and get there by a walking on a bigger path the last hundred yards but that’s no sport 🙂
Have a great day!
Then we walked back home again.
They’re back!
Can You see them 🙂 Cranes! I did of course not bring the tele-photo lens but I’ve cropped the photo a lot and if You click on the photo it will get bigger.
We now have around 250 cranes here by the lake and the first caravan has arrived too 🙂 This year they say they’ll only count the cranes every second day until they reach over 10 000, that’s when they start counting them every day. I think the record is somewhere around 25 000 during one day. There are also more or less the same amount of humans there too at the same time but fewer caravans 🙂 Naturally hunters now scream that they need to shoot some since there are so many, well not hunters around here though because that would be like cursing in church 🙂
I took a few photos on my way home. This is the church in Kvänum.
This building stands on the mountain. I think it has been some kind of factory but I really have no idea.
The Abbey ruin in Gudhem.
We’ve had a perfect springwinter day here. The night was nasty cold, it fell down to almost -10C (14F) but the temperature rose up to almost 7C (44,6F) and the sun shone almost the entire time. If I would have been at home today I would have packed a picnic bag (I have only two baskets and one is occupied by the cats and the other one has other things in it 🙂 ). Then I would have walked out on the bog and found a sunny spot to just sit and enjoy the day. We did go out on the bog after work but the ice had started to melt even in the shadowy places so to sit down and enjoy the day would feel a bit stressful since I wouldn’t know if it would hold me on the way back home 🙂
The church in Gudhem (means God’s home).
We might get much the same weather tomorrow if the Swedish weather site’s predictions are right. They say it will start foggy and I won’t mind that and after that it will be semi sunny. The Norwegian however says cloudy all day and not as warm as the Swedish site. I do hope the Swedish one is right for once 🙂 even if I know the Norwegian usually is more accurate but I’ve heard that even a blind hen can find corn so who knows 🙂
The church in Bjurum, just beside the lake.
Dagsnäs Castle.
I’ve started a fire in the stove, it isn’t that cold in here but I’m tired and feel a bit frozen anyway. We were all tired at work and a new wave of colds have hit us. So far I don’t feel I’ve caught anything so I hope it stays that way. No big difference in Nova’s ear but it’s just the second day she gets her medicine so It will take a day or two until I can see a difference I think. Sune is just as healthy and happy as always 🙂
Geese and the roof on the first caravan for the season 🙂
Turns out it is Canadian geese.
We have four cars on my little gravel road and normally it’s fine but now the forest machines have destroyed it totally and everything is muddy. They will fix the road but they can’t do it until it is dry.
I’ve just tossed Teodor out the door. Three times he has gone to the door to get out and every time I’ve opened the door he has turned back again. The fourth time I got tired of it and tossed him outside 🙂 There’s a limit to how patient I am and four times was at least one time too many 🙂
Breakfast table on the bog 🙂
It is time to make something to eat and today I’ll make a sandwich or two on hard thin bread probably with lots of cheese and spotted sausage, really tasty 🙂
Have a great day!
We’re learning sign language again.
I harvested a lime again, it is sklightly bigger than a not too big walnut 🙂
I understood something was wrong with Nova yesterday since she tried to avoid me at the same time she came running to greet me when I came home after work. Naturally I thought it was her right ear that was infected again but this time it had wandered over to her left ear instead. The poor girl hates to get the medicine down her ear but she does come when she knows it is time. I do hope that this is the last time she gets it in this ear because she can barely hear anything in the right ear after all these ear infections.
They are, to my big surprise, bright orange inside! They taste just like a lime should though.
The roads are so muddy and bad here now because of the forest machines, so we didn’t take any walk today. We did yesterday though so all photos comes from then.
People would think I hate that dog since I always scream at her but I actually most often scream that she’s a good girl and that I love her 🙂 Sometimes I need to throw something reasonable close to her to get her attention 🙂 She usually look up from what ever track she follows if a pine cone comes rolling beside her 🙂 So once again I’ve started to learn a dog some kind of sign language, it works really good if she just understand I want to tell her something 🙂
Stones from the Stone Circle Hill.
I’m baking scones at the same time as I’m writing this. I have no bread at home and I really didn’t want to go to the grocery store after work. I need to clean the oven because lots of smoke came out of it when I opened the hatch. At first I thought it was the scones but they looked just fine, they need a few more minutes in there though. I’ve eaten all the marmalade but I might have some rowanberry jam left, goes really well with cheese 🙂 I do hope my fire alarm doesn’t star because of the oven 🙂
The birch in the well. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It is time to see if those scones are ready yet and if I can find that jam.
Have a great day!
They could use more spices.
No new photos today, all are at least a few days old.
I have to admit that the roads are much better than I ever thought they could be after such a long and heavy snow fall, ok they were nasty slippery this morning since the night had been a bit cold but they were clean from snow. They were even better now when I drove home even if it had snowed again during the day. The pavements in the village where I work where not that good though, so I took the car when I was going to the neighbor factory to paint today. I drove almost meters (much the same in yards) 🙂
The day passed relatively fast but nothing much happened to be honest, things just worked as they should and I did try not to check the clock too often. I talked with the guy who delivers food from the restaurant to us in the factory. I asked if they couldn’t use more spices because even if the food is well made it doesn’t taste a thing. He told me that they weren’t allowed to use especially much spices since everyone should be able to eat it. Well, I said, You do have more spices on the food you serve in the restaurant (it always tastes good there) so why can’t You use that much on the food You deliver too?
He actually got surprised, he didn’t know that the food tasted so much different. I told him that if they wanted to deliver any food they really needed to change how it tastes because fewer and fewer people order their food from them now, they rather buy that nasty ready-made food from the freezers in the stores, You know the kind where one wonders if it is rubber instead of real food 🙂 I doubt this will change anything but one can always hope 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It is time to make something to eat and after that I think I’ll watch some tv (well most likely I’ll fall asleep in front of it 🙂 ).
Have a great day!
The last three from the Hasselblad camera with the 12 photo cassette.
I long for when they finally stay out all night!
All photos are from yesterday but one can’t see the difference in the weather today. Snow, snow, snow.
The snowfall started much earlier yesterday than they had predicted so I guess it’s not more than right that they got the ending of it wrong as well, it should have stopped this afternoon but it just keeps on falling and falling and falling. If the temperature hadn’t risen just above 0C (32F) during the day I think we would have gotten a snow cover at least 30cm (15 inches) thick. Oddly enough it wasn’t the snow cover that annoyed me most this morning.
I woke once again up to the nasty smell of cat poop filling up my home, at 4:10 am. I tried to ignore it but it is just impossible. I don’t know which cat it is but one of them refuse to cover their business when they are finished and that cat won’t live for long if I find out who it is 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t take long to fix but the smell stays for hours and I was wide awake when I had flushed it down so there was no idea going back to bed. Guess if I’m tired now 🙂
I had huge problems getting the dogs in to the dog house when I was going to work, not because the dogs behaved bad but because the lock had frozen so I couldn’t open the door 🙂 After that I had to remove all snow from the car and there was lots of snow. So when I finally could start driving I was very late. I backed from my parking space out on te gravel road and guess if I was surprised to see that I almost had crashed straight in to my neighbor, the beekeepers car 🙂 Thankfully he reacted fast 🙂 I had to text him when I came to work and I promised that I would check next time I’m going to work so I won’t do the same thing again 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
The rest of the day has been rather uneventful thankfully 🙂 A bit slow too but rather that than any more almost accidents and frozen locks. The roads home were much better than I thought they could be when it has snowed as much as it has. I must admit that the world look beautiful now but I do hope for an early spring, not so much because of the warmer weather as for the fact that the cats never are indoors at night when spring arrives, I really don’t like waking up to that smell 🙂
No matter how fun she has, she always look serious 🙂
Have a great day!
Ok, these four aren’t from yesterday. They are taken with the Edixa Reflex.
And so it falls again.
I knew the snow was on its way but according to yesterdays predictions it wouldn’t show up until late afternoon, so is anyone surprised it snowed like crazy here already when I got up at 6:20 am 🙂 The flakes are the semi big ones that keeps on falling forever and really builds up to highs heights. Now the predictions says we’ll have snow falling until tomorrow evening and this time I’m afraid they might be right 🙂
I’ve sen a lonely Raven fly around a few days now and that’s unusual here. Normally they are at least three or four and sometimes as many as twenty at the same time.
There’s a wind too that makes it rather nasty out there unless one can find wind free places. The bog close to the trees are such a place so that’s where we walked this morning. I must admit that I was rather surprised that the ice carried me since it has been rather warm during the days. I might go there next walk too just because it is so quiet there and it feels like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. On our way to the bog we saw a fox, a bit too far away but still near enough to be seen clearly. It knew very well that we looked at it but it just didn’t care. I understood that we never would be able to catch it even if we tried 🙂
I’ve cropped these photos of the fox a lot so You would be able to see it properly.
The worlds biggest cross-country ski race (Vasaloppet) is on tv at the moment. If one isn’t interested in cross-country skiing it’s the most boring tv program there is, even more than those very quiet documentaries we Swedes seems to lave to make. You know the ones where almost nothing is said and the person they are filming eat breakfast or drink coffee while the radio is turned on in the background sending a local radio station with music no one really listens to any more 🙂 The radio and the slurping of coffee or porridge are the only sounds in the entire documentary, usually they film something outside the windows, like birds eating in the snow os a car passing by on the snowy road. Those programs are not fun and Vasaloppet is even more boring.
The joy of having a stick with a plastic ribbon attached to it 🙂
He has a ribbon on his stick!
Give me a ribbon stick too!
Well, who wants a ribbon anyway 🙂
They started this race in memory of how the noble man Gustaf Vasa escaped the Danish soldiers, using skis and on the way towards Norway asked the people to help him fight the danes. Well, the have the race in the opposite direction so the finish line is where he was supposed to have started from and it turns out that he actually had now idea what skis are 🙂 They found a letter written by him where he asked what those wooden things were 🙂 He was a despot as king and gladly killed the men who finally helped him to the power. His sons were all more or less insane and did their best to kill each other too, Eric the 14th was poisoned with arsenic put in his pea soup when he was arrested while one of his brothers took the power.
It is time to get out on a walk again I think and perhaps I must shovel away some snow from the entrance stairs when we come back home again. I’ve filled the bird feeders but I’m pretty sure I’ll have to do it again, lots of birds out there and very little else to eat since the snow covers everything.
Have a great day!
It felt colder than it was.
They could hear my neighbor so they stood there looking towards their house 🙂
We almost saw the sun today,it never broke through the clouds but I could clearly see that shining disc trying. Unless it was a UFO of course 🙂 They tend to shine very bright in films, I guess it is the friction that heats them up when they fly down from space 🙂 It did feel much colder than it looked on our walks today and the weak wind there was did what it could to make it feel colder and it was pretty successful.
The old gatepost.
We walked to the little lake this morning like we have done these last Saturday mornings but as we came closer to home I felt that we hadn’t been out long enough so we continued out on the gravel road by the fields. I was hoping to see some deer but there was none. I did however see several tracks from them and also from at first two foxes walking side by side and then from a third fox walking a yard beside the two. It must have been a cub from last year, they wouldn’t have accepted any other fox that far in to their territory.
The nights are still so cold that the little lake still is frozen.
We met the beekeeper on our way home, he had gotten the cold where they get fever but was on the way back. I wish I had gotten that one because when it is over it is really over and not like the one most of us gotten which comes back every now and again all winter. I asked about the lake in the bog and now I understand that I must walk at least two hundred more yards until I can turn towards the bog so I can see the lake, I might walk that way if it is nice enough weather tomorrow morning. Before we continued home I got a jar with honey 🙂 It is a great thing to have a beekeeper as a neighbor 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
I was thinking of walking to the bog on our second walk but then suddenly all the hunters turned up and went out into the forest. I have absolutely no idea what they thought they would get in the middle of the day, especially since they didn’t bring any dog. To be honest, that was just a stupid idea I think. Anyhow, that forced me to walk elsewhere and since I didn’t want to walk on muddy roads we instead walked out on the fields, where the castle cattle walk all summer, the ground hadn’t thawed there at all and we could have walked for miles if we so had wished, at least I didn’t wish that 🙂
It is time to make the last cup of either tea or coffee, if I drink any after five I’ll stay awake all night. I do miss my late night pots of tea.
The last one from the Hasselblad with the photo cassette for this time.
Have a great day!
I don’t mind driving slow but…
The snow and rather sharp light made it difficult to get any good photos, so it will be a mix with new and old photos today.
We were never hit with that snow storm the last time so I guess it was inevitable that we would be hit this time. It snowed all night and almost till noon and finally I think we got around 4-6 inches of the white garbage. I start working an hour earlier on Fridays so the plow lorries hadn’t plowed the road outside the village and if they had plowed the high way it couldn’t be seen. It worked rather well to drive on the road outside the village to the high way since there was almost no other car around.
They have started to clean up in the forest. These three photos show the pile after clearing up at just one place, it is huge!
When I reached the high way I saw a car coming and thought I just as well could let it pass before I drove out on the road, it is nicer to drive free from other cars when the roads are as bad as they were this morning. That was a stupid idea 🙂 I don’t mind driving slow, especially when the road conditions demands it but the driver in front of me had some problems keeping the speed he wanted. It is very hard to keep the distance if the other driver changes speed all the time. It didn’t help that he (I write he but have no idea if it was a man or woman driving) had problems with the lights from the oncoming cars.
So as soon as he finally seemed to be able to keep the speed he suddenly almost stopped because of the lights or what ever reason he could find, then he suddenly drove rather fast just to almost stop again for what ever reason he had. It was impossible to pass him so I just had to try to adapt my driving to his. I felt so happy when it was time to turn of the high way again and thought that finally I would get rid of him. Turns out he was one of those that know nothing about turn signals, he turned too!
Three from the Minolta X300
Hasselblad 16 photo cassette.
We kept on like this for a few miles and more cars were driving behind me and the road got worse by the mile and then he suddenly understood that we’ve given up trying to keep the distance so not only my car lights filled up his car but also the ones after me, he can’t have seen anything to be honest. I think I could have walked behind his car and still have problems not getting to close, so he finally stopped by a small road and let us all pass. I just barely made it to work in time even though I had started much earlier than usual. By the time I had stopped working all roads were just fine again but we still have lots of snow left. It might with a bit of luck melt away until Monday when we’ll get more again. This is typical April weather, just one month too early.
Four from the Edixa Reflex.
The fire is burning in the stove, not because it is cold but the dampness is eating its way inside my cottage. It is time to make something to eat and then most likely fall asleep in front of the tv, again 🙂
Have a great day!
Now days they are so wimpish.
I don’t think I’ve shown this and the four coming photos taken with the Hasselblad camera with the 16 photo cassette.
We didn’t even get close to how much snow they had predicted, instead of 12 inches we got around one and it never got especially cold either so the roads to work was anything but fun to drive on. I was pretty irritated that snow had fallen when we finally had gotten really good roads to drive on the garbage starts falling from the sky.
Almost all of it melted away during the day so the roads were quite good when I drove home again 🙂 We’ll get more tomorrow however so I guess this was a short-lived happiness. No sun is predicted this weekend so I’m hoping for fog since the nights are said to be a bit chilly but days towards the less cold. I would like to say warm but I think that would be to lie a lot 🙂
These are from the Hasselblad too but with the 12 photo cassette.
Nothing much has happened since Tuesday so I have very little to write about today. I rarely look back and remember things but I did suddenly remember an old fairytale written by the Danish author H.C Andersen, The Little Match Girl. They don’t write fairy tales like that any more, todays fairy tales are rather wimpish to be honest 🙂 I remember reading his stories and the ones that the Grim brothers wrote down with lots of evil and violent deaths 🙂
It isn’t the same photographing the dogs when they play without a zoom lens 🙂 These are taken with the Edixa Reflex. These are actually not grainy, it snowed like mad when I took these 🙂
If one would read one of those stories to kids today one would most likely be reported for child abuse 🙂 I must see if I can find some books with those old stories, many of them have faded away from my memories. I do understand that companies like Disney must change how the stories end, I doubt many children would like to see how the little mermaid dies and becomes sea-foam just because she couldn’t bring herself to kill the man she loved.
These four are also taken with the Edixa Reflex.
It is time for something to eat and then some sleep in front of the tv 🙂
Have a great day!
I miss all the exiting stuff.
I spent most of the working day in the neighbor factory so time passed by so much faster than I ever could hope for. We had a rather beautiful morning here, -10C (14F) and lots of rime on the trees. We even had a beautiful sunrise and I hope the few photos I took with my Kodak Retinette will come out good. It didn’t take long until the clouds covered the sky and temperatures rose so nothing stayed until I came home from work.
It was around noon when I suddenly realised that the air in my face-guard started to become really hot and the temperature in the paintbox rose dramatically too. The overall I wear doesn’t breathe at all, which is a good thing since the paint is very toxic. So it started to feel like I was working in a steam bath. I had to sop working and walked around to see if there was a fire going on somewhere 🙂 The cause to this was most likely that they had opened up a huge door and the cold air outside must have reached the sensors. Cold sensors mean they send signals to make it warmer in the paintbox and there ai was sweating like a pig 🙂
The first thing I hear when I came back to my usual work place is that we’ve had a fire in the big oven at work, around noon! It wasn’t a big one and they could easily put it out with a normal extinguisher. The other painter at work, he works at a smaller paintbox with its own oven, noticed that there was unusual much smoke up by the roof and since he hadn’t let out any smoke in the department he walked to the big oven and looked in to it, good thing he did 🙂 It turns out one of the heaters had become way too hot and broken down. Normally that just means it stops but not today.
Note to self, almost all older cameras need much better light to get less grainy photos 🙂
The heater was easily swapped to a new one and they have now cleaned the oven so we can start working as usual tomorrow morning. Exiting things liuke that never happens when I’m around 🙂 It is easy to joke about it, that’s one way to sort of keep that bad thoughts about what could have happened if things gone wrong. I am very happy things like this rarely happens at all.
I deleted most really bad photos so these were all photos left taken with the Nikon this time.
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
It is time to make something to eat and I think I’ll have cocoa today.
Have a greta day!
Toast and marmalade.
Only older photos today, this one is from the Edixa Reflex.
It is amazing how some days just pass by faster than light, still I can’t remember that I did especially much. To be honest I barely remember what I did 🙂 I painted some and I cleaned some but nothing special to be honest. I looked out the windows every now and again too and did get a bit annoyed to be honest.
Yesterday they did promise lots of fog and we got none, still we got lots of sunshine instead so I didn’t mind that much. Today they had promised lots of sunshine and we had fog and frost all day 🙂 All day I wished that I could be here at home, walk with the dogs and take lots of photos. There was some daylight left when I came home even if I had stopped by the grocery store on my way home. I just brought the Hasselblad camera with me and I do hope the photos didn’t become too dark. We’ll know when the film is developed.
I was cleaning the paintbox when I suddenly got a craving for toast with orange marmalade and cheese. I don’t know where that came from but I knew that I would have to go to the grocery store to get that white bread that is inedible unless one toast it, orange marmalade and some cheese because I didn’t have much left at home. I actually came home with most of it but instead of orange marmalade I had picked up a jar with apricot marmalade and one jar with pear marmalade 🙂 I think any of those will do to be honest.
The eight last photos comes from the Edixa too.
It is time to bring out that toaster of mine, I rarely use it so it always smell a bit odd when I start it up, just like old electric radiators that hasn’t been used during summer and as soon as they are started all the dust gathered inside them burn up 🙂
Have a great day!
It is another world out there.
I really need one of those maps orienteers use so I better know where I am while walking on the bog. Not that I was lost but I did try to find where the lake is and I know I was close today but I should most likely have walked a hundred meters or two (much the same in yards) by the creek before I walked out on the bog. I have watched maps here on the net but they don’t show the creeks especially well and then it’s impossible to know where one really is.
We didn’t get any fog as they had predicted and the sun shoved up much later than predicted too but there was no wind so it was quite nice anyway. Nova thought it would be a good idea to get down to the badgers den, twice but I managed to stop her in time :-)Badgers are nice animals but I doubt even they would like a dog visit while they were sleeping through the winter 🙂
I have no idea what scent those two dogs smelled when we went out on the bog but they started behaving crazy so I had to leash them. Not that it helped much because both still tried to follow the track after what ever it was that had passed 🙂 As soon as we had passed bridge number three to the other side again they started to behave normal again and chased each other all the way home again. The sun broke finally through the clouds when we were on our way home and it has kept on shining all day long.
We call these huge rocks for giant throws. Old folklore says it was giants who threw them when they heard the church bells sound, they really don’t like that sound. So far they’ve always missed all churches 🙂
Later we went out to the bog again but to where we usually walk. To be honest, I didn’t think the ice would carry me but it did, lots more trees here that shadows the ground and much less grass that weakens the ice. It is so nice out there, no sounds from the outside world reach us, it is a totally different world out there. Today I heard how the male Jay sounds when he wants to impress his female and I have to say it sounded very exotic. I didn’t understand what bird it was until I saw it. I thought they only screamed like they always do 🙂 The Swedish name for the Jay is Nut screamer 🙂
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
I’ve done the laundry and it is now hanging outside to dry, doubt it will though since I hung it on the north side of the cottage and there’s no wind at all. Doesn’t matter as long as it get that smell before I bring it in to dry instead 🙂 It is time to give the dogs and cats their food and after that I might get something myself 🙂 By the way! I only have twenty percent space left here so I’ll soon move again to a new blog with much the same name. I’ll tell You several times before I leave this place and I’ll give You the address several times before I do too.
Have a great day!
Couldn’t be much better.
The day has been a perfect springwinter day. The night was pretty chilly and they day has been sunny and reasonable warm. The weak wind has done a good job making it feel much colder though so I’ve tried to stay out of reach for it most of the time. One good thing in springwinter is that the mud still is deep frozen during the warmer days so we are always pretty clean after our walks.
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
Yesterday on my way home I thought I saw a crane but believed I must have seen wrong but the news says I did see right 🙂 It seems all birds now think spring has sprung and not far north from here several thousand trumpet swans are resting by a lake, still not a record number but chances are big they will break it. The first Doves have arrived to the village too, it looked like it was the Stock dove (Columba oenas, here in Sweden we call it Forest dove) and not the bigger Common wood-pigeon (Columba palumbus, here we call it Ring dove since it has a white ring around its neck). I could also hear and see the first Common Buzzard.
I don’t trust the birds though, they’ve been very wrong so many times before. Some weather institute is predicting a very warm spring here and I think it is the one that predicted that we were going to get a nasty cold winter this time 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I guess it’s best to make sure I have plenty of fire logs and wood prepared because they always seems to get it wrong 🙂 I wouldn’t complain if they were right for once and that we’ll ge a dry spring too, so all fly larvae (the biting and blood sucking ones), mosquito larvae and ticks we still have around will die. I just saw the first flies warming up on my south heading wall, even though they don’t bite I do wish the birds will take them all 🙂
I’ve always thought this looks like a big rib cage from a big animal but it is actually the rests of a juniper bush which was cut down long ago 🙂
I should have sown the first tomato plants now but I didn’t remember it until today and now I can’t remember where I put all the different seeds I have 🙂 A good thing with tomato seeds is that they seems to last forever, they just take slightly longer to germinate if they are several years old. Last year was a really good tomato year and that was still a rather crappy summer here, so I’m hoping for a warm spring and a really warm summer this year. I’m also waiting for the potatoes I’ve ordered, I’ve gotten the bill via e-mail but no signs of any potatoes yet.
I´ts time to take another walk with the dogs before they’ll have their dinner and the :sun will go down. Today the sun went up at 7:08 and it will go down at 5:30 this afternoon. The sun now stays up between 4 to 6 minutes longer every day now 🙂
Have a great day!
Here are four photos taken with the Nikon F 401
I can feel how it heats up the air.
I didn’t paint much at work today, a guy from the manufacturer of the paintbox came and would help us because we couldn’t get the machine to work in automatic mode. It has been put in manual for some time because some sensors got crazy when we painted big things. We put electricity in to powder paint and that sort of charged the things we painted too and all sensors got so confused with all that electricity that they didn’t know what to do.
But we don’t paint those big things any longer so we wanted the machine to work as it should but it just refused to do so. Turns out that some sensors had been so damaged, perhaps from the electricity that they no longer worked at all. We did however get the machine to stop painting when there was nothing to paint 🙂 He also explained how we could adjust the machine in ways we never have understood that we can. If we actually remember any of this next week things will be much easier.
The sun has been shining all day and it does heat up the air much more than one might think it could this time of year. We walked to the creek today but up-stream and continued far longer than we have before. There are some really swampy places on the way and old Hector could never pass those places without the risk of sinking down in mud, no such problems with Nova and Sune though, this time it was I who had some problems jumping far enough 🙂 We came to a wood bridge called bridge number three and crossed the creek but didn’t go especially far out on the bog, the ice isn’t especially strong after a day with sunshine.
Most of the so-called bridges demanded a much more brave man than me to cross 🙂
This one seemed extra tricky 🙂
I know I wasn’t far from the lake but I knew that we had been out for some time and I wasn’t sure for how much longer the sun would stay (I had no watch or phone with me) up so we turned before we could see the lake. It turned out that we had been out for two and a half hour when we came home again 🙂 We will have much the same weather all weekend, with cold nights and fairly warm and sunny days so perhaps we’ll take a try to reach the lame during the weekend again. I do hope we’ll get some morning fog so I can get some foggy bog photos 🙂
Bridge number three. The only one that felt almost safe to cross 🙂
It is time to make something to eat and perhaps I’ll start a fire in the stove. The cottage is still very warm from all the sunshine which has flown in to my home all day long.
We saw the bog and then we went back home.
I think this is one of the entrances to the badgers home. I could see that one of the entrances were used regularly.
Have a great day!
Four very grainy photos taken with the Edixa Reflex. That camera needs a lot of light to take grainy free photographs. All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
Not an eventful day.
Taken with my Rolleicord (and the coming three too). I do need more light when I take film photographs.
I have to admit that I have very little to write about again. Nothing much has happened at work and here at home very little happens at all 🙂 I do get a little daylight when I come home from work though and it isn’t many days left until the sun stays up long enough so I still can see it here at home when I come home after work.
This one has an odd shape for coming from the Rolleicord but the film hadn’t moved as it should so I cropped it some.
The days are sunny and fairly warm now and the nights are clear and fairly cold, perfect springwinter weather. Too bad I have to work when the weather is so nice. They say however that we will get that kind of weather during the weekend too and I do hope the mornings will be just as foggy as they have been all week. I have my small Kodak with me in the car every morning so with a bit of luck they’ll be good enough to show here when the film is developed.
These three are taken with the Hasselblad and twelve photo cassette.
The fire is burning in the stove and I’ll make some cocoa and a few cheese sandwiches. My favorite cheese for the moment is a dutch? one called Maasdamer. Not strong but full of flavors and it goes with anything, especially ham. Too bad I don’t have any ham at home 🙂 I do however have sliced pineapple preserved in its own juice so I’ll have that afterwards.
These three are also taken with the Hasselblad but with the 16 photos cassette.
Have a great day!
It carried me but only barely.
I’ve always wondered why they have put ventilation on the lid to an old well? The well was the spare one since it always have water even during draughts but it is rusty and oily and taste rather bad.
We’ve had a rather sunny day so far even if the predictions this morning said cloudy all day 🙂 Well there are clouds up there but big gaps in between them so it has been rather nice taking walks today. Not much sunshine when we were out early in the morning though but warm and almost wind free so I liked it anyway.
All standing photos are more manageable if You click on them.
We walked out on the bog but I wasn’t sure the ice would carry me since it has been so much warmer at nights than that they thought it would be. It did carry me but I could hear how it started to crack beneath my feet. Well the water isn’t deep but deep enough to give me wet feet if the ice would have broken 🙂 So we didn’t go especially far since I could feel how the wind got warmer and suddenly it also started to snow a bit.
I turned on the tv when we came home and they showed cross-country skiing and nothing makes You sleep better than a boring cross-country ski competition. I think seven of the eight first skiers were Norwegian, at least as long as I coped to stay awake and no Swede even close to the leaders. Yesterday evening they showed the third heat of the Swedish parts of the Eurovision Song Contest. It wasn’t as bad as last week thank god but it would have been nice if they actually could find a singer who could hold a tone! I’m pretty sure that they do what they can to make sure we won’t even be close to win this year again, this competition is a rather expensive thing to hold.
The sun started to show a bit when we were out on the bog.
It is time to make something to eat, I’m thinking grilled sausages. I have my electric grill, it is too warm to start the fire stove right now. I’ll make a few for me and one for the dogs 🙂 I’m not sure how many sausages I have but if I have plenty the dogs will get one each 🙂 At the moment Nova is snoring quite loud close to the kitchen e´radiator and Sune less loud just by my feet. They refuse to go elsewhere when they have seen me taking out the grill from the kitchen cabinet 🙂
Have a great day!
You can see some snowflakes if You look at the old stable.
Springwinter day.
It looked rather nice for a while at least.
I think I would lie if I said we’re having another storm but the wind does blow rather hard today. It is well above 0C (32F) but the wind sort of destroy the feeling of warmer weather and the snow or/ and rain doesn’t help at all. Every now and again the clouds are so thin that the sun shines through but it really doesn’t help.
Normally one would say that up here we have four clearly divided seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter but we Swedes have names for in the between periods too. Now for instance we have something we call springwinter. It’s not really winter any longer but spring isn’t near to start either. Nights are usually cold and days warm. It is sunny springwinter days that is perfect for those first picnics of the year. We just find a sunny spot where the wind doesn’t reach. One really feel energized after doing that 🙂
A dead Juniper bush is a great place for lichens to grow.
Springwinter (in Swedish that’s one word so I write it that way in English too) is probably my favorite season, the birds sing, the sun stays up much longer and the first bulbs show and flower in the ground. Another season I like a lot is presummer, it isn’t spring any longer but really not summer either. Still rather cool nights (well it is never really warm here during nights, around 10-15C (50-59F) as warmest during summer nights) but days can almost be summer warm. There’s still no annoying flies disturbing but lots of “nice” insects flying around, the ones who doesn’t bit 🙂
Still a long time to presummer so I’ll have to enjoy this springwinter day as much as I can even if the weather really sucks 🙂 I think I’ll take a nap and then we’ll go out on a walk again in the falling snow.
The cottage by the Crane Lake, life goes on. 
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