From my heart

I know that I have written this before, but I like to tell you this, probably not for the last time: Guess who got paid for spending some hours together with wonderful kids out in the forest! Yes, lucky Me! There are many things to prepare before we get here but it's worth it. The older children (my class) take care of the younger ones and are the leaders for the groups.

I would like to tell you more about how we work when we go to the forest with about 70 children from 6 to 12 years but it will have to wait to another time, or  maybe I can write

"To be continue..."

Things we take for granted

Sometimes we take things around us just for granted. In Sweden we have something that is unique and for us so obvious that we forget how wonderful it is. We can go out in the forest picking berries or mushrooms. We can also lit up a fire and put up a tent for one night without asking the owner. It doesn't matter if it's a private person or the crown. But all these rights give of course a lot of obligations to behave in a way that doesn't give damages to the ground. 

It's called "Allemansrätten" (all men right) and is something that we talk about in school so that the children will know how it works. When I was out on Wednesday evening I stopped by this Juniper to see if it got any berries ready to pick. I dry them and use them as flavour with moose meat.

Juniper barry 

But I only saw this little bleu one so I 'll have to wait and pick them another time. These bushes are quite low here in the north part of Sweden. They are much higher in the south.

The old Bridge

I've always thought there are something special about bridges. They can be small for the little creek or big like  Golden Gate. Some of them are really ugly but many of them shows true beauty. My fascination of them also has to do with the connection they are built for. The bridge above is almost 300 years! It's the oldest bridge of wood in Sweden. They're doing a big renovation on it which started last summer so there have been times when it has been totally closed. That has made us even more grateful to the days, like today, when we can use it for the walk along the river on the other side.

This Sunday has been a taste of summer and there were so much beauty to catch with the camera. This yellow flower, marsh marigold grows on the river banks. We looked for some blossoming Bird Cherry but it seemed to be to early. I love the walking or biking along this way when you can get the scent of all the flowering trees. But....

we suddenly found one that had already started so I jumped in it with my nose and really enjoyed the magic pre-summer moment.

Designe in my house

I wish that I could say that the photo above was from our living room as it's representing a style that has appealed to me for a long time. 

When I discovered the blog world I usually only read bloggers who wrote and showed photos about interiors and design. My interests in this subject has been very big, but the older I get, I find it harder to decide what style I prefer so I haven't been writing so much about this myself. Our house has a mix of furnitures that we have inherited and bought and even if I like the most of them, it's nothing to write about. But this post will be an exception.

(a chair I would like to have..)

The designer and creator Nirvan Richter started his company Norrgavel 1993. He has been influenced  of the designer Carl Malmsten and the Shakers. But he has found his own way with the furnitures he have designed. Some of them are painted with egg tempera.

 Nirvan Richter

On a visit to Stockholm more than ten years ago I went to the shop Norrgavel and bought a kind of fabric shelf that I had wanted to have for a long time. We use it for mittens and woolen caps and have it close to the door . But the kids have also placed their bike helmets on it which have worn the linen. I bought a spotted fabric from my sisters shop some month ago and yesterday (finally!) I made two new bags to replace the ones that were broken.

 This is mine!

I hope Nirvan likes it...

The end for a spruce

To get more light on the plot at our lake house I have wanted to take down this spruce for a long time. I have tried to persuade the rest of the family for years and finally I won. Fortunately the wind was right and the family was gathered to do the work. My H who has been a logger when he was younger used the chainsaw to shed it.

It's always a little exciting to shed a big tree close to houses. But this one landed exactly where he wanted. There were some rot in it but I guess it could have made it for many years. 

Both my teenagers are about to learn loading timber with the tractor and believe it or not but before they were born I also handled this.

The discovery of this lichen on the branches made me very happy, not just because i like lichens. No, this one that we call beard lichen only grows when the air is clean enough.

Mattress trees and blueberries

Blogger gave us a break for some hours and some of my blog friends lost comments and some of them lost their whole latest post. I was lucky this time and didn't loos anything, but this world of blogging has become such a habit that it felt a bit frustrating to not be able to create the post I wanted to make or comment others. So these photos are from my Wednesday-evening-walk in the forest while the youngest learned Orienteering. I have always loved blueberry but never study the flower so close and I didn't know that it's flowering already. 

I can't have enough of the light green color in the birch leaves when the sun shines through them. I'm afraid that I was a traffic danger when I cycled home from work yesterday. My eyes couldn't leave all the beautiful trees that sunny evening.

I know I'm a bit odd in this case but I think lichens can be really beautiful when you get a little closer. This one do we call Window Lichen as they used to put it down between the two window glazings when it was winter. I think it was both as a decoration and a practical thing when the lichen took care of the moisture between the glazings.

The mattress trees are also blooming these days.....

A photo from the other side of the world

This photo gave me a chock when I saw it. Even though I know that the nature in some parts of Canada almost looks like the north part of Sweden, it felt like Bill in Gowganda had been here around my house and taken some great photos. The lake on his photo is of course larger than our river but the leaves on the birches, the grass on the bank looks the same and the Dandelions are coming up. We also had about 22 degrees (C) yesterday!

My photo is too dark and I had no plan to put it on the blog. But I changed my mind, maybe thanks to the sweet encouraging comments I got for my latest post. So this photo became very special because it's possible that Bill and I took our photos the same day and almost the same time because I took it when my H and I was out for an evening walk. (I think we are 6 hour before)

Thanks Bill for letting me borrow your photo!

What's a perfect photo?

Some photos can mean so much even if the quality isn't the best. Before we got our digital cameras we couldn't take (afford) several photos of the same thing just to have it perfect. If there were photos of people we had to accept that they sometimes winked with their eyes or moved their head. Children could be very hard to catch  if you were to slowly. Maybe you could ask them to stay calm and look into the camera but those photos didn't feel as natural as if you took a photo and nobody noticed. I know that I saved some bad blurry photos just because they were the only one I got from a special occasion.

But even now when I take pics of children I want them to act natural. The photo above is a good example of that. I remember how I ran after this little happy singing team and it wasn't easy to catch them as they moved all the time and the umbrella went from one side to another. But I didn't want them to stop and interrupt this moment. They had so much fun and now I'm glad that I have this photo even if the light, the colors and the quality isn't the best. For me it means a Quality Memory! 

Lost in the forest

My youngest one has started in a group with other children of the same age to learn orienteering. I have done it when I was younger as my father was very fond of this sport at that time. She thought the first meeting was very funny, they played games and ran  in the forest (close to the meeting house).  I really hope that she will learn much about this sport and maybe also try to compete in the future. I like this sport because the whole family can go to the same competition. You just chose to run different courses that is suitable for your age and knowledge.  

While I was waiting for her I walked along the paths in forest behind the meeting house. I have been in the area before but mostly in the winter and with my skis. The paths felt a little different without snow and I had to chose the parts that wasn't to wet.

It was a wonderful evening in the forest but I realized that the time was running out and I had to get back to my daughter. Then I got problem.... which way should I take??? I decided to leave the path and walk through the forest in the direction I thought (hoped...) was the right.  In mine imagination I saw the headlines "Mother got lost while the daughter was learning orienteering!"

But I was lucky and found the way back in time. I even stopped and took a photo of these coltsfoot that had closed their yellow sunbeams for the night. I guess thats the way they handle our chilly nights that can come when it's spring.

Discard the old

2010-04-30

This was supposed to happen yesterday but the snow was gone and the soil was too dry so we didn't dare to lit the large pile of old boarders, debris and old christmas trees. I had this photo on my swedish blog Jaknell a year ago and then a wrote about how we want to clean up both inside and outside our houses when it's spring. But I also wrote about how I cleaned up my blog list.

At that time I  followed some bloggers, usually about design and home styling, but almost never sent a comment. Sometimes when I got tired of a site that I had bookmarked, I just dumped it. There were so many others that I liked more and wanted to follow instead. I never thought that I had any responsibility against the bloggers that I just say god bye to.

But now it's totally different as the bloggers I follow are much more interesting as they share more than just furnitures and style.  I get more interested in bloggers that write about different subjects and share their thoughts and small stories from their life. I think that's the reason why my blog is what it is.

Comments and emails has meant so much to me, but I'm also afraid that I will pay too much attention to it. It isn't easy, but I try to write and show photos of things just because they are important for me and not to count the comments.

But I am so grateful that there are someone who wants to follow me, in this world of millions bloggers.......