Dear Mews,

Dear Mews, Who ever and where ever you are, thanks for your comments on my pictures. You made my day and to give something back, here are two pictures I have taken today. Unfortunately I am not sure about the English names but the red one is some form of poppy. If you know the name of the second one, please let me know. I lover flowers but have serious problems remember their names.

The flowers are also to two close friends who are struggling a bit in South Africa and Florida. I think of you and hope to hear from you soon.

BBBB !

It has happened again! Bad Boy Badger Bo has returned and made my lawn look like a newly planted potato field again. Argh!!!!!!! There must be one thousand and more places that at better hunting grounds for worms and other goodies than my lawn. The fight is on. I have already put up a strobe with motion detector but if that is not enough I will definitely go some steps further. A canon? A bit difficult to get in Svångemåla. Boiling water? A picture of myself? I am angry and never ever underestimate an angry bear! One of the problems is that I never know when he/she decides to attack and I cannot sit in the kitchen and look for him/her all night long, day after day if he/she does not show up. Traps are commonly used but I have also been told that they are not very efficient. It is a serious problem and a solution must be found. Right now all visitors risk their ankles going from the guesthouse to my entrance and that is not acceptable. My brain is full of ideas but which one am I going to pursue? Any suggestions?

Breaking News!!!!

This time of the year is very exciting in Svångemåla! A lot of flowers and plants are just sprouting out of the ground and right now Lily of the Valley, chive, and peonies are incredible. The fragrance of the lilies can be felt even when sitting in a car and the peonies are shining like traffic lights in the middle of all the shades of green. Wonderful!

The great news is, however, that Mrs and Mr Crane today let me see their two small “babies”. It is the first time I have ever seen crane chickens so close to our house and I am not so sad that Fred the Fox is not around just now. It might even be a direct result of FF’s disappearance from the scene. Unfortunately they were a bit too far away even for a 300 mm lens but maybe I will get a chance to get closer to them before they leave Svångemåla.

Not much else is going on. The flowerpots are ready for the plants that will be bought next week, the grass is cut and, judging from the noise coming from the nest, the wagtails have a got a number of off springs that are desperate to get fed.

Boring? Not at all, this is what life in Svångemåla is all about. When and if I need more excitement, I can always go to Alsjöholm and enjoy looking at the newly painted church, travel a bit further and buy a pizza in Påryd or even all the way to Nybro where the razzmatazz really starts!

Golf

Svångemåla has unfortunately no golf course but all its inhabitants play golf. This makes it a truly unique village. One of the main reasons for this exceptional interest in the noble game is its closeness to no less than four golf courses. Two are within 25 minutes drive and the other two are not more than a further 10 minutes away. Two of the courses are also in the deep forests with plenty of water and deep rough while the other two are closer to the sea and have more of a seaside feel to them.

I have had the great pleasure to play three times since coming back to Svångemåla and it has been a real joy every time. It is hard to explain to those who have never tried the game but the mixture of physical activity, social interaction and nature experience makes it the probably most rewarding of all hobbies or sports than I can think of. It is also one of the few sports that you can enjoy regardless of your playing partners abilities. The last game was a three ball with two old friends and the banter started already on the first tee and the joking never stopped until we drove away from the parking lot. A nice lunch before the game and a cup of coffee after did not make the day less enjoying.

(Svångemåla’s total population is currently three adults.)

Nordic Walking

The Nordic Walking craze has hit Svångemåla! In less than two weeks three Nordic Walkers have been spotted and heard! The noise some make when rushing through the forest on a gravel road is very impressing. Almost like the rally cars that used to pass some years ago. This might be the reason why Fred the fox and Martin the moose have not been seen. They are both very shy and when someone comes into their domain, they usually retreat deeper into the woods. It can, of course, also be my own presence that have scared them away but I do not think so since at least Fred got used to hear and see me and was sometimes even at bit curious about what was going on and came closer when he heard me. Come to think of it, maybe it is a Frida and Martina?

Spring is a wonderful time of the year. To my mind, the best of all seasons. It is the time of renewal, re-birth, hope, and freshness. Nature is waking up after its winter sleep and we all have big hopes and ideas about what everything that grows will look like, smell, taste and feel. You can watch the play from a distance and admire the many shades of green or you can bend down or go closer and watch how small, budding leaves in a few days time grow and grow and eventually become the sun collectors that will give the trees the strength and energy to climb a bit higher, give us shade, whisper secrets in the wind and send energy to our tired souls and bodies. The power of big trees is one of the insight you can learn more about in the book “The Celestine Prophesy” and I strongly believe it is true that you can get energy from big trees and even help to heal both your body and soul.

The two pictures show a lime tree leave just outside my kitchen window that we planted some few years ago and the other a more exotic tree called “handkerchief tree” I saw today in Kalmar about 30 km from Svångemåla. It is originally from China and is one of the strangest trees I have ever seen. It looks like it is covered with handkerchiefs or small ghosts flying around in the leaves.

Apples to be

Smelling a rat !?

Dead rats smell. A lot. All who have lived in an old house know what I am talking about. The smell does not last for very long but I have heard storied about house owners who have removed floors and walls just to get rid of the dead creature. I was, therefore, a bit concerned when I started to feel a sweet, unpleasant smell in the back entrance of the house. It was not very strong and an open door now and then took care of the smell for a while but it was back in the morning and slowly, slowly I started to realize that I had to do something about it. It is not the best way to greet people and if the cold and damp weather continues, it might take a long time before the poor animal has mummified completely.

Since I had not vacuumed since I came back, I decided to start my general cleaning up by doing so. It is not one of my favourite household tasks but since a few dead flies and dust had gathered during the time I spent in Vienna, it had to be done. I started in the back entrance and I immediately found the dead rat. It turned out to be an eight-meter rubber covered measuring band I bought just before I left Vienna. The rubber gives away a strange smell and I now know why Zgonc (a hardware store in Austria) smells a bit foul!

Conclusion, it might be boring but vacuuming might solve more problems than you can imagine.

Ghost

Friday evening and a sudden knock on the door makes me jump up from the sofa to see who is coming to visit me. I am very surprised since it is almost nine and there are not many who come to visit you at that time of the day in Svångemåla. And sure enough, no one was waiting for me to open. Spooky. And then I heard the knock again! Hm. What is going on? I took some steps to look at the other side of the house but no, I could not see anyone. Is someone making fun of me or what is going on? Then one more knock and I am now sure a ghost is running around my house. I walk slowly back towards the door when the “ghost” suddenly appears in the form of a beautiful black, white and red woodpecker. I am relived that it was only a bird that had scared me but at the same time I started to wonder what it had tried to catch on my house. A worm, a beetle, or what? I will probably never know but I am a bit concerned that I have a guest that might not go away that easily. Many have fought hard battles to scare away woodpeckers and there are many stories about humans going mad before the bird leaves. To be continued…. maybe.

Culture chock

What does it mean or do to you to move from a big city in one country to a VERY small village in another? I have not really thought of it before since I consider both places, Vienna and Svangemåla, to be “home” but today it hit me that it is a bit like a culture chock. At first you feel like you are on a holiday and you enjoy every new aspect of the new situation and location. At the same time, and since I know both places so well, this feeling disappears after just a few days and you are “back” and the first feeling of almost euphoria is definitely gone. Old memories come back and remind you of both the good times and the bad times. You get involved and engaged in the lives and events that are the daily lives of those who live in the place you have just come to and forget about “the other place”. It is particularly difficult if you move from a situation where you have broadband to one where you hardly have any “band” at all. The flow of information and communication is, when I move from Vienna to Svångemåla, suddenly reduced to a trickle of telephone conversations, short SMS, emails and glimpses of the most important web-pages. The radio and the TV are there but the one-way communication they provide cannot at all replace what a broadband connection can do for you.

All in all, it takes a lot of mental energy to get settled in and in the meantime you forget what you normally remember, like a good friend’s operation, and you get a bit disorganized since you are trying to do too many things without proper planning and thought out strategy. This is normal for any culture chock and I know that I am soon back to “normal”. In two weeks or so, my life and work will be as well organized as they used to be and nothing will be forgotten or cause any frustration. J

And it has started to rain. It is needed but it also means that I am stuck indoors and cannot enjoy what Svangemåla is all about, the nature.

Väder och växtlighet

Det har varit mycket torrt i Svångemåla den här våren. Den lilla bäcken är nästan helt uttorkad och det ser allmänt torrt ut men i natt kom det lite regn. Det kändes riktigt i luften att den tvättades ren och blev som ny igen. Innan regnet kom var det stora skillnader mellan natt och dag temperaturen (från minus 3 till plus 20 C) men molnen har gjort att det blir kallare på dagarna och varmare på nätterna. De kalla nätterna har gjort att växtligheten inte riktigt exploderat utan kommer lite i taget, så som vi alla vill att våren skall vara.

Räven har fortfarande inte synts till men två harar har skuttat omkring på vägen och visat upp sig. Olika hackande fåglar bygger bo i de döda asparna och deras morse-signalerande hörs vida omkring när de kommer igång.

Granbarkborren har angripit några granar på andra sidan vägen och ägaren har huggit ner dem för att förhindra att ännu fler träd drabbas men tyvärr kan man redan se att det är minst två till som börjat dö. De nerhuggna har skapat en fin öppning ut mot öster som gör att vi får lite mer sol än vad vi haft tidigare tidigt på dagarna.

Birds :)

It is five a clock in the morning and the Bear is sleeping when the noise starts. At first it is only a few, rather weak and almost pleasant bibs but they are increasingly getting many more and much louder and eventually, they sound like a starting jumbo jet and it is not possible to sleep any longer. What is going on in Svångemåla? Construction work? Rock concert? No, birds! And more birds! Happy birds, mating birds, fighting birds, small birds, a bit bigger birds, birds in all colours and everywhere. At five a clock in the morning “silent spring” is just something to dream about. I turn on the radio and listen to some sleepy music that covers the wave of noise coming from the flying animals on amphetamine that have invaded my kingdom. It works and I go back to sleep for a couple of more hours. It is not only the birds that create havoc in Svångemåla. Badgers have decided to convert my lawn into a potato field or something similar. They are poking holes everywhere and, unlike golfers, they do not put back the divots. Seriously bad. My dear mother once accused me of practising my golf swing a bit too recklessly when the badgers visited some years ago and I would have loved to show her again that I, as most of the time, was completely innocent. Hopefully a stroboscope with a built in motion detector will keep them away or I have to come up with a more drastic solution.

Äntligen svar på frågorna!

Nyanländ till Svångemåla kan jag konstatera att: tranan går som vanligt och letar mat på maden, sädesärlorna är i full fart, grävligen har försökt hitta något att äta i den snustorra backen upp mot boden, räven har inte synts till ännu och stormen Per tog toppen av björken vid brasan. Det mesta är sig med andra ord ganska likt vilket är skönt. Nu gäller det att få lite plantor i marken även om humlen sprutar upp ur marken. Det är dock stor skillnad mellan den svenska och den österrikiska. Den senare är nämnligeninte mer än några cm hög medan den svenska redan nått mer än en meter över marken.

Nog för idag. Mer spännande nyheter kommer snart så stay tuned!!!