Merry Christmas 2012 !

Winter in Svångemåla

The deep forests in Svångemåla continues to be harvested. Huge piles of timber currently block the view over the Field and you feel a bit "locked in". Luckily they will not be there for very long and when they are gone the landscape will be more open and lighter.

The wild pigs seem to have disappeared and I hope they will not come back since I have now turned off the electric fence.

If you do not want to be in the hot seat, this might be a good place for you!

It is not easy to see the forest for all the trees!

The snow is a blessing since it covers all the damage done by the wild pigs!

Road problems

The heavy machines and large timber trucks together with the very wet weather have made the roads a bit difficult to navigate. Despite big efforts of those responsible for the maintenance of the road some sections are almost impossible for smaller cars to pass. One might wonder what they will look like next spring?

Deforestation and wild animals

One might think that the big machines and the totally changed forest had made all wild animals run away as far as they could but that is not the case at all. Maybe they know that the area next year will be a haven for them with lots of small trees and bushes that taste great.

Moose

Wild pig

Heaps of twigs, timber and more

The disforestation in Svångemåla is soon finished and it is interesting to see how everything has now been gathered and labeled. Even the cut off branches are put together in several huge heaps of twigs that soon will be cut up into very small pieces and made into fuel for heating up houses and water in our cities.

Most of the wood will be used for making paper (massaved) or timber (timmer) but the aspen trees will be matches (tändstickor).

Garbage

Many think that the destruction of nature that can be seen today is a new phenomenon but that is not the case at all. You just have to walk around in old settlements like Svångemåla to find all kinds of things that have been dumped without any considerations regarding neither animals nor humans. When I put up the electric fence, just outside the stone wall that marks the borders of my plot, I found a lot of old bottles, buckets,  two stoves, an old bicycle etc. They were covered by old leaves and moss but still dangerous to step on. It took just an hour to gather this heap of old junk that will go to the dump next year.

Late October

It looks like the wild pigs are not too keen on challenging my electric fence! I could not find a single trace of them when I spent a few days in Svångemåla last week. So far so good ....

The old forest to the north of the house was reap for harvesting and a big machine has made its way through most of it. It has left some hardwood but all conifers are gone. I actually do not mind since this will be a haven for moose and deer next year when new plants come up. It also makes the forest a bit lighter and not as dark as it has been before.

 The linden tree is wonderful this time of the year when it glows in the sunshine.

From "The ManKind Project"

Enough is enough !!!

A line or to be correct, a rope has been drawn in Svångemåla to keep the wild pigs (Sus scrofa) from destroying more of my plot. It was really hard work to set it up and without the help from a good friend it had taken me much more time than the three days it now took. As you know from previous postings, the ground is full of stones and it was as times impossible to get the fence poles down without removing rocks. When that was not possible, we simply had to go around them or in one case through a very small crack in a rock.

One of Sweden's more famous author and artist, Björn Gidstam, has experienced the same problem as I have and wrote a very good article about it in a newspaper, highlighting the fact that so little has been done to assist and help those who are hit by the pigs and that nothing will probably change as long as the politicians in Stockholm and other big cities are not affected.

http://www.smp.se/nyheter/lobbyn/insandare/ge-oss-ett-slut-pa-detta-svineri(3453528).gm

Gidstam also compared how much energy and emotions that have gone into the discussion about wolfs compared to how, relatively, silent it is about the damages done by wild pigs. I fully agree.

Here are some pictures showing the problems we faced setting up the fence. I really, really hope it will keep the beasts out!

The poles are treated to last for at least 15 years. By then I hope the wild pigs have moved on or even better, been reduced in numbers so that they can live in peace in the forests only.

 

 The equipment needed is not cheap. All together I had to pay more than USD 1,000! The instrument I am showing measure how high the voltage is along the rope and from my measurements it reached 7000V ! I do not think even a big pig can take that on the snout without feeling some pain.

Svångemåla under attack

I cannot say that I did not see it coming but I was still surprised, sad and mad when I saw what the wild pigs (Sus scrofa) had done to my lawn while we have been away for some weeks. It has never been a smooth, manicured lawn but I have without problems used a normal lawn mover to cut the grass while it now looks more like a field that has just been plowed. About one third of the lawn is damaged and requires serious work before it is back to what it used to be.

The first night we heard the grunting of pigs and when I rushed out I could see two large pigs staring at me for some seconds before they flew over a one meter high and two meters wide wall of stones. The next day we put some old wire fence there but the next step will be an electric fence. Many have already had to put up such fences and even if my plot was badly damaged we saw one not far away that had been completely ruined. The wild pigs are gradually becoming such a serious threat to the farmers as well as common house owners and motorists and I wonder how long it will take before it becomes a political issue.

Having lived in Africa many years I now have an even better understanding of the anger farmers there feel when elephants and other wild animals ruin their farms / shambas and thereby threaten their one and only way of surviving.

The force required to turn up such large pieces of soil and grass is amazing and it is even more astonishing that they can do it by just using their snouts.

I still don't know what the best way of repairing the damages is. Remove everything and put new soil in the holes or to use a cultivator to smash everything and then even it out???

Airplane crash

Not far from Svångemåla is a lake called Hultabräan. It's water is very clean and the main city in the region, Kalmar, takes some of its drinking water from it. A group of people have also arranged a small bathing area that is very popular among both old and young.  It was therefore with considerable concern I heard that an elderly German pilot had crashed his  amphibian aircraft  in the lake.  Both he and his passenger were rescued and brought to the hospital and the plane was lifted out of the water but some fuel had leaked into the lake. From what I have been told, it was not the first time the pilot has landed on this particular lake but probably not when the water level has been as low as it is this summer due to the little rainfall we have had. I find it a bit upsetting when a water reservoir is used in this way and wonder what the consequences might be?

How to make "the Svångemåla Stool"

My favorite place in the garden is our BBQ area. It is designed to be just as much a place where you can sit around a fire as a place to barbecue /cook. It is not a conventional barbecue but a tripod from which three adjustable chains hold a round grill. The fire / coal is contained in a fire pan (wide metal bowl).

Depending on what kind of gathering you have organized, your guests can either sit on stools or chairs or simply stand around the fire. To make the place look as ”genuine” as possible, I am using local material as much as possible. In particular the stools are special and here is a short guide on how to make them.

 1. Select a medium sized hard wood tree and cut it down (or buy one that has the right size). It's diameter should be between 30 and 45 cm. I was lucky when a good sized birch tree fell onto my land during one of the storms last winter.

2. Cut it up in various long pieces depending on how long legs your friends have. Remember that the children will need much lower stools than your NBA friends :) My stools are 40 – 65 cm.

3. Depending on what kind of tree you are using, let it dry (slowly or fast) and treat it with a suitable oil so that it will last as long as possible. I had to remove some of the bark of the birch pieces to enable them to dry without rotting before all moisture had evaporated.  

4. If you have used a chainsaw you must polish the surfaces as well as all edges as much as possible to prevent your guests from getting splinters in their behinds. To keep them above the wet ground, I put three small (2 cm high ) pieces of specially treated wood under each stool as a form of legs. If you use more than three pieces, the stool will be more stable on an even surface but less so on an uneven. The ring of stones around my fire place is made of stones from Öland and is a bit uneven so I use three.  

5. A stool of this kind is heavy so it is necessary to fit them with some kind of handle. I decided to drill a 20 mm hole about 8 cm from the top and put a hemp rope through it. 

This is not an easy job and I strongly recommend you to use a very strong drill and also to wait a while so that the wood is not too fresh. My old trusted Bosch was finished after six holes :( The drill should be about 2 mm larger than the rope or it will be very difficult to get it through the hole. 

To avoid the rope from splitting up, I used some thin hemp string at the end as you can see below.  You can also treat the hemp with some oil to prevent it from rotting.

The knots I used to tie the rope ends together is a common fisherman's knot.

It took me several hours to finish the job so I hope they will last at least five years. I don't think this is the kind of stool IKEA is interested in but I might write to Mr. Kamprad and propose a deal!

Blue flowers

I don't know why but most flowers in my garden are blue. You have already seen some of them and here are two more. If you happen to know their names, please let me know!!

Bruno Jr

Bruno Jr showed up today. He is just as handsome as his father but much smaller but I am sure that the clover in our lawn will make him grow up very fast!

A snake in Paradise??

No, not this time. It is just a harmless Slow-worm (Anguis fragilis) but it looks a bit scary close-up.

Between a rock and a hard place

How to make a Blueberry crumble pie

Blueberry crumble pie

125 g butter or margarine

3 dl (approx 1.2 cups) wheat flour

0.5 dl (approx 0.2 cup) sugar

3-4 dl (approx 1.5 cups) blueberry

ev. 1 tablespoon potato flour

Preheat the oven to 200-225 degrees C. Mix flour and sugar in a bowl. Cut the butter or margarine into cubes and chop it into the flour mixture until it forms a crumbly dough.

Grease a pie dish, approx 24-26 centimeters in diameter. Add the blueberries and sprinkle sugar on top. For a firmer pie, you can also sprinkle it with potato flour.

Distribute the dough over the berries and bake the pie for about 20 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or custard sauce.

Blueberries!

This is the time of the year when many Swedes start looking for blueberries. It has been a bit too dry and cold to be a really good year but a short visit to a favourite place was enough for a wonderful blueberry pie!

Cikoria part 2 ? :)

Having looked at various photos and also in real, I am getting more and more confused regarding the flower I have in my garden. It is really Cikoria  (Cichorium intybus) ??  Yes, the flower looks like it but it's stem does not and the flowers of the cikoria I have seen on Öland are closer to the stem and do not grow like on the one I have. The leaves are also very different, so I think the question remains... what kind of flower is it?? 

The size of the shoe is 42 to make it a bit easier to understand how tall the stem and how big the leave are.

And the answer is PARKSALLAT ! (Cicerbita macrophylla) 

Lady Deer

The vegetation is getting so high that it is difficult to see even a relatively big animal like a deer. She still looks lovely with all the flowers around her!

Rain !

Some days ago I asked for rain and my wish was granted!  We got some good showers although not as much as the northern parts of Småland got. It was wonderful to see how fresh and vibrant the flowers looked after some water so I just had to run out and take some more pictures.

Jasmines (Jasminum)

Canarybird flower ( Tropaeolum Peregrinum)

Poppy  (Papaveraceae) 

This is a wonderful flower that I have not managed to identify, so again, if you know please let us all know in a comment. 

PS Thanks for the comments Lena and Viveca. The main reason why I did not think it would be a Cicoria is the way it is growing as seen on the new picture below.