Mrs Wagtail

As always, Mrs Wagtail is busy in the garden. Click on the picture to get a closer look of her latest catch!

The Twig 2010

Do you remember "the twig"? Well, this is a recent picture of it. No big changes and it is obvious that the soil is not very fertile and that it will take a looooong time before I can use it for a swing :)

Baby moose has grown up!

One of the calves I saw 2008 (I think) has now grown up and was peacefully grazing on the Field when I woke up this morning. A wonderful sight early in the morning.

Back in the wild forests of Svångemåla!

I am once again listening to the birds, watching the fox, the moose and the rest of "my" animals in Svångemåla. Nothing has really changed since I left last year although the winter was unusually long and hard with lots of snow and very low temperatures. It was really nice to see Fred the Fox sneaking around when we arrived and it did not take long before the cranes flow over our house. It is still cold with only 10 C during the day and even less during the night. Despite the cold weather the mosquitoes are big and plentiful. Mrs Wagtail only has to fly around a bit with her mouth open to have a full dinner.

In the next days I will try to take some pictures of the flowers that are making spring such a special time of the year.

Extra, extra... update directly from Svångemåla!

A quick trip to Sweden made it possible for me to make a short visit to Svångemåla. The snow covered ground was full of spoor from deers, foxes, rabbits, moose, a cat, dogs, birds, and many, many more of my more or less wild neighbors.

In addition, you could, if you just squinted a bit, see thousands of diamonds ! Unfortunatly they all melted when I picked them up.

Vienna Neews !

Svångemåla News has got a sister blogg in Vienna. It is called Vienna Neews (yes, it had to be two "ee" or blogspot would not accept the name) and its url is

viennaneews.blogspot.com

Welcome!

Time to say goodbye for now

As I wrote some days ago, it was getting a bit cold in Svångemåla and I decided to go south. The differences are enormous but, as we all know, one can find beauty in all environments. And the moon and the sky are the same where ever we are on our dear mother earth and I feel that these two pictures, therefore, are well suited to say farewell for now.

I would also like to thank you all for visiting my blog and for all the direct and in-direct (mails and phone calls) I have received. All together, you have logged in from 32 different countries which must make Svångemåla one of the most well known villages in Sweden! Sometimes I wonder how people in places like Benin, Pakistan, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Senegal have found their way to my blog but it is probably just one more proof of the power of the web. Take care and bye, bye for now!

Time to move south!

Many birds have started their long journeys south and it is time for me to do the same. It has been an unusual summer with the new road as the most dramatic change. My eyes are still not used to it and I have not completely accepted it but a few new bushes, a bit of grass around it and it will, probably, look OK next spring.

The wild fire that ravaged part of the deep forest not far away from Svångemåla was so expensive for the local community that the administration has decided to cancel its annual Christmas party.

From a wild life point of view, it has not been as exciting as last year when I met the two moose calves but I am happy that the rare wood pecker has found a home on my plot. The fox has not shown up but I have seen its droppings in many places so it is still around. The wild pigs are becoming a real nuisance and my neighbor has had to put up a small electric fence around his house. As always this time of the year, I have noted that there are a few mice who have moved into my cellar to get away from the cold in the nights and my answer is a new electronic device that sends out some sort of pulses through the electric wires / cables as well as ultra sonic sounds. Both are supposedly painful for the rodents and will make them go somewhere else. I am not so optimistic but it is still better than to feed them with poison and make the house a mice mausoleum.

It has been a good year for pears but not so great for apples although I have enough of them to bring back home for some pies. A unique and very old fruit is damson (krikon) (Prunus domestica ssp. insititia). It looks like a prune but is not as sweet and needs a serious frost bite before you can eat it. The core if its wood is red and very nice for carvings and other forms of wood work.

The Road III

This is what it used to look like when you approached my house. The road made a gentle turn to the left after which it went around my house and garden / plot.



The new road turns right and then comes a long curve to the left before it joins the old road. The turns are not at sharp as they used to be and it is farther away from my house but it runs between my house and "The field" and it will take some time before it melts into the environment as well as the old does. The traffic will not increase from the five to ten cars that pass every day so the big question is if it was really necessary to make this "improvement" ?

Signs...