Matanuska Glacier

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I was in Alaska but I cannot get it out of my mind. I've spent much more time in Norway and don't really think that much about it anymore (which is not really because of the country but mostly due to the bad memories I had there). 

So today I felt like Matanuska - one of my favourite spots in Alaska. It is near the Glenn Highway so you can actually drive to the terminus of the glacier which makes it easily accessible but not overcrowded (not many places in Alaska actually are too busy). The glacier is about 43 km long and the best part is that the terminus is quite flat so you can actually walk on it without too much danger (there are warnings of course but if you don't risk it you miss a lot). There is also a campsite closeby so you can go to the glacier any time of the day/night and then go to sleep (that far north it hardly gets dark in summer anyway so you have lots of time for activities). The coolest thing by far though was the lake on the glacier!

Strange Santa

Came along, made a lot of noise while roaming around the shoes on the terrace and went to a corner. And the stupid people took him to a hideout of reed and leaves so he could continue his hibernation. I bet he just wanted to fill our shoes with goodies. 

Hopefully he/she survives the winter. Luckily it isn't that cold yet.

Smoke on the water

Not quite Montreux but certainly the same lake. That was the best day out of a whole week (most days it was so foggy that you could not see any mountains). Luckily I was there for work and not holidays otherwise it would have been quite depressing.

Ouch

There is going to be a wedding in the family at the beginning of November. It's not really going to be a huge celebration but somehow we still felt like we should prepare something. They don't want the general wedding progamme with silly games so the only option is to play some music. So I got my guitar out of the box to play a few Irish songs with my cousin (who is totally into Irish music and plays the tin whistle).

The problem is that I have a Western guitar with steel strings and of course once upon a time I had to get the hardest strings for this guitar (because it sounds so much better but the fingers are completely destroyed ... who cares about fingers when you can have the sound eh?). The finger tips of the left hand are so sore now ... and I have to practise every day to manage at least the basics .... I must be am mad .... ouch!

Frozen

Frozen waterfall and sunset over frozen lake - you get that a lot in Norway in November. 

Ahhh, winter is on its way and this year I really hope it will bring lots of snow :)

Customer-friendly ... yeah, right!

Dear company starting with an a (and sharing the name with a river in South America), 

for years I have been a very loyal customer since I never had problems with any of the products I bought. In particular, I liked your offers on mp3 music because I am moving a lot and having to transport lots of CDs is just not very practical for me (since I listen to music when working at the computer, I would make mp3 files out of CDs anyway). 

Until now, there was no problem with buying and downloading mp3 music as long as I was in Germany (with my IP address to prove it). Recently, you decided to change to a new payment system and you promise that the customer can get the product with just one click. That actually works well with books for another (kind) product I have. With the mp3s, however, it does not work for me and instead I get a message that this purchase is only allowed for people residing in Germany. If you do not want to sell your products that is fine with me but what really annoys me is the fact that after 3 e-mails from my side, explaining that I have a German IP address AND a German provider AND am residing in Germany, you're still not believing me and instead tell me that I should use my computer at home since internet cafés and public places sometimes might use international IP addresses and if in doubt ask my provider. Strangely enough, all the tracking programmes I tried to check my IP address confirm that I am actually in Germany (and I know that I am or at least I thought that I was). And since you had no intention to take my problem seriously for the past 4 days and maybe look if something on your side was wrong (which can happen no doubt), I bought my music from a different store. You will not believe it, they never complained that my IP address was not German (and they have the same restrictions as you do).

Way to go!

Sky on fire

On the way to a cave for bat night. This one was the only good thing which resulted in that trip. While driving there, it started raining, then a tunnel was closed and we had to find an alternate round to get to our destination so we came too late to get a seat inside for the talk which was horribly boring (which scientist nowadays shows slides and graphs from 20 years ago for more than 2 hours? And that for an audience including children. Are things so different in biology?). Finally in the cave, we saw 2 (!!!) bats and were told that normally there were so many that you'd be afraid they bump into you but due to the rain they apparently didn't come. Unfortunately this wasn't really worth the 2 hours drive and 2 hours boring talk ... oh well, we wouldn't have known if we hadn't tried.

Styggmann

I think this was a hike to the mountain Styggmann in the Skrimfjell close to Kongsberg (it's been a while so I am not completely sure anymore). The only trouble was going in November ... there wasn't that much snow but water had been running down the hiking path and was frozen so we would have been better off with ice skates or at least some spikes on the shoes. I guess it's a nice hike in summer though ;). Due to the extreme conditions we also didn't make it to the top.

New project

 

Field salad for the winter ... so looking forward to it :)

Summer visitor

Although there are no frogs spawning in our pond, we always have a few staying around in summer.

This one came out for a photo shooting.

Normally the best you get is a picture of lots of plants where you have to search for the head.

The picture is from last year but the frog might possibly be the same.

Sisyphus

Organic gardening is always a bit like Sisyphus - a lot of it is done in vain and you start from the beginning again. Especially depressing this year was the fact that some animal destroyed at least half of the seeds and from the remaining plants some other (or the same??) animal ate away the tiny first leaves of the new plants.

Some things however actually DID what they were supposed to so I have to document this for the future (that I only remember the good parts of gardening in a few years). The peas for example.

May bug

Yeah I know, it's June already - time flies as usual. The cockchafer has been found in May though and was saved from drowning. I tried to clean it a bit before taking the picture but some of the pollen which has accumulated in the water stayed on it.

Intersting hairstyle!

 This was attached to the fly-screen last night. It's the caterpillar of the garden tiger moth and apparently it has survived from last year and is supposed to pupate soon. What a cool thing!

Violets are not always blue

They can be white ;)

 

When the Japanese Cherry (Prunus serrulata) is losing it's flowers it almost looks like snow. 

 Forget-me-not in two varieties:

Vinca (gosh I never learned all these flower names in Enlish):

Bellis perennis (that sounds quite sophisticated for the flower we just call "goose flower" in German) or is that just an English daisy or maybe a lawn daisy ...

The appletree started out promosing as well. We are still eating apples from last fall and lots of bottles of juice are left as well so lets see if we have two "apple years" after another.

And last but not least pulmonaria or lungworts: 

Comparison

Apart from trying to finish that PhD thesis, I probably spent most time in the greenhouse trying to cultivate a few vegetables. It is always amazing how fast things grow.

This is how the greenhouse looked like in the middle of April:

And less than a month later:

By now we have eaten almost all of the red radish, the first ones made it onto a picture and of course lots of salad.

 

And the first kohlrabi was devoured yesterday. Nothing beats the taste of self-grown vegetables!

Torpo Stavkirke

This church was built in 1192 and consecrated to St. Margaret. The chancel was demolished in 1880 and the rest of the church was supposed to be removed for a new church. However, the Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments purchased and preserved the church while the new one was built next to it. The portals have quite nice carvings including birds. Furthermore, some runic inscription indicates that the church was built by Torolf. 

More garden

 Found this little guy while digging out some phlox. Quite interesting how they can bend their legs apparently into every direction.

And daffodils for the last time (nex time I'll show other flowers). They also come in quite a few varieties.

Vøringfossen in fall colors

A few more impressions out of the picture box. Unfortunately the hiking path all the way to the waterfall was closed due to the bad shape of a bridge so that was the closest possible I could get to it. Still impressive enough. Pieces of a truck were scattered all around the valley - probably had troubles with the brakes on the curvy road which leads down to the Hardangerfjord (didn't really want to take a picture of the stuff).

Flower power

Thought I best post a few pictures of the garden from end of March before the year is over again. Of course daffodils and primroses are long gone by now but the garden probably looks best in March/April when the early spring flowers are out and not too many weeds are overgrowing everything.