Mixed Bag

Another cold and clear day. Ostersund is situated on the shores of a rather large lake surrounded by low mountains. This was the view this morning around 10 AM just as the sun reached over the crest of the mountains…

Still a few odds and end to do before we go into full celebration-mode tomorrow on Christmas Eve when we’ll have dinner together…

This from where my niece goes to take care of someone’s horse (and gets to ride it “for free”). The idea was that I would take a bunch of pictures in that area, but my car got the hiccups and had to be towed from there. Luckily, my brother-in-law could help me out and will also fix the (omitted) beast once it has thawed out.

My First Dipper

On my way to an Open House at Pangea, I took a drive around town to shoot some pictures. I was actually looking for a good spot for taking pictures of the spectacular colours on the sky, when I saw this:

No, it’s not my best shot but YES – it’s a dipper! I wanted to change to the zoom lense but didn’t dare since I know how shy these birds are. Sure enough – I got to take two pictures before he flew off.

Colours!

It must be my over-all mood that makes me crave colours right now!

I don’t really like green – at least not on me – but when Mother Nature hs painted the world in all shades of green, it is beautiful!

Amazing Grace

Today -W- and I had an appointment at the offices of the County Family Services. They are in fact in charge of the asylum seeking youths – I am just appointed as trustee to look after their affairs, arrange for dental apppointments and the like. This appoitment was booked a few weeks ago while we were sure -W- would be granted his permanent status and I had in mind to cancel it yesterday, since everything has changed in the last few days. I forgot to do that, so we had no choice but to attend… -W- looked so sad when I picked him up, but once we came in to the social worker he sat up, holding his head high. He answered politely and with integrity to all questions even that some of them must have felt like a slap in the face (How do you envision your future?)…

At the end of the hour, he stood up, shook hands with the social worker and thanked her.   Could I have acted with such grace? No, I highly doubt it!

This view (again from the window at work) brought home what it was that became Ted Harrison’s inspiration when he first arrived in the Yukon. Skies like  this sustain me ( at least for a few hours…) for him it became a distinguished career as a Northern artist.

Dusk Already!

At 10 AM the sun has struggled up over the tree tops.

By 2 PM it’s already on the way down and the sky takes on some fantastic colours.

I don’t know why, but I really dread the dark months ahead of us. I’ve never felt this way in previous years and I really don’t know how to combat this gloomy feeling. Any ideas out there?

…and Then Some More

I took Loki and his Dad out to a tiny little lake so they could run and play for a bit… I had two very wet but tired dogs on the way home, one of whom is snoring at my feet now. By now we all pray that the rain will wash away all snow so we can start afresh with winter once more. Because if this freezes over… Oh yea, I guess I’ve told you that already!

I’m not entirely certain what this building was used for, but I’m guessing it was a tiny flour mill. Almost every village had their own until in the early 1950’s and some of them were maintained long after that.

More Rain

… which is not good. The sand that was applied to the roads this morning, has washed off and the ice forming on the lakes is beginning to disintegrate in places. The latter is detrimental for the cartesting industry as they rely heavily on test tracks on the lakes. If there is no blue ice, the tracks have to be man-made by pumping water onto the ice.  That is time-consuming and might delay the testing season  somewhat – what is far worse is the effect this type of weather might have on animals. The reindeer are sure to suffer, as will any other animals who forage on ground vegetation.

Oh – and I got to take off the cast today! My arm looks like a lizard and is really weak – but the physio department gave me some exercises to do three times a day. I expect it to take at least half a year before I’ve regained my former strength – even if I follow their instructions religiously.

 

It’s Raining!

Middle of November and here it’s raining! Not good – the roads are treacherous and the crews sanding streets and roads are running constantly.

There is only about 10-15 cm of snow – and now it has a crust of ice. This could turn into a small disaster for the reindeer herders as the animals won’t be able to dig through the ice to get bat their food. This happens quite often – but I can’t recall a year when we’ve had a rainfall like this in November.

How Come…

… foxes always seem to know when the ice is strong enough to hold them?

These tracks along the shore wasn’t there yesterday afternoon – but Mr or Mrs Fox had wandered along the shore some time before 9 AM this morning.

 

Waxwing

Loki demanded a walk around 10 AM today and that was exactly the time a flock of waxwings were feasting on the frozen berries of mountain ash around the parking lot.

Lokis walk was cut short so I could grab the camera and get a few pictures of them. Less than 2 hours later, they were all gone.