Posts filed under Nature

The spring that came and then got cancelled - New York City

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The Spring that Sprung

This winter and early spring has been so fun. We have explored so many new and old restaurants and bars in the city but also got to go to Montuckey, Sweden and Colorado. And now we are about to go into “stay at home” mode, a modification of “shelter in place”. You can still go for a walk, go to get groceries etc, and we have more or less been in that stage for a couple of days already. I am not sure about going to the laundry mat so I am grateful that we have a washer at home!

We are already one month early with spring this year and yesterday it was 73F outside. Spring has been breaking through for a few weeks here in NYC and I have tried to follow it in Riverside Park, around Columbia University and in Central Park. I even saw a bunch of snowdrops already in February. It feels a little sad now that we have the “stay at home” order. I am not sure if we will be going on any long walks anytime soon.

But last weekend, we did venture out to Central Park. We watched spring slowly making its way through the park. A Wood duck and a turtle were sunbathing along the Loch trail. And by the reservoir you could clearly see the Cherry trees blooming.

At this point the cherry trees have been out for three weeks. You can definitely tell that spring is about a month early here in NYC. Before heading back home we took a stroll through the conservatory garden, and the Magnolias were partially blooming there. You can check out one of my posts from last spring as a comparison.

W works from home two days a week on a regular basis, so he has an office space set up in our back room/tv room/guest room. After we all got the work from home instruction on Saturday I ordered a desk, computer chair and office lamp to set up my own little nook in the living room. It’s hard to get into working from home, especially when you are a lab manager. There are of course things you can still do, albeit limited, so we will see how things evolve during these 6-8 coming weeks (or more?). How are you preparing for the coming weeks?

It all Started Here

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Finally a Summer at the Summerhouse

There is a place up north where I spent all my summers as a kid. It’s right by the water, surrounded by the deep pine and spruce forest. Just like many other Swedish summerhouses this one is red with white borders. My grandpa started building it 1950, and it was finally done in 1955 after a couple of setbacks. Not a single day is the same up there, sometimes you can’t see the other side of the bay because of all the mist, and other times the whole water body is clear as a mirror as you watch the sky turn pink when the sun sets. Sometimes, in the middle of the night you can watch the lightning penetrate the water from the large panorama windows in the living room. Sometimes you can smell the summer rain in the morning or that strong and sometimes overwhelming smell of labrador tea if you are out on the mire.

This is where I learned the names of the different plants that are common in the boreal forest. That same knowledge that brought me to Alaska and then later on gave me free trip to Nome. Pine, spruce, labrador tea, fireweed, larch, birch and the list can continue in all eternity. This is where I learned when to pick the blueberries and how to make blueberry porridge. This is where I learned where the gold of the north grows, and the pain you sometimes have to go through to get those precious berries. But more importantly, this is where I learned how to swim, fish, and care about the nature.

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It’s a Fishy Business

At the summerhouse our main food source was the fish. We ate (well i guess we still do) fish for breakfast lunch and dinner. In the evenings we would get the boat out and go fishing farther into the bay. Sometimes we took the boat out to the “black sea” as we used to call it, because it was so deep and the water was all black out there, and tried our luck with the fishing nets out there. That place scared me, but it was always a thrilling adventure to go all the way out there. Most often though we took the boat out and laid our fishing nets straight out from the shoreline. This became something that I helped my dad with a lot. Laying out the fishing net in the evening, and picking it back up early next morning, before the seagulls started to get into them.

This summer W, his mom and aunt came with me to Sweden and the summerhouse. We had such a nice time and I loved that I was finally able to show them where my roots are. In the evening we all went out in the boat and put out three fishing nets and wished for the best.

As a fisherman, or fisherwoman the are no late mornings, and we got up early the next day to claim our bounty before the seagulls did.

Once the nets are back up on dry land the tedious work begins. First, the struggle to untangle and remove the fish from the net, and second to clean the net.

My dad of course knows how to untangle the nets like the back of his hand. He is a man of many trades and being a fisherman is one. He easily balances around the stones by the beach before he pushes out the boat from the shore wearing his clogs, just as easy as he removes the fish from the net. He knows exactly how much or how little of the juniper you need to get that perfect smell and flavor of a smoked fish.

Life is calmer at the summer house, and maybe this is also where I learned to appreciate life. From now on a visit to the summerhouse will be on my bucketlist for every single year ahead. If you ever wonder how it is to feel rich, this is it. A freezer full of fish and berries, and everything else you can acquire from the land.

When I was young my mom taught me how to clean and fillet the fish, she was a master of this and one summer I became one too. That was a long time ago, and I can’t really remember how to do it. But every now and then when we buy whole fish I magically know exactly where to cut the fish to remove the bones. My dad was doing this job now, he claims he’s not good at it, that mom was the master. The more I think about it, the more I understand where my ability to prepare things from scratch comes from. It all started here.

A Blast from the Past

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Flashback Friday

Dreams about Alaska

All the photos I have ever taken in my life lay scattered on two different external hard drives. Both are backed up to an online backup site, because although I said all I have lost too many photos I loved. The rate at which I take photos exceed the rate I share them. Before I went to Toolik in the summer of 2010 I bought a dslr camera, the cheapest one, a Canon Rebel XS. It is still my partner in crime, even though I dream about getting a new camera. Someday. Every now and then I open Lightroom and browse through photos dating back to 2010 and the first summer I spent in Alaska, completely untouched photos, as if I had forgotten about them, and I had. That summer was one of the best ones in my life, and I got to go on many different adventures. That summer I went on my very first helicopter ride, I walked on my very first glacier, I went into the mountains of Alaska for the first time, I fell in love with the mountains, I saw the aftermath of a forest fire, I started rock climbing and ice climbing once the temperatures slowly droppen, and I became friends with so many other people who just like me were also just so star struck by Alaska. The summer after that I fell in love with Denali, I fell in love with W, and then it just snowballed. More Ice climbing, cross country skiing, canoeing, kayaking and the list goes on.

Memories

In Lightroom you can create collections of your favorite photos. I have about 3500 of them, and that number keeps increasing for every time I open Lightroom. Yesterday I browsed through that favorite collection and was pretty amazed about all the things I have done, we have done. We have been to places I could only dream about when I was younger, and not even then did I. It’s not only photos from Alaska of course, but other states as well. Traveling is one of the greatest things on earth, and going on a roadtrip is definitely something I love. Below are a few of my favorite photos from Alaska, but also other places I have been.