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Smalltalk for friends
Older stuff
20 Mar 2005 - 29 Dec 2005
Dear friends,
We don't often have much snow during winter but it does happen from time to another. It will affect all traffic such as public transport (trains and buses) and private transport, cars and lorries. Lucklily there is reduced traffic pressure today as many people stay at home to hold extended leave between Christmas and New Year. In the eastern areas, police already warn people not to move around unless it is absolutely necessary. Road conditions are already difficult in some areas and a few Armoured military vehicles ('Tanks') have been posted there to support the road authorities. When the situation gets really difficult such vehicles are the only ones that always can get through. There are reports already where these vehicles had to drive through snowpiles of over 2 metres to escort ambulances to accidents or childbirths.
18 December 2005 - Merry ChristmasWe wish our readers a Merry Christmas. Weather has gone very cold and Christmas-like. There are sub-zero temperatures most of the time now and the ground is covered with a thin layer of snow from yesterday. We don't move around outdoors more than absolutely necessary. Brrrr.....10 December - Galathea Expedition No. 3 in preparation
The 3rd Galathea Maritime Expedition is being
planned for August 2006-April 2007. We are a seafaring nation
with a long tradition for equipping and launching maritime expeditions
over the years. Some of the most famous expeditions went to Greenland
and the Arctic but a few also circumnavigated the entire globe. The
Galathea expeditions stand out as such very long voyages. |
31 October AutumnWe changed to vintertime yesterday and autumn begins to show as the golden tree litter increases. October had a record number of sunshine hours, though, and the mild weather continues for some time. Butterflies are very scarce now, but the late moths are still active. I try most evenings to catch two rather elusive species on the sugar bait, but until now no success. I think it is Halloween tonite, but it hasn't got the same importance here as abroad. It is mainly treated as a business scam to increase sales of anything that is slightly orange or pumkinish. Until recently, Halloween was rather unknown in Denmark. We hold local elections on 15 November, and the campaigns have just begun, cluttering every available space with campaign posters. |
Golden litter from maple and oak trees |
18 October - Autumn stuff
Now it is definitely Autumn, nights are really cold. We have moved the remaining outdoors orchids into the greenhouse to protect them from the frost. And picked all the apples from the tree. 5 large crates of apples to store througout the winter. They are mainly for birdsfeed and apple pies.The crown Prince couple had a baby boy this weekend so the press and TV was over excited. Although the couple is quite popular in Denmark, the rest of us wondered what all the hype was about. No need to gather news crews to sit and guess what the boy will be called, etc. Or sending journalists out into the streets to interview innocent citizens about the indcident.
10 October
Another lovely sunny day, but we begin to notice leaves dropping from trees - reddish and brown colours begin to dominate the vegetation. Farmers have already ploughed, harrowed and sown the crops that should overwinter.21 September
Late-summer still lingers on here. Okay, we had one night with light frost in the more continental parts of Denmark (Jutland) but on our cute island we got away with very low temperatures instead. But the tree leaves haven't turned bornze yet and the weather is quite mild and more late-summer like.I have been busy writing up more beginners pages for orchid collectors (in Danish). They have become quite popular among orchid beginners according to the page counters. And I began writing a new set of stories from my many travels. Destiny or whatever it was send me around the entire globe a few times. Forgive me for writing these stories in Danish. I don't think I have the energy to write them in English as well - a shame really, as we are only 5 million people who understand Danish language (20 million, if we include Norwegians and Swedes) Norwegian language is the closest to Danish, there is some accent difference, but written Norwegian and Danish are so similar that many people wouldn't notice any difference.
4 September - Autumn begins
Autumn 'formally' begins with September and the lush green growth has stopped. The grain harvest is over and farmers are busy bringing in the straw from the fields. Weather has been so fine for the entire week with sunny and warm days so we didn't notice any change from summer yet. We spent most days gardening and bar-be-queing whenever there was a quiet moment.This year we have had a number of visitors for the orchid collection. Most visitors booked well in advance via our web-page and were shown around in the collection and bought some spare orchids we had advertised. Now the summer is over and we have 'closed' the collection for more visitors this year. It is great fun to show people around and talk orchids, but it is also time-consuming when my brother is busy at work.
| The season
for fruit harvesting has begun. The apple harvest seems
promising with plenty of juicy apples, but plums for instance
have failed due to cold weather during the flowering season so
they won't yield much this year. Funen island has a long tradition for growing plenty of apples and there are still many plantations around. Our suburb is actually placed on old apple plantation land, so the street is named after one of our most famous apple varieties - "Ingrid Marie". When my brother built his house here in old days - he therefore also planted an Ingrid Marie apple tree in the garden. There was a mistake somewhere, however, and when the tree grew larger and set fruits we realized that it was the wrong variety, hi. We still harvest 4-5 boxes of apples every autumn. From time to another we make the traditional apple pie from those apples but otherwise we just use them for birds feed during winter. |
the apple harvest has begun
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16 August - two twins (count them!)For a long time I wanted to have a photo showing me and my twin together. At a Western party the other day we finally had the photo taken by a neighbour. My friends overseas were always so curious about my twin brother, Bent, so here we are - side by side. In the outskirts of Tombstone. It was a great party with lots of great competitions, rodeo and western style. The entire road was invited and although we should have known better, we all returned home very late and somehow intoxicated. I think it must have been a kind of food poisoning, because there were absolutely no complaints about the Budweiser and Jack Daniels and other booze. Otherwise we have had a few days good weather again - after a long boring period with rain every day. It is the main harvest time in Denmark now and combine harvesters race up and down the fields. They harvest from 10 morning (when the dew is gone) to 10 evening on good days to use all the dry hours. August is still considered a summer moth but there are signs of the Autumn approaching. |
Twins Arne (left) and Bent |
1 August 2005 - looking for moths on wallsStrange what amateur entomologists will do for their hobby. July-August are the right months for finding the adult moth of an interesting species, Cryphia domestica (the old name was perla) So my twin and I have already spent considerable time to re-find the species at the old sites on Funen island. This cute species is found on stonewalls covered in lichens which are most often found in old villages on a church stonewall or on very old buildings. |
Stonewall in Haarby town, Funen, DK |
| We
already do have a number of C. domestica in our collection.
Those we found during the 1980-ies at Nexø churchwall,
on Bornholm island. So the search now is just made in order to
confirm that the species is still around on Funen island. Note the perfect camouflage pattern of the moth and imagine it sitting on the whitish lichens as shown on the photo above. That would be pretty difficult to see. Nothing has been found so far after visiting 6 old villages and churches on south-west Funen. I still hope to find at least one so I can take a photo and show you the moth sitting on a stone somewhere. |
Cryphia domestica (= perla) from the collection |
25 July - summer vacationIt has been a lovely few weeks since last. Bent got summer vacation 3 weeks from 9 July and we were busy gardening and catching moths and butterflies the first week. Then we went for a week to a rented cottage in Silkeborg, Jutland.The cottage was nice and cosy, lying in a large forest with its own field for accompanying horses. Well, we didn't bring any horses, but used the field for moth collecting and photography of butterflies. Wining and dining for our birthday (21 July) of course. And we had a rare change to meet our orchid friends in northern Jutland - and discuss orchids and swop plants. A week off the beaten track. Sunday we went on the traditional bicycle tour with the residents of our street, 'K-street'. A nice small trip with good friends and good food, gossip, etc. |
Stoubjerg - a protected moor area near Silkeborg |
2 July - summer
We have had a very nice warm period, sunshine nearly every day and quite high temperatures. Barbeque and loafing on the terrace as soon as time permitted. We have a tradition to cut the hedges before Midsummer 23 of June. So we have been busy pruning and cutting and the neighbours as well. Danes love hedges and have a zillion kilometres of hedges. Half of them must be in our garden because it took us most of 3 days to cut it and carry the debris away. Sometimes I would like to put asphalt all over the garden and 'plant' some plastic flowers!We have been very busy watering orchids and most other flowers in the garden because of the dry spell. The lawn is too big to water, so it must just suffer. We could do with a thorough shower anytime now, but we will have to wait for some days, the meteo professors say.
Strawberry season is on now - lovely. I am from the strawberry island where huge red strawberries are plenty and reasonably priced. Before the season we had to buy European strawberries while we were waiting for Danish berries. Forget the diplomacy here - the outlandish strawberries were simply terrible. It is a strictly climatic thing - our climate produces the best strawberries in the world.
21 June - the longest day - 17hrs 28 minutes (Odense) !
Today is Summer Solstice ('Sommersolhverv') - the longest day in Denmark. Skagen town in Northern Jutland even has a whopping 18:06 hrs! Despite this fact, we call 24th of June for Midsummer Day (Sankt Hans) and to make the confusion perfect we celebrate this mess on the eve of 23rd. With huge bonfires all over the country. A 'witch' figure is burnt in the fire and people gather around the fireplaces and sing some traditional songs made for that evening.Although the daylight will be decreasing from now on, we still consider June, July and August for the summer months.
16 June - Summer begins
Summer finally arrived. For 2-3 weeks it was still very cold and often rainy. Life changed back to more indoors activities - just like during a winter. I spent more time writing web-pages than doing my gardening. The main strawberry season was postponed due to the weather.Last weekend, 'K-street' held the annual street party, it was as usual a succesful barbeque with all 6 houses represented.Summer is not really a well-defined term, but in Denmark summer usually means the months of June, July and August. Early vegetables have now begun to appear in the many farm roadstalls while the supermarkets continue to sell mainly cheap imported veggies from southern Europe.
| The staple food in Denmark is still
potato (and ryebread). And potatoes should be boiled
or ocassionally mashed. Forget about potato chips, it is a new
phenomena for the MacDonald generation. We have modernized
like everybody else and now also eat increasing quantities of
pasta and rice. The very first potatoes attract special attention every season and signal that the summer has begun. People pay high prices for the first few kilo of potatoes until they become more common. The peel is very thin and the texture is so delicate. Here is our own garden experiment. We planted a large bucket of potatoes during early spring. They are then carried daily from the greenhouse and outdoors to harden. Back again during the night especially if there is frost coming. |
A bucket full of early potatoes |
| Finally, we could harvest the tiny
new potatoes. A few kilo of the most delicious
potatoes. In a quality that is unsurpassed by the commercial
producers. They should just be scrubbed gently to remove dirt,
but do not peel them. Boil gently and serve with other fresh vegetables
and a good sauce. Yummi. We wrongly believe that potatoes have been here for ever, but it is a relatively new thing. A few centuries ago we did not know potatoes at all !. Then the good king imported a few hundred Germans farmer to settle in Jutland and teach us how to grow potatoes. The climate and soil was good for potatoes and the crop slowly spread to the entire country. We also learnt how to produce another popular Danish product from potatoes: The Aquavit or Danish Snapps. |
New delicious potatoes |
19 May - Spring forests and flowers.
| Spring is still incredible. May is one of
the prettiests months in Denmark, when our main trees, the
beeches (Fagus sylvatica) unfold their lush and fresh-green
leaves. Most people try and get out into the woods at this
time of the year to enjoy the look and smell of fresh vegetation,
collect a few branches for the vases at home and simply celebrate
that weather is nice again. Most days it is still too chilly for
a proper picnic, though. The early flowers are also flowering and bumblebees and other insects are busy gathering pollen and nectar for the summer's activities. Many fruit trees have just begun flowering and cover large areas in white or pink colours. The flagrance is overwhelming. Around the house we begin to stockpile nice flowers in large pots, and the newly planted garden crops have emerged. There were still a few very cold evenings this week, so I am afraid the tomatoes were scorched by late frost. Well, such things happen. |
Spring forest - mainly beeches |
4 May - Liberation Day and the sweetest spring day.
On this very evening - 60 years ago - during the regular (but illegal) broadcast from London, the program was suddenly interrupted for a special message from Montgomery's Headquarters at Lüneburger Heide: the German troops in Denmark, Holland and northern Germany had surrendered. 5 years of occupation and suppression had finally come to an end. Since that time, 4th of May has been a special date in Denmark symbolising freedom. That it happened during the sweetest time of the year, early May, where Denmark dresses up in the spring colours and all trees suddenly flush their light green leaves, was an added quality.I wasn't born yet but am told that people that evening tore up the much hated black curtains (so that light would not guide bombers), found what last bottle of champagne or fruit wine that was stashed away for important family occassions, lit the few remaining candles and danced in the street. For many years, Danes still decorated their windows on the eve of 4th of May with lots of candles to commemorate the day when freedom returned. This tradition is slowly fading away of course, but we still see it here and there. I think I will put out a few candles tonight as well.
On this happy day for us, it is also time to reflect for a moment on those people, that still haven't got their independence or freedom. I usually try and keep this page as encouraging and cheerful as possible. Non-political, superficial and harmless, you may even say. But let us not fool ourselves. There is still not enough freedom on my planet. I don't think we can really lean back and enjoy all our gifts fully until everybody enjoys the same qualities. Freedom from war, suppression, domination, fear, hunger, illness and powerty. There is still so much to do. And it is our responsibility, brother and sister.
(In Namibia, since Independence, 4th of May has been a Public Holiday but for a much sadder reason. To commemorate Cassinga Day, where many civilians in Cassinga refugee camp (in Angola) were killed in an attack by South African forces)
21 April
Despite the fine sunny weather, late light frost also returned. The last few nights, there was light frost and we therefore had to carry the most vulnerable spring plants indoors at night for protection again frost. Luckily, our spring-sown vegetables haven't sprouted yet. Twin Bent assures me that the frost risk is over around 12th of May in our area. Our weather forecasts are so precise that we usually find out about frost before it happens.It is a Public Holiday tomorrow, but we expect that Bent will have to work anyway. He is in the plant export business and they usually have a lot of campaigns during spring.
10 April
| April is sometimes the longest month of the
year in DK. The weather is so variable - you will see
beautiful sunny spring days change with rain and cold weather
or even snow. Teasing is what April is about - changing between
hope and despair according to the weather. It is still
too early to do any serious gardening - cut some branches off
here and there, trim and fertilize the roses, but otherwise stay
calm. We have of course laid the first pre-sprouted potatoes
in the hope of getting very early potatoes. Usually we get them
frozen down by late frost - but that is also a part of the game.
Danish TV seems to have become event-driven the last few years. Maybe it is a trend from overseas. Now we turn anything into an event and dedicate the entire day on TV to that topic, get a crew of 3-4 journalists to cover it live and thereby cancel all other scheduled transmissions. This year we have already had the Tsunami fundraising, Hans Christian Andersen's 200 years birthday show, the Pope's funeral and Prince Charles' wedding. I think they are over-doing it so they will eventually get lower viewer ratings if they try to make everything an event. |
Hyacinth
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5 April - Spring spring spring.
Finally spring arrived to DK. Temperatures went up and nature responded with a wealth of bulbous flowers, tree buds etc. Birds get more noisy as they prepare for breeding. The air is sweet of flower scents and the smell of grass. Chlorofylic I would call it.We went to a nice confirmation party Sunday - Young man (14) getting his confirmation party with the usual bunch of family and friends Sunday afternoon. In the best of spring weather. It was a nice occassion and plenty of exotic food. In that family they have the tradition that the young man could decide the menu for all of us, and I benefited especially from the many kinds of ice creams. The traditional confirmation menu from my childhood was always a more conservative one 'soup-roast-and-icecream' but this was much more fun. And the seating arrangement was perfect, so we had a nice day with old friends, gossip, spinning a good yarn and all that.
Yesterday Bent came back from work unexpectedly - it was a slack day so half of the crew could skip and leave the rest to finish the day's work. It was the warmest and sunniest day yet, so we held a mini-barbeque on the terrace and got a lovely sun-tan before the clouds gathered and we escaped to the sitting room.
The main spring time is when all trees unfold their leaves - around 1st week of May. It happens quite fast and within the same week, suddenly the entire country turns fresh green within a week and signals that the summer is around the next corner. What a lovely time.
26 March - Rain and fog
| Today was rather cold and rainy again. Not
much gardening due to the bad weather. We went shopping
instead, together with a Zillion other Danes. The recycling
station was also full to the brim, as many people obviously
had managed to clean their gardens and now used the chance
to drop all leaves and other debris at the station.
Easter is also high season for DIY peole (Do-It-Yourself) so the special shops for DIY people have gone ballistic these days. People rise from hibernation and stock up on all sorts of DIY stuff - paint, nuts and bolts and what have you - or start giving their lawn-mover the spring overhaul and therefore need more spares. And all sorts of garden tools sell like hot cakes of course. 25 March We made a trip to a rather wet swamp on nothern Funen to check for the early day-flying moths on birch trees - to no avail. It was still mild but the fog stayed all over the area so nothing moved. We photographed the area, though, and still had a nice day out. A few deers crossed the path just in front of us. Too fast for a digital camera. |
Sign of early spring - Nældens
takvinge (urticae)
flying to 'erantis' flowers
(23 March 2005)
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24 March - Easter begins
First day in Easter (Denmark only). We begin Easter a day earlier than most countries so today (Thursday) is a Public Holiday. The weather has become much milder but unfortunately there is fog all over the country for most of the day. Last night I hung up all my sugar bait strings and saw the first moths for the season. These species hibernate during winter and are therefore ready to come to the sugar baits as soon as there are higher evening temperatures (9 degrees C).Twin brother Bent suddenly had the day off so we went shopping and also bought stuff for our garden. There is no panic though, as some supermarkets stay open throughout Easter. In my childhood all shops closed for Easter, so you really had to plan your shopping well so there was food at home for the entire period.
We look forward to some relaxed days with gardening. The sun tan and barbeque may have to wait until we get more sunny weather. We wish you all a happy Easter with friends and family
20 March - Spring approaching Happy Easter !
Spring is approaching. It is still quite cold but temperatures are rising. It looks promising for Easter which is from Wednesday evening to Monday evening. In Denmark, Thursday is also a public Holiday.so Easter lasts five days - an entire mini leave.| Although Easter is very early this year it
is traditionally the first gardening period
in Denmark. The garden centres have been working over-time
to prepare the necessary stuff for myriads of Danes, who will
invade the centres during Easter and buy all garden stuff
for the season. They need to have bulbous plants ready, and
all the summer flowers for planting out in the gardens and terraces.
In addition they should also sell all the accessories to gardening
such as fertilizers, lime, lawn seeds, tools, etc. So most of us will use the se five days to prepare the coming lovely summer season. Remember we have just come out of more than a month of snow and cold, so we will love to get out again and clean up the gardens. Prune the bushes and trees, check the lawn and rake all moss out again, fertilize and give lime so the lawn can be beautiful again. |
Bent at the garden centre last year
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We also hope to get a first tan over a beer or two at the terrace, while we rest from all that gardening. Gossip over the hedge with the neighbours who also do their gardening. Swop plants with them as well. We have for instance kept some of the neighbours' floating pond plants in buckets in our greenhouse so they could survive the winter.People are usually in a good mood when they surface from their houses after the long winter and we enjoy a few beer while we discuss gardens, winters, football, etc.
Arne
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Old news 20 Mar 2005 - 29 Dec 2005 |
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