Sunrise, sunset

We have been watching the rising and setting sun here - how does it compare to what we get in PG? We seem to get much longer sunrises and sunsets. The sun doesn't rise until quite late and sets early, but there is a longer time when the sun is not up when it is light. For example, in the pictures here:

Sunrise on the way to Karlstad Dec 19 at 8:25 am.



This picture shows the sun setting behind our little creek at 1:42 pm on Dec 21/06. It was still light for another hour and a half.

The last picture shows the sun still on the mountain just to the east of us at 2:45 on Dec. 23/06.

By the way, I HATE working with pictures in this program - my published post doesn't look like my draft and I can't move the pictures around or the text for that matter. Does any one have any suggestions short of finding a new blog site?

Dec 13 is Lucia day in Sverige

Here are some pictures from the Lucia day celebrations at Duncan's school last night. It was a beautiful ceremony and the children did an amazing job with all the songs. The older girls hold real candles and there are real candles on the head of the girl chosen to wear the special head piece. The boys dress as you can see in this picture of Duncan. He wasn't that impressed with "wearing a dress", but that is how it is done. Mitch's school in town went to the big church across the street to see the ceremony done there. I only recognized one song and the rest were new to me. There was a dance after this, but we couldn't stay as Mitch was playing hockey in Sunne and needed to be picked up.

We did stay long enough to have a cup of coffee and sample the traditional Saffron buns mad for this occasion. I bought some "saffron" in Tunisia to try and make my own, but unfortunately what I bought was not the real thing, so it was nice to try the real thing.
 

More of Tunisa - North of Sousse

Here we are back at Sousse for a day on the
beach. We wandered all the way up to the point
you see in the distance and part way back before settling down on the sand. H, M, and D swam and then the boys built sand forts and had a rousing sand fight. Nice to just sit in the sun.
We found an ice cream place on the way back with Italian gelato style ice cream - the fig ice cream was to die for and real pistacio was pretty amazing too. By this time we had started to figure out how to deal with the constant barage of people trying to sell you something and had found a corner store and a few places to eat with reasonable prices, so things were looking up.
The next day we took a bus trip north to Tunis and Carthage. Sidi Bou Said was a beautiful area on a hillside where we stopped for some traditional mint tea and perused the many shops along the steep and narrow cobble streets. Here we are sitting on the steps of a home above the market in this area.

The ruins of a roman bath at Carthage were amazing. The pillar behind us has been erected recently to show the height of the original structure, which was twice the height of the standing pillar. We were walking around in the lowest level. There are broken pillars everywhere of various types of stone from different sorts of granite to marble. We could have spent much longer here, but we had other stops to make on our tour. There was a model of the original bouildings as well as an artists interpretation and these ruins would have been truely impressive even in their time. It is amazing to think that places such as this were constructed thousands of years ago. We also stopped in downtown Tunis to see the medina there and to check out the French architecture in the capital. We were also whisked through the Bardo museum full of old mosaics housed in the old palace - again, we could have spent much more time here.

More Tunisia pictures - from the South

K is in the central courtyard of this Berber
"cave" home in Matmata. The woman on the right lives here. The entrance was in the side of a hill. You walk through past a few rooms and into this central courtyard open to the sky above. There are 6 entrances to this courtyard at the ground level, and one you climb to with a rope and notches in the wall. There was a kitchen with a propane camp stove, 3 bedrooms, a work room where the women weave and then the entrance passageway with room to store tools and food for their camel. It must be strange to have a bus looad of tourists stop and tromp through your home taking pictures, but the 3 who lived here were and were available put up with us. It must be a welcome source of income for them.


Here we are riding camels into the sunset at Douz at the edge of the Sahara. This was an amazing experience, marred only by the camel peeing on his tail and then flicking it up may back. Camel pee smeels a lot like cat urine, by the way. Also, we were not impressed by the efforts to extort money from us when we got off the camels out in the desert for a break. There was alot of putting something in your hand or showing your child something and then demanding money.


At sunrise the next day we found ourselves on a road in the middle of the great salt lake in the Sahara called Chott El Jerid. Mostly it looks like endless sand, but there had been some rain and there was some water at this end - it was a stunning site with the mountains in the distance and the pastel colours at sunrise. From here we drove on to an oasis near Tozeur where we saw dates, figs, lemons, oranges, jasmine, roses, zucchini, fava beans, bananas, hot peppers, and pomegranites growing. This was an amazing place to see for a gardener.

From there we took jeeps to Chebika at the base of the mountains and walked up the creek to this pool in the palm trees. The mountains are barren and this little bit of water feeds an oasis below and the town with it. People here were prospecting for what we would call dinosaur eggs - pretty crystals filling cavities in the rock. These they were trying to sell to tourists. On the way back we saw some wild camels, an army hummer and fences woven from palm fronds to hold back the shifting sands from the roads. Apparently some Starwars scenes were filmed in this area.

Tunisia pictures - Sousse area

Tunisia - a land of contrast. As you can see in
first picture people travel by all methods here. It's not uncommon to see donkey carts or mopeds, but you will also see mercedes. This family was on a road by the harbour in Sousse.












The entrance to Sousses's medina or old, walled city was about 200m from here. Our first excursion in Tunisia was to the medina. We went on a quick walking tour through a few of the narrow street just to get an idea what it would be like. This place is another world: narrow, cobbled streets jammed with shops, merchandise and people. As you walk by the merchants try to entice you into their shop. First they try to guess where you are from and what language you speak. Appartently English speaking Canadians are a rare commodity here. Just off the main shopping roads you can peak down narrow residntial passages like this picture shows.
This is the sun setting around 5 pm over one of Sousses hotels along the beach (not ours). We were staying about 500m from the beach near downtown. I took this picture as the boys frolicked in the sea as we walked back from the medina along the beach.
This is a picture of the romean colisseum in El Jem. It is amazing - better preserved than the one in Rome apparently. Tourists have amazing access to these ruins - you can climb all over them and go down into the holding cells below on your own. Apparently the movie Gladiator was shot here.

Nous sommes à Tunisie....

Well, we found a cheap 1 week vacation to Tunisia, so here we are. I am typing this in the hotel lobby and this will not be long since the keyboard has some differences making this quite slow. We have been on a 2 day tour of the south of the country and are heading on a day trip to the north tomorrow. The we have riden camels in the Sahara, been to oases, seen the mosque at Kairouan and the coliseum qt El Jem. H, M, and D have swum in the Mediterranean Sea. Tomorrow we are off to Carthage and Tunis. There is much to tell, but this keyboard is painfully slow so more when we get home.

Top row on keyboard: ²&é"'(-è_çà)=*
Top row with shift: '1234567890°+µ
Top row with other shift key: ~#{[|`\^@]}
There is another set of symbols on the top row, but I cant figure out how to get them

Anyway, the a q w z and m are all in different places and you need to shift to get most numbers qnd some punctuation.

A Month of Birthdays

Hol's birthday at the end of November - that is
a cheesecake with lingon berries in it. Check out the pan it is in - this fits directly into the oven (it doesn't have to sit on a shelf). Ovens come with one of these pans, 6 flat cookie sheets, and one rack like we find in our ovens in Canada.

J's birthday was in the middle of the month - he chose to have a very different cake from anything we have ever had before. It is a
smörgåstorte - a savory cake that used to be served to the nobility. Jan's grandmother used to make them. For the cake part, you layer crustless white bread with a paste of a canned fish similar to tuna and sour cream or creme fraiche. The white "icing" is whipped cream (no sugar) and the whole thing is decorated with fruit and vegetables, shrimp, and hard boiled eggs.

















E's birthday was at the beginning of the month and Hol made this a combination Halloween BDP. We had pumpkin carving and roasted pumpkin seeds, chili and hotdogs by a bonfire and many people dressed up - lots of fun.

The rest of the pictures from Malung

 

Sunne Fans at the Malung Reebok Jofa Cup

All Saints Day falls on the weekend after Halloween. D had a Hockey tournament in Malung and H and D headed up on the bus with the rest of the team and some other parents. The kids/coaches slept on the floor in a classroom in the local high school, as did all 12 teams. They were fed in the school cafeteria. Parents stayed in little stugor (cabins) at a campsite just out of town.

It is a Sunne tradition that the fans dress up on All Saints Day and you can see the results in the pictures here. Cheering and team spirit was mandatory and a good time was had by all.

Please stay tuned...we are experiencing
technical difficulties!

West Coast pictures

We took a quick jaunt to the West coast in week 44 during which the kids had no school - kind of a fall break I guess. We poked around on the internet a bit, but ended up just getting in the car and, with map book in hand, heading for the coast.

We stopped at Fossum to see the rock carvings from the bronze ages, and then headed on just down the road to a museum in Tanumshed. This was unfortunately closed, but the gate to the village was open, so we wandered through and saw what is probably a Bronze Age working village during the summer. It was still very cool to see when deserted during a cold and misty fall day - I think the area by the pond where religious ceremonies and sacrifices took place was...spine tinglingly eerie. Duncan was especially taken with all the sample animal traps.


Then we headed out to the coast itself, stopping to watch a boat head out to its traps and walking out to the bad plats or swimming place with its little beach and beautiful boardwalk hugging the rocks. We continued to poke around as we made our way down from Hamburgsund towards Smögen and Kungshamn. We had a bit of scramble finding a place to stay that was open and didn't cost a fortune but eventually hunted down a hostel type arrangement. We got the key for a very cold, but functional kitchen and then headed down to the docks to find some fish for dinner. With a feed of lemon sole and some of the obligatory potatis and pickled beets in us we settled into our cosy room while a storm howled
through the night.

We awoke to snow and ice everywhere, but improving weather. Before leaving Smögen, we drove out towards the ocean and came across this very picturesque little bay with its colourful boathouses.

Then we drove down towards Lysekil and the sun came out and we found a nature reserve and the local idroitts plats (sports place), a stadium built back in the 1930s with granite walls and old cast iron turnstyles - very impressive. We walked on the rocks in the sunshine and howling wind until Duncan's face was covered in hives from the cold. A quick picture of hthis wooden boat in a sheltered cove and then it was time to head back to the heater in the car. On the way back we walked through an area where rocks had been quarried - probably to build the stadium among other things.

The boys got to experience their first dagens rätts at a restaurant that was obviously a local favorite. We ate our fill and then headed down the road again. A free ferry took us across an inlet and then we headed on towards Göteborg.

Mushrooms and berries

The last post was about hunting, so I guess it makes sense that the next should be about gathering. September was a month of beautiful sunshine and warmth. We spent much of our free time hiking through the wood in search of mushrooms and berries. These activities continued into October, but the outings became infrequent: the cold and rainy weather and the moose hunt put a damper on our forays into the woods (skogen).

Our first weekend in Sweden, we drove up to the top of the local mountain, Tosseberg, to check out the view. That is our white house between D and K and I in the picture. Because tourist season had passed, none of the buildings at the top were open, so we couldn't climb the tower. But we wandered around and had a look and searched for the launching spot the hang gliders we had seen earlier must have used. We eventually found that and the path that looked like it must head down our side of the mountain.

While K drove down and went to help J and Farfar (literally father's father) with the porch they were building, the boys and I hiked down. What normally takes about 25 minutes, took us over an hour as we stopped time and again to gather blue berries and lingon berries we couldn't pass by. They were literally everywhere: on the sparsely treed, rocky, lichen covered mountain top, and all the way down through the dense forest with its open understorey and knee-deep moss. We came back with a liter or so of berries, despite all we ate as we picked. That was our introduction to berry picking.

Once Hol and the kids returned from Canada, we met Farfar and Farmor (you guessed it - father's mother) at their stuga (cabin) and went for a wonderful fall hike up another mountain. As we hiked up, J's parents pointed out all the important things to see, including which were the edible mushrooms. Once at the top, we checked out a confidence course that had been set up and climbed the tower to take in a wonderful view. While at the summit we had a picnic which included smörgas (open faced sandwiches) and korv (hotdogs) roasted on a fire which we ate on the cute little half-size hotdog buns they have here. Toppings included ketchup, mustard and something called americansk sås which tastes like a combination of cheeze whiz, ketchup, mayo and relish. Apple cake followed and all was washed down with either water or milk. Quite a feast! When it was time to head down the grandparents took E back to the cars with them. They would drive back to the stuga, and we would walk back heading down the other side of the mountain.

Again, we gathered berries, although we were really only finding blueberries in the higher spots by then. The lingons were still everywhere, so we picked many of these. What was memorable about this trip was the introduction to mushrooming for the whole family. K has never been a big fan of picking berries - it just slows you down when hiking. Mushroom picking is different. Finding kantarells - the golden mushrooms you can eat - is like finding gold. You look and look and feel very lucky when you find any. If you find a whole bunch together in a fairy ring, it's like hitting the jackpot. The walk down the mountain and through the woods to the stuga was a giant mushroom hunt where we fanned out and hiked through the moss, lichen, trees, bushes, rocks and bog in search of svamp (mushrooms). It wasn't long before we stopped calling to Hol or J to see if we had the right kind or not. Even the boys were hooked! D became a quick expert finding many kanterells and also some blek tagsvamp which are the two kinds that we are able to recognize reliably.

While the weather remained agreeable and sometimes even when it wasn't, we spent many afternoons wandering through the woods close to home in search of berries or mushrooms to pick. This has been a great way to get to know this area where we are living.

Moose Hunting in Sweden

We have been fortunate enough to have a chance to go moose (Älg) hunting in Sweden. Dunc got to spend a day with his aunt Hol hunting with the local hunting group/team. M and K got to spend a day hunting with J's hunting party near J's school. Everyone heads out in the woods (skog) in the second week of October.

Hunting in Sweden is very different from hunting in Canada. First of all, you must be a land owner to hunt, or you must purchase the right to hunt from a landowner who choses not to hunt. Secondly, you must join a hunting team or club which controls/organizes the hunt in a particular area. Costs vary depending on the team you join, the size of the area, and the resources the group uses. The group leaders have a big meeting with some government representative to establish the bag limit for the area for the season. The area where we hunted had a bag limit of 17 moose with those being dry cows, 1st year calves, and spike bulls. Some areas are allowed one or two big bulls. Many parties will choose not to take big bulls as they are trying to improve the moose population by having better bulls. There was a big controversy this season as the hunting party in the area next to ours knowingly exceeded their quota of big bulls in spite of the agreement not to take big bulls. No repercussions other than much toungue wagging and shame brought upon that group.

Hunting is very structured within each hunting group. Each area has set "hunts" which area specific areas which have been mapped out within certain boudaries, each natural (eg lakes) , or man made (cut blocks, roads, houses, etc). The hunt for the morning might be an area about 3-5 sqkm where everyone is set at a "pass" or post around the perimeter. The passes are all numbered and ribboned and positioning for the morning hunt is established by drawing a card at the 7:00 AM prehunt meeting. The parties drive to their access point for that morning's hunt and are distributed at their posts by a that morning's group leader. The group leader has the farthest post from the access point, so he drops everyone off at their pass on the way to his pass. Everyone has a radio but only the group leaders report in when everyone has reached their pass. Of course any moose sightings are reported by radio. If anyone has an opportunity they may shoot an animal but of course they must not shoot towards their team members who are posted 100-200 metres away. Notice hunters are all dressed in flourescent hats, at least.

Once everyone is posted the dog handler(s) release their moose hunds to work the area. (It is illegal to hunt moose without dogs in Sweden) The dog we hunted with was equiped with a GPS/SAT phone which allowed the owner to phone the dog to locate his position. The dogs are trained to bark continuously after they have cornered a moose. Which way the dogs will work the area has already been established but it may change depending on what is reported back on the radios. The hunt lasts from 2-3 hours depending on the size of the area and the number of dogs working the area. Lunch is usually in a rustic shelter around a fire where hunters roast sausages/weiners (korv) and drink coffee.


This form of hunting is almost military in its' planning and deployment, but it is also very social. It is also very effective as we shot two calves that day; one on the morning hunt and one on the afternoon hunt (different areas). Different subgroups take turns field dressing the moose and transporting them back to the slaktbod (butcher/slaughter house) usually in a utility trailer behind a Volvo. The group has about 40 members and they had 13 moose of the 17 at the end of moose hunting week. The season continues on weekends, but only the die hard hunters continue on into November.





There is quite a social element to the whole hunting process as all of the locals get together for the hunt and butchering of the moose. As mentioned earlier the moose is hauled back to the butcher house or slaktbod. Each hunting team has their own slaktbod where they skin, hang, butcher, and distribute moose meat. These are super efficient and organized buildings with winches and tools of the trade for butchering moose quickly and easily. Very impressive process from trailer to hanging in a clean, cool slaktbod. Meat is distributed in a mysterious process where land owners, both hunting and non-hunting, show up to get their share and other hunters get theirs as well. Meat is in a pile or lump and it is up to the recipient to bring a bag or bucket to the slaktbod to transport their meat home.

The next step is to discern what cut of meat you have recieved and to process it accordingly. This is one area where the traditional Swedish efficiency and precision seemed to be lacking. However, I only saw two hunting groups and I may not have understood exactly what process was taking place in the slaktbod.





The local (Stöpafors) hunting group have a big party at the hall on top of the nearby mountain, Tosseberg Klätten. This mountain is a huge local landmark as it has a restaurant, observation tower and it is the highest point in Varmland (our province). The party is a great chance to meet the locals and to have some fun. Hol, J, H, and I had an interesting bus ride up the mountain, some drinks, a tasty traditional Swedish meal,awards, and a live band all in a beautiful log building. The local moose hunters celebrate and let loose after a successful season.