Ponderings over the pond

The meaning of brands...

2012-02-01T08:38:00.000-05:00

If you want to know what a 5-year old thinks about some of the brands and symbol that common companies use. Check it out, it is great!

drip graffiti on railroad bridge

2012-01-31T07:39:00.001-05:00

drip graffiti on railroad bridge, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Seen in Lambertville and part of the old Belvidere Delaware Railroad, abandoned for a long time.

Bacon bits and pieces on the internet

2012-01-28T15:36:00.000-05:00

Do you need a new wallet? Check this one out.

If you just want the flavor, pop a tablet.

Just want the smell, hang this, or the taste, lick this.

And, if you need to cut some bacon, this would be perfect, right? I want one of these.

Favorit i repris: Pine Barren gentian

2012-01-25T09:08:00.002-05:00

Pine Barren gentian, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Just a favorite because it is so enourmously gorgeous. Gentiana autumnalis, a rare species from the New Jersey Pine Barrens, in my hand one and a half years ago.

Poem by Candace Black: Mr. D Shops At Fausto’s Food Palace

2012-01-22T10:37:00.003-05:00

This poem really brings back the previous times when locavore food (locally sourced food) was the normal. Can't you just imagine the fish counter in this little store after reading this?

__________________________________

American Life in Poetry: Column 356

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Nothing brings a poem to life more quickly than the sense of smell, and Candace Black, who lives in Minnesota, gets hold of us immediately, in this poem about change, by putting us next to a dumpster.

Mr. D Shops At Fausto’s Food Palace

For years he lived close enough to smell

chicken and bananas rotting

in the trash bins, to surprise a cashier on break

smoking something suspicious when he walked

out the back gate. Did they have an account?

He can’t remember. Probably so, for all the milk

a large family went through, the last-minute

ingredients delivered by a smirking bag boy.

He liked to go himself, the parking lot’s

radiant heat erased once he got past the sweating

glass door, to troll the icy aisles in his slippers.

This was before high-end labels took over

shelf space, before baloney changed

its name to mortadella, before water

came in flavors, before fish

got flown in from somewhere else.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Candace Black, from her most recent book of poetry, Casa Marina, RopeWalk Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of Candace Black and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2012 by The Poetry Foundation.

Reposted here with permission.

Bits and pieces of winter, maybe

2012-01-17T20:50:00.000-05:00

If you want to see a bird go sledding in the winter, check this out: LINK

One of the few things that stay bright green in winter are mosses. Now you can grow them on your hands! LINK

The European tadpole shrimp, Triops, might have survived 300 million winters... LINK

Swedish food: Blood pudding

2012-01-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

black pudding, originally uploaded by lnairks.

Blood pudding actually have pig blood in it. It is not one of those foods that get a name after how it looks only. If you grow up with it, then it is not too bad tasting, just unusual.

We had this a lot as children, and it was served in school too - at least once a month for 10 years. And school lunches in Sweden when I grew up had only one dish served, there were no options at all. Blood pudding or nothing. Boiled cod or nothing. Liver patties or nothing. Split pea soup or nothing. Kids today have no clue how lucky they are! :) {At least the American ones that have cafeterias with options, I don't know how it is in Swedish schools anymore.)

You buy it in big chunks, round or half-round cylindershaped pieces encased in plastic. Cut off the plastic, slice it up about 1/4 inches thin (1 cm), and then fry it in a pan with butter. Quick and then it is done. Serve with lingonberry jam, and a glass of milk, and sometimes with sliced raw cabbage too. Black, red and white food.

I don't miss blood pudding, it is not one of those flavors that you think of as something you absolutely need from Sweden. I could still eat it though (unless it is the brand that puts soggy raisins into the pudding). I don't think many kids have salivated over the thought of blood pudding for lunch, quite the opposite. But it was a good way to take care of all parts of the animal in the old times and I bet it is very nutritious.

Photo: copyright Lars Niklasson on Flickr (he has also many other Swedish things on his Flickr stream)

Wonderful comedian - George Carlin on Cats and Dogs

2012-01-12T23:34:00.001-05:00

This is one of our absolute favorite stand-up comedians:

Enjoy! (And oh, this is not exactly appropriate for small children, just a warning, but it is hilarious!)

A sports quote and some ponderings

2012-01-12T23:09:00.003-05:00

Football has the same relation to education that bullfighting has to agriculture.                                
           Robert Maynard Hutchins (President, University of Chicago)

This is of course about the crazy college sports that are going on here in the US.  Players that are like slaves, using their bodies for a few years, end up with injuries for the rest of their lives, and earn a lot for a short time, and then nothing maybe.  There are billions of dollars in college sports here in the US.  In Sweden the sports are private teams, unrelated to colleges, like other parts of Europe.  How did US sports come to be so associated with educational institutions?  There are students here in the US that pick their college based on how the football team is doing, not how good the academic programs are.  That is just crazy.

Toothpaste for dinner shows it best in his cartoon, Sports Aren't News.  [OK readers, you may like sports, that is OK, I am not outlawing it, I just think it is ridiculous that more money and attention is spent on sports than making this a better world to live in for everybody.]

Source and copyright for image: www.toothpastefordinner.com

Stamp of the Day: Blue whale (Blåval)

2012-01-11T09:28:00.000-05:00

Balaenoptera musculus - muscular indeed are these giants of the Earth. I have never seen one, but I would love to. This stamp is a joint issue between Sweden and Canada from 2010. Very few whales reach Swedish waters, only some lost ones come in between Sweden and Denmark. The Baltic See is too sweetwaterish (brackish) for most sea creatures to survive well there, so it is only along the West Coast of Sweden you can really see any small dolphins or smaller whales. So Sweden weren't really in the whaling business. We stuck to herring, timber, and mechanical innovations like the ball bearings, dynamite, and gauge blocks. I wonder what whales are thinking when they swim in the ocean these days.... wouldn't it be interesting to know?

Swedish food: Falukorv

2012-01-10T22:05:00.004-05:00

Inbäddad Falukorv, originally uploaded by Cayene.

In Sweden there is a long, light pink sausage called Falukorv encased in red plastic, and it is commonly used as a major dinner ingredient. It tastes kind of like bologna, and should be cooked before eaten (but I know several weekend campers who gave up trying to light a fire or camping stove and ate it raw without dying from it).

When I grew up we had this sausage made in three versions.
1) you slice it into 1/4 inch slices and panfry it, and serve with mashed potatoes and ketchup.
2) you cut it into 1/4 inch thick sticks and make something called 'sausage stroganoff' with it, including lots of ketchup and cream.
3) you keep it whole, but slice it 2/3rds through and put slices of apples, onions and cheese into the cuts, and then bake in the oven. Ketchup and more cheese is good on top!

Both 1 and 2 were served as lunch food in the public schools.

I don't really miss falukorv here in the US, and for me this is real childhood food. And yes, there was lots of ketchup when I grew up. Next week we will go on to another Swedish childhood food - blood pudding.

Photo 'Inbäddad Falukorv' =Embedded Falu Sausage (copyright Cayene on Flickr).

Happy Birthday, AA!

2012-01-09T20:50:00.001-05:00

All the living lobsters in the world wishes you happy birthday. And the salmon and scallops too. And from lettuces, spinach, and eeverything else that have helped you along so far, and every song Bob Dylan wrote, and all of us - HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now, here is the question for the day: "How does it feel..." (to be 18)? GRATTIS!

[Note to readers - we had salmon and scallops of early birthday dinner on Saturday, and today we boiled 4 delicious whole lobsters and ate them dipped in lemon butter. The lobsters were from Maine, of course...]

The December that didn't become winter, and a historic weather year

2012-01-08T22:05:00.001-05:00

Last year, 2011, was weather-wise a not very wise year in New Jersey.

We had snow storms, ice storms, rain storms, hurricanes,

Result: The third warmest year on record, and the wettest year ever (since 1895). In our township we had 71.92 inches of precipitation, that is 1826.768 mm (for you used to the more smart SI system, and I never really got into the inch-thing anyway). That explains all the horribly flooding, including the water in our basement.

Those of you that don't believe in global warming and that it might be influenced by your cars and living style - how about you spend some time in a flooded or icestuck place for a while? It is real, it is here, it is happening right now!

Here are some weather related photos from 2011... lets hope for a more 'lagom' year this year:

Update: here is a good link to the warmest winter so far ever in the northern hemisphere.

Ice Hockey Gold Medal to Sweden

2012-01-06T10:22:00.005-05:00

The Junior Icehockey team from Sweden, with boys born 1992-95, defeated the russian team yesterday ( or today, swedish time). Last time a Swedish junior team got a gold medal was 1981.

I want to extend my big congratulations to the team and all of the Swedish fans. These guys are ice hockey heroes, and you will see them in the American NHL league in a couple of years.

The picture is a proposed stamp from a news paper in Sweden, Aftonbladet. If you are in Sweden, watch the game on svt.se/play.

Yllebroderi

2012-01-06T08:54:00.004-05:00

Under sommaren och hösten har jag broderat två stycken kuddar efter att varit på en kurs i yllebroderi. Det har varit fantastiskt roligt och trivsamt att skapa dessa kuddar utan att använda ett färdigt mönster eller förlaga. Den övre är skapad av verkliga och fantasifulla fåglar och den undre visar mina motiv som jag upplevt den här sommaren, en upplevelse som jag delat med min dotter och hon har fått kudden. Yllegarnet som jag använt är mycket fintrådigt och lätt att arbeta med.

Translation by LS: During the summer and fall I have embroidered two pillows after taken a course in crewel embroidery. It has been a lot of fun and wonderful to create these without having to use a preset pattern or original to copy from. The top pillow features real and imaginative birds, and the lower pillow shows some of the things I have experienced this summer with my daughter, and she was given that pillow as a gift. The wool yarn I use is very thin and easy to work with.

A new word learned: Linkrot

2012-01-05T22:54:00.000-05:00

I just saw a new word, and one that makes immediate sense: LINKROT

This is when old web pages and other things online eventually have many non-working links because the pages it links to have changed through time. The web is in flux, it is not a constant thing, like pages in a book. So the links rot away, with time, like a dead tree in the forest.

When you are looking for some more interesting things...

2012-01-04T21:12:00.000-05:00

..to read or think about, head over to the interesting WEEDS EVERYWHERE blog.

Happy New Year, 2012!

2012-01-01T13:25:00.001-05:00

Hout Bay sunset, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Welcome 2012, I hope you will have calmer weather than 2011. Gott nytt år to all readers of this blog!

The photo is from Hout Bay in South Africa, where I was in 2008.

2011, the year of the Dishcloth Knitting Frenzy

2011-12-30T09:46:00.001-05:00

2011, soon over, was the year I discovered the Ballband pattern for dishcloths. This is a pattern from the 1950s that was printed on the back of the band around the yarn balls. So, I started knitting some, then some more, then changed the patterns a bit, then knit, changed more, and so far I think I have made about 25-30 of these. They are now spread out over the world, among families and friends, and maybe 8 are left here to be used in the house. As far as I know we are the only ones using them to wipe out old coffee and other things on the counter with, since most everybody else are using them as pot holders or hotpads in the kitchen.

If you make the dishcloths in cotton, then you can throw them in the laundry once a week, and I think the handmade cotton ones are a lot better than soggy, old-milk stinky Wettex wipes (that is a Swedish thing, for you Americans and other readers; OK, OK, I like them too, but these are much better). I bought a large box of the American-made Peaches and Cream cotton yarn, in many different colors, including some variegated ones and started knitting (while watching old Law and Order and other shows on Netflix and DVD...). And now I am out of yarn, so it is time for another project. I am working now on two bathmats, also in cotton, but thicker, so we will see how they come out soon.

This is the original pattern:

And here are some of my variants on the pattern:

And this is how one of my new patterns looks up close:

God Jul, everybody!

2011-12-25T15:20:00.002-05:00

straw ornament, Swedish style, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Wherever you are, whatever you celebrate, or if you are just relaxing and taking a break before 2012 starts with a bang!

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

2011-12-23T21:40:00.001-05:00

Here is my partial list:

In English:
It's a wonderful life [can't live without it, strangely enough I had never heard of this movie when I lived in Sweden]
Miracle on 34th Street [for the smartest Santa ever, plus black and white is fantastic]
The Holiday [modern romance, with modern complications, ah I love this]

In Swedish:
Karl-Bertil Jonssons julafton [animated, a postoffice clerk decide to reroute some Christmas gifts to needy kids]
... (EH and the other can fill in the rest here, it was so long since I lived in Sweden)

Stamp of the Day: Pomegranate

2011-12-23T15:52:00.000-05:00

Pomegranate (granatäpple in Swedish, Punica granatum in Latin) is a wonderful fruit. It has hard seeds surrounded by fleshy, bloodred juicy arils, nested inside a labyrinth of white placental flesh (it is actually called that, botanically). Nobody really knows where it grows wild, maybe on the tiny island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, but it has been cultivated and eaten by humans for thousands of years. We open the fruit, squeeze out the seeds over a bowl (so you don't get red juice all over you and your kitchen), and then put the seeds in salads. For Christmas Day dinner we are having a turkey, served with balsamic-pomegranate glazed carrots. Those carrots are to die for.... In case you didn't know it, the apple in the Paradise in the Bible most likely was supposed to be a pomegranate, but when they translated it into English for the northerners, nobody knew that fruit up in the cold north, so it became apple instead.

"Are you going to blog about that your daughter got into Pratt?"

2011-12-23T15:21:00.000-05:00

Asked my daughter. Yes, I am. Right here. Right now. We found out a few hours ago and said talented, wonderful daughter is all excited. Pratt Institute in New York City is one of the best art schools, and here is a sample of her art. Congratulations!!!!!! What a wonderful Christmas present.

Today is the shortest day of the year....

2011-12-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

... YES! That is a good thing. Of course, in the southern hemisphere it is the longest day of their summer. Honestly, I don't want spring and summer yet. I want winter with snow. We had our crazy October snowstorm, and since then, nothing... not a white flake. It rained all day yesterday, and somehow the Christmas feeling is not really there... yet.

Stamp of the day: Assar by Ulf Lundkvist or Sausage

2011-12-22T08:08:00.002-05:00

I come from the land of sausages, mushrooms and spruces. Sweden!

Ponderings over American school food and eating habits

2011-12-21T23:04:00.001-05:00

It is a well-known fact that there are many kids that won't eat anything green, spicy, or 'weird'. This might be based on their genetics, such as that they have specific alleles for tasting bitterness that some people don't have. With age, we get used to it and the genes matter less.

However, I think most kids today stick to bland, mass-produced factory food because their parents feed them that kind of food, out of convenience and influenced by advertising. McDonald's burgers (with no lettuce and tomatoes on the kid burgers, mind you!), french fries, chicken nuggets in a heat up plastic box, poptarts from aluminium foil packets, neon-colored 'cereal' with marshmallows, all soaked and dusted with fat, salt and sugar, oh the compounds we humans love!

And, it certainly doesn't help that most parents eat such food too, so they are not providing a home environment with real cooked food and a variety of ingredients. Many parents just take the easy way out - why force Bill to eat broccoli and have a scene at the dinner table? "Frozen pizza is so great, lets have it for dinner", again.

So, it is absolutely no surprise to me that a big food experiment with school lunches in Los Angeles failed. (read the news story here) They changed the menus to include more vegetables and healthy food, such as new dishes such as veggie curry, jambalaya, and pad thai (Mmm...). Now, my kids love those three things, but I don't think most kids do. Actually, I know most kids don't. In the test program, the schools got rid of chicken nuggets, nachos, chocolate milk, and other fast food calorie-bombs. The kids hated the change, many refused to eat the new food and just threw the food in the garbage. Undercover food snack deliveries started, and it was just a giant flop.

I am not surprised at all. First, these kids probably never or rarely had healthy food at home, at school, at restaurants or anywhere else. They are brought up on the bad stuff, and their parents eat the same thing. Unless you get the parents with you, and start this early on it will not work. I guess the only exception are those weight-loss boot camps where there is no alternative, "either you eat this or nothing, and there is just desert around here so you better eat here".

Second, if you are in middle and high school, there is giant psychological tension at all time, and especially in the cafeteria. Eating something weird, or not eating something, can easily turn into a trend, a thing to be teased over, or just something you don't want to deal with. Cliques of popular kids can very likely influence loads of kids not to eat something strange.

Third, in the schools, why was the left-over food thrown away? Give it to some pigs if it is leftovers from kids' plates. Keep the pigs outside the cafeteria, and tell the kids where bacon comes from! If there are left-over food from the kitchen, pack it up and give it to soup kitchens, hungry Occupyers, disabled vets, or anybody else that needs some great, fresh food. (This idea came from VFK when we talked about this.) If the food could be thrown away like that, then they also have a bad recycling system at the schools.

Fourth, if you really want people to change giant habits like this you to have to make it relevant to them. It has to be personal, not imposed by Big Brother, and it has to feel like an option, not a must and something a teenager has to rebel against. Use it as a teaching moment, without them realizing it is educational. Have cooking classes with parents plus kids. Do survival courses without any cooked food, with foraging from basic ingredients only. Grow the food on the school yard, plow up all that useless grass. Make the football team dig potatoes by hand for exercise. Keep bunnies, chickens, and pigs. Eat weeds. Cook cultural dishes from around the world, and cook ethnic 'fast-food' like dishes. Spaghetti with sauce, tacos, hamburgers - these can be great and good!

If I could decide, certain foods would be outlawed, and there would be no food advertising in TV (or anywhere else) for kids under 10. And no fake infomercials either. Everything would have 50% less sugar in it (if it had any to begin with), and no cereal would have food coloring. Everybody would have to intern at least 2 months on a farm, in a bakery, slaughterhouse, kitchen, or something like that before they end high school, to understand where food comes from and how it is made. (Actually, interning at a hamburger patty factory might not be bad. Might turn you off hamburgers forever. ) And kids should visit farms all the time, from the time they can put their fingers in their mouths and say gaga over sheep and apples. Chicken nuggets and other super-processed machine-made food should have giant warning labels on them, saying "NON-FOOD FACTORY PRODUCT".

In the end, I think this is of course a societal problem, but it really comes down to the parents. If the parents don't care about food, and the food for their children, then the kids will not care. If parents give in and are laissez-faire parents (=letting any little kid decide for themselves all the time), then you get kids that are whiny, picky, irresponsible, selfish, and won't eat any anything real and interesting. And who wants to live with such a person when they are adults?

Of course processed fast-food taste good, it is made to make us love it - it is all part of the commercial plans to sell more and to earn more money for the companies. But you don't have to buy into it. As a parent, stay strong, and if you slip now and then, that is OK. I have given my kids Hungry Man TV dinners, mac and cheese from a box, Spaghettios from a can, and so on. At the time, it was what I could handle, because of other circumstances. But now they eat nearly everything (well, one is a vegetarian that eats fish, and neither eats beets, which is perfectly fine).

It is never too late to change, to try something new. But to dare to try, I don't think you should be in a giant high school cafeteria and be served lukewarm sticky jambalaya surrounded by other teenagers that tell you it looks like "you-know-what"... I think this whole food movement would work better if people knew how to cook better, so maybe that is where things should start. With a knife, a pot and a cutting board. Maybe we should have survival courses in the kitchen. "How to cook from scratch during 5 days without electricity and a functioning fridge", hehe... Well, we don't have to be that drastic to begin with. How about "How to cook from ingredients that come in boxes with less than 3 ingredients listed on each box"?

(And a caveat - there are exceptions of course, but I think everybody can eat better. Being 3 years old is no excuse to live on only 4 types of food.)

This makes me feel small...

2011-12-20T22:57:00.001-05:00

GOES Satellite Sees Strong Front Bringing Blizzard Conditions to U.S. Southwest, originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

A satellite image from NASA taken yesterday. It looks like there is frothy diluted cream whipping around in most of the atmosphere.

Bits and pieces from the internet: stringy edition

2011-12-19T22:46:00.002-05:00

The Ford Focus orchestra, a must see: LINK
Update: More info on the Ford Focus orchestra here.

And here is a stringy favorite! Check it out. (I love the sightings.)

I believe Sweden still is String Cheese free. That is good for them. Except, maybe Swedes can buy it now. I just read on the all-knowing Wikipedia that is actually comes from Europe.

Let kids make things with strings, and other things. Make them into makers. (Wired)

Real packages uses string. Except the US post office do not allow string anymore. It is all tape, tape, tape.... (Shorpy)

This is your computer when sick...

2011-12-18T20:54:00.002-05:00

oh boy, defragmentation needed, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

No wonder this computer was underperforming.

Stamp of the Day: Three cows

2011-12-18T20:38:00.001-05:00

A simple stamp from a couple of decades ago, I think. Cows, three simple Swedish cows eating grass. I love the simplicity of it, and the design. What do you think?

Book review: How to survive the end of the world as we know it by James Wesley Rawles

2011-12-17T16:53:00.001-05:00

After recently reading S M Stirling's Emberverse series and liking it (at least the 2 first books in each series), I decided to look into the survival literature, just in case 'what if' happened. Rawles' book How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It describes how you prepare for a doomsday scenario where government and facilities such as electricity, fuel and food deliveries, and communication breaks down.

His advice is to live in a place that can be self-sufficient for years, and that is defendable against rioters and other criminals when law and order is no more. He describes in details which food items that store well, what medicines to keep on hand, where to get training in First Aid, canning, shooting, and how to learn how to barter (and what to barter with).

The beginning of the book was OK, but it was lacking details for many things when it comes to food production, preservation, and medical issues. Most of the book is focused on details in radio communication, weaponry, and defense tactics. I realize that such knowledge and tools might become a way of surviving, but in the end, what will matter is if you can feed yourself for a longer time.

Of course this book includes a lot of right-wing frenzy, but the truth is that many of us could be much better prepared for a week or more without power, water, and ways of communicating - situations that have and will continue to happen based on hurricanes, storms, and other such events.

For example, more of us should know first aid. But going to army surplus and buying razor wire for cash (so it can't be traced) and hiding old silver coins in the walls for when the dollar is gone, that is not really my thing. But apart from the fear-mongering, there are some really good advice in it. I wish he had included more summaries such as tables and been somewhat less repetitive with his favorite abbreviations. The third, forth... fiftieth time he uses WTSHF (= when the shit hits the fan), it is kind of tiresome.

One interesting fact I learned was that dried wheat grain can be stored for 30 years if they are in moisture- and vermin-proof containers.

His best advice overall are:
1. Don't become overly dependent on gadgets.
2. Learn First aid.
3. Buy tools that last, which are usually older tools.
4. Don't assume that you have access to anything in the rest of society. Be as self-sufficient as you can.

Spots, threads and snippets from the internet and media

2011-12-14T23:06:00.001-05:00

From my forays and wanderings around the internet the last couple of weeks (months, maybe...):

Newsweek has an article about rich people buying modern art, more to show how rich they are more than because they like it. One of the artists they say is overvalued and will not last is Damien Hirsts with his paintings of colored spots. The same week (= today), New York Times has a long article about Damien Hirsts and his marketing scheme and moneymaking art. I can definitely live without a spot painting in my house, but I think they are cool. The kind of cool that would fit in a modernly designed library or hotel foyer. If I had something like that in my living room it would b dizzifying and disturbing, and probably reminding me of ads for M&M candy or something.

A famous needlework woman just died, Erica Wilson, and I unfortunately didn't know about her until now. Being in a family filled with embroiderers, I immediately notified he other side of the Atlantic (Sweden). Here is an example of Erica's design. I wonder if she is related to the incredibly talented Erin Wilson, who makes the most artistic and amazing art quilts I have ever seen. We bought a tiny sample from Erin at our visit to the Philadelphia Crafts Show, which I will write about later. But her quilts, oh wow! But Wilson is such a common name, so probably not a relation. Example of one of her quilts (my own photo, so not that great):

Some exoplanets might be made up of lots of diamonds. You think they sparkle like diamonds then? It must be hard to dig there, the shovels loose their edge pretty fast.

For those of us that still write and draw by hand, think and take notes, there is Moleskine. A company that is doing better and better. It is the backlash against the techno-stupid, I am convinced of this. While some people follow their GPS' directions literally and take a right turn straight into a church, others are contemplating life with carefully (or sloppy, it is OK) drawn lines generated by real thoughts. It is your choice: be real, or be a automaton, copycat, and online addict.

That's all for now.

Tranströmer - tired of words

2011-12-14T22:29:00.002-05:00

During the Nobel Prize party a few days ago, the wife of Thomas Tranströmer, the Novel Laureate in Literature, read this wonderful poem by him:

Trött på alla som kommer med ord, ord, men inget språk
for jag till den snötäckta ön.
Det vilda har inga ord.
De oskrivna sidorna breder ut sig åt alla håll!
Jag stöter på spåren av rådjursklövar i snön.
Språk men inga ord.

Tired of everybody that comes with words, words, but no language
I traveled to the snow-covered island.
The wild has no words.
The unwritten pages extend outwards in all directions!
I discover the tracks of deer hooves in the snow.
Language but no words.

Thomas Tranströmer [translation by LS]

I can see it in front of me, an island surrounded by frozen water in winter, stillness, no people, just the man and the snow, frozen bare branches, blue icy sky, and a few birds looking for something to eat in the brush. And then the tracks of the deer, winding its way through the landscape, telling a story without words.

Winter Sun, a photo from the Finnish Baltic archipelago by Niklas Sjöblom (Flickr)

In a way this also reminds me of a very different poem/song, Blå Hjärtans Blues, by Eva Dahlgren. In English, the song (called Blue Hearts' Blues) starts with these lines (translated by me):

The island lays empty in the winter sea
a last ferry turns back towards the city
at the pier, here I stand
and see my lover choose
My head so heavy of the truth
I see your foot tracks in the snow on the way home
so light steps that say so much more
than frozen words on your lips

Bye baby blue
caresses me in the night
with her sadness
bye baby blue
all these memories
in a dull moonlight blue tune
[cont.]

That is the beginning of this song about relationships, break-ups, winter, ice, and islands, just like Tranströmer's poem. The blues song ('bye baby blue', etc.) she refers to I guess is something by Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday. Listen to Eva performing the song here: Youtube link, and here are the complete Swedish lyrics.

Stamp of the day: Christmas flowers

2011-12-14T16:26:00.004-05:00

This years christmas stamps from Sweden are wonderful, especially for plant lovers!

Quote of the Day: autospeak from customer care agents

2011-12-06T21:55:00.001-05:00

I called the Wells Fargo bank about our mortgage, and got to the wrong department. The friendly, human but slightly automated person offered to transfer me to the mortgage department and I said 'of course, yes please'. She then continued with this phrase:

"If I connect you, will that take care of the reason for your call?"

My mind did a double-take, went into reverse warp speed, hiccuped, and then I said "what?", since the logic didn't work in my brain. She repeated her question, exactly like before. By then I had figured out what the sentence meant and how stupid it was, so I just answered:

"I don't know yet."

Whoever is writing these scripts for customer 'care' people who are answering the phones for companies really need to think a bit more human and logical. How in the melting snow of Antarctica am I supposed to know if a transfer will take care of my problem? How many stressed out people don't even bother to think and just automatically answer 'yes', when confronted with this an unanswerable question? It seems like that the question is there just to provide some positive feedback to the customer 'care' agent.

A while ago I had to call the internet company and was on the phone with someone in the Philippines for half an hour. When the call ended, he entered into the auto-stupid-written-down-speak and said 'thanks for calling Comcast, we are happy we could help you today..', whereby I interrupted and said 'actually, you didn't, the problem is still here and you couldn't solve it'. He then admitted to that at least.

leaf hoppers on Prunus

2011-12-05T22:43:00.001-05:00

leaf hoppers on Prunus, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Are there leaf hoppers in Sweden? There should be, I think, at least if they are this gorgeous. I took this photo in a wetland near a pond, here in New Jersey. But the small hoppers look tropical in their colors!

"I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore"

2011-12-05T22:36:00.001-05:00

I just read a great thing about the way many people talk today = they talk in a way where it is impossible to understand exactly what they mean. Or even remotely understand what they are trying to say. The article is by Dan Pallotta, was published in Harvard Business Review, and you can read it here. It is really worth to spend a few minutes on this article (it is not long).

Dan Pallotta talks about the five expressions of this epidemic of stupid talking:
Abstractionitis
Acronymitis
Valley Girl 2.0
Meaningless Expressions
Abstract Valley Girl 2.0 Acronymitis Using Meaningless Expressions

I have seen all of these in presentations and discussions, and it often drives me crazy, even if I am guilty of it too. But no longer. But I will still wear my T-shirt (which is on today!) that says "think outside the box" with a drawing of a TV. But I do think we need to get the language we use back to reality.

It is very interesting to ask someone that just has fed you a long sentence of abstractionitis, "So, what does that really mean?" Often, they have no good answer. Which means, they had nothing real to say to begin with. In Swedish, we call this 'ordbajseri'. (That means sort of like 'bullshitting' in Swedish, but more mean.)

Dan's example about 'exceeding expectations' is hilarious. I think most consumers no longer have any (and certainly not high) expectations regarding services and products. The products or services just break or don't work out well. Just ask anybody that is flying with Continental recently, for example. So, exceeding expectations is not really what you want to focus on as a company. How about focus on making products that are not made to break, try to make customers happy and satisfied and not just poor and angry, and have a personal, local touch? Without speaking abstractionitis or acronymitis... :)

What if the people that suffers from these epidemic speech patterns not only speak but also think this way? That would be scary. How can they then reason logically, think straight, and make good decisions? So, back to simple reality, in speech too.

The most farfetched advent calender ever

2011-12-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

Count down to Christmas with Hubble telescope images: LINK

Source: Hubblesite.org

This is just amazing, I love it! (thanks IS, for the link). The photo above is of the Crab Nebula.

Twittering in the forest (the real thing)

2011-12-04T10:44:00.002-05:00

This morning I was going for a walk along our rural road on the mountain, watching the bare branches, some broken from the previous storms, and enjoying the clear, frosty air. The iPod in my pocket was playing a podcast of a short Swedish radio program called Tankar för dagen (Thoughts for the Day), where authors, ministers, scientists, physicians, social workers, artists, etc. write short essays, no longer than 5 min, that they then read. It can be reminiscences and memories, thoughts about religion, ethics, psychology, or just reflections over modern life or times passed.

I was just listening to a short essay about how we often plan for a better life and for things to happen, while life just happens around us. The author quoted John Lennon: "Life is what happens when you plan other things." (Or something like that.). Suddenly I saw something and stopped. Turned off the iPod (which was on a very low volume anyway). Beside me, in the forest, were thousands of migrating grackles. And more were coming. They were on the ground, creating an image of boiling leaves when they where throwing leaves up to look for something to eat. Some were in the trees. Some were flying up, some were flying down. Pitch-black metallic bodies, with metallic blue heads, like dark shadows, just chirping and twittering a bit. More and more were coming, with no end. They came between the tree trunks from the north, thousands and thousands.

They got scared and all flew up as one from the ground and a giant swoosh of wing sounds. Down again. Over the road. More grackles coming through the forest, for ten minutes at least. It was impossible to count them, too many. I think there was about 50-100 crackles per second arriving from the north, and since this happened for many minutes, that are many thousands of crackles. Giant large flocks, flying seemingly synchronized and random, maybe 50 000 birds? Where did they come from, in December, and where are they going? The grackles left us months ago, so these must be from the north.

Two cars went by, as did two bicyclists in their silly streamlined spandex suits, but nobody stopped to look. You couldn't miss the birds, the drivers just weren't interested. And there is was, life happening, right in the forest, while most of us where busy planning for other things. It was a gorgeous experience, a happy event, something Bob Dylan could have written a song about. The largest flock of grackles I have ever seen, and it just happened to fly by.

I think this is relevant in many ways these days because so many of us forget to really experience things. Instead we read about them, watch them on YouTube, hear about them through Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail, but we forget to see the real things right in front of us. It is like this comment by comedian Louis C K from a YouTube video - what if Jesus would come back to Earth, would people listen to him or just send instant text messages about their experiences? All this instantness is stupidifying and shallow, it makes us forget to think, listen, and reflect on what is really around us.

For the record, I am not on Facebook, Twitter, I don't text (SMS), I have no cable TV, but I think the internet is good, in the right doses at the right times. But all this electronic, digital media and instant, stressful communication can destroy the real experiences and make us make stupid choices. We forget to see, listen, and think about the real things, since we are just rushing to the next thing online. It worries me profoundly. More on this later...

Stamp of the day: Lichens and conifers

2011-11-30T06:46:00.005-05:00

Stamp from Åland, an island between Sweden and Finland, which belongs to Finland but have their own stamps.

This time of year is the best time to look at lichens,mosses and conifers here in Sweden. The leaves have fallen from the trees and the light reaches down to the ground level again. And there they are in all their glory! Amazing structures, colourful and slowgrowing. Most people don´t think about it but they are also part of our Christmas traditions. In our advent candle holders, the tradition is to put "white moss" around the candles. It´s actually not a moss but a lichen that grows in Swedish forests.

And I believe there is quite common to have little Christmas gnomes made of conifer cones and felt fabric. At least we have them, homemade of course!

What's for dinner?

2011-11-29T16:01:00.001-05:00

roast duck, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Roast duck! At least about two months ago. It was so delicious! Crispy. And easy. Try it!

Adventsljus

2011-11-28T02:20:00.005-05:00

Picture borrowed from LellePelles Flickr album.

Första advent har kommit till Sverige, och nu lyser adventsljus i alla hus. Mörkret är kompakt på kvällarna, så alla ljus är välkomna. Någon snö har vi inte fått, men i morse var det is på pölarna i alla fall. Om det inte kommer snö till jul ska sonen springa runt huset i badbyxor har han sagt.

Hoppas ni har det bra i höstmörkret runtom i världen!

The first advent weekend has come to Sweden and there are lights in all the windows in the houses. There is a compact darkness in the evening so any light is welcome. No snow has arrived, but this morning there was ice on the water puddles at least. If snow doesn´t come by Christmas Eve, my son says he will run around the house in swimwear.
I hope you all have a good time in the autumn darkness around the world.

On the terror of leaf blowers

2011-11-21T20:58:00.001-05:00

(Photo by Jennanana on Flickr, 'Rakes', Creative Commons license)

There seems to be a type of people that can't stand fall. They can't enjoy the gorgeous beauty of fallen leaves, transitions of seasons, and to let fall be fall. Instead, they bring out their noisy, polluting, gasoline-monster leaf blowers and destroy the whole feeling of fall.

'Leaves are evil. Leaves have to go away. Leaves are ugly, dirty, nasty, and germy piles of nature's rubbish'. That is what their actions seem to say. I think this is just another rendition of the common fear of nature.

Dear neighbors, park managers, and landscaping companies, leaves are meant to fall in the fall. That is what nature is. It is part of the natural circle. But I guess you think nature is bad. Everything has to be organized, controlled, squeaky clean, and then, in effect, artificial and unsustainable.

It is not normal to have a green lawn without a leaf on it in October. It is abnormal. It is not normal to run a leaf blower for 2.5 hours straight on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It is bad, both for the Earth and your health. If the leaves bother you, get the rakes out and get some exercise at the same, in the nice quiet sounds of nature, such as swishing vulture wings, woodpecker's hole-making drumming, and screeching blue jays. Spare me the leaf blower terror, please, please....

(It turns out I am not alone. Los Angeles have banned leaf blowers, and here is a link to some more information about leaf blower terror in the US.)

eleven eleven eleven

2011-11-11T16:43:00.001-05:00

11th November 2011, 11.11.11, originally uploaded by Wyse Creations.

A very special day here at home...

Our cat Smokey..

2011-11-06T17:22:00.002-05:00

pole cat, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

..suffers from a strange, new syndrome named "I think I am a hawk so I am sitting on this fence pole hunting mice"...

It was dusk, therefore the photo isn't what it could have been. (Oh, and she was far away too and no telelens...)

"pics, or it didn't happen" - snow storm in October in NJ, USA

2011-11-06T09:33:00.000-05:00

These photos are from a week ago, last Sunday. What a weekend. Snowstorm, no power, in the middle of a gorgeous autumn. The peppers were rescued from the garden on Saturday morning, by Saturday afternoon everything was white and you could hear crashing trees and branches everywhere around you. Sunday morning we woke up to blue sky, sunshine, and wintry glistening snow, and a giant mess. Power was restored Monday, which was sooner than I expected based on all the tree damage. Our roads to our house were also opened on Monday afternoon, when the trees and power lines had been fixed. Our gasoline generator made sure we had power for the well, furnace, and fridge and freezers.

Nearly all our trees got severe damage, with the most damage on the maples, lilacs, and Metaseqouia (dawn redwood). There were branches down over our driveway, mailbox, truck, deck, and walkways... Most of these photos are from the day after, which felt like a crisp day in February, not October...

Conclusion, it did happen: More photos here.

Stamp of the Day: Winter mountain

2011-11-02T08:24:00.000-04:00

A snowy mountain from Sweden...appropriate I thought after our record-breaking snowstorm last weekend here in New Jersey. But more about that crazy storm later. I think this might be the mountain ('fjäll') Sylarna, but EH and IS can probably confirm that. The stamp is from 1967.

November

2011-10-28T12:40:00.005-04:00

It is something special with the autumn.

November med skiftningar av ädelt pälsverk
[November with Nuances of Noble Fur]
skrivet av nobelpristagaren i litteratur 2011 Tomas Tranströmer
[written by Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2011, Tomas Tranströmer]

Just det att himlen är så grå
får marken själv att börja lysa:
ängarna med sitt skygga gröna,
den paltbrödsmörka åkerjorden

Det finns en ladas röda vägg.
Och det finns marker under vatten
som blanka risfält i Asien-
där stannar måsarna och minns

Disiga tomrum mitt i skogen
som klingar sakt mot varann.
Inspiration som lever skymd
och flyr i skogen som Nils Dacke.
____________________
Update and translation by LS

The sounds of fallI(ing)

2011-10-24T08:02:00.001-04:00

The rustles in the forest floor's leaves when the gray squirrels are rustling for fallen hickory nuts.

The screeches of the bluejays, drumming of wood peckers and twitters of chickadees comes from the bird kingdom.

The soft touching of once-green leaves on the trees, now yellow, orange, brown, rust and red, and about to drop dead.

Wet soft splashing sounds from the little brook, which was dry most of the summer and then a roaring feast during hurricane Irene.

Silent wind bends the grasses, little bluestem, purpletop, and other species, and bears the cut-out black shapes of turkey vultures on the sky screen.

Fall is here, slowly enveloping nature and changing it, inevitable. It is gorgeous.

Stamp of the Day: Cinnamon

2011-10-20T20:54:00.000-04:00

Cinnamon is a wonderful spice, and what you eat when you taste that brown powder is ground up bark from cinnamon trees. The story is that the best cinnamon has to be cut with silver knifes (I bet that is not true!). There are at least 4 species that have been used as cinnamon, and they taste slightly different. This Indian stamp depicts the most valuable one, which has bark that rolls up on both ends of the edges, into a tight cigar-like roll. Cinnamon is in the Lauraceae, the laurel family, same as bay leaves, sassafras, and laurel. I love cinnamon, in small doses, on cinnamon rolls, rice porridge, and in Swedish Christmas glögg. In Swedish, the word for cinnamon is 'kanel'. I know, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Quote of the Day: calling the smart people at the Collegeboard.com about SAT

2011-10-20T20:41:00.000-04:00

I had reason tonight to call the CollegeBoard, the people that administer the SAT, the big dreaded test taken by all American highschool students that want to go to college. These are smart people asking tiny, detailed questions about grammar in their tests.

In the automatic answering system, which guides you to the right place when you call I got this question:

"Are you a parent or a student? Answer yes or no."

OK, I am a parent, but not a student. Do I answer yes or no? I bet someone thought this was a very straightforward question, but I don't think so...

What do you think about this ceiling lamp?

2011-10-16T22:19:00.000-04:00

Gorgeous? Ugly? Weird? Wonderful? It is called ”Alaska”, and costs 7600 SEK (which is about $1500). Photo credit Fredrik Funk, and the lamp is sold by Watt & Veke in Sweden. They have more of the same mixed style, look at this: Aspen and Finere.

I think this lamp is very ugly. When you see sticks like this out in nature, they are gorgeous. When Andy Goldsworthy puts together his art of a jumble of sticks along a seashore it is gorgeous (see link and photo here). But this, this reminds me of a crow nest, and feels far to 'over-designed' ("utstuderat" is what I wanted to say, but I don't know that expression in English). The contrast between the wood and the black is too much! I also think it will make weird shadows from the lamps, so not very functional either. OK, that is my opinion, what is yours? I bet you think differently! :)

More crazy nature-inspired design things here.

2011-10-15T21:54:00.001-04:00

The other night I asked PP if he could remember the name of that Wild West comic character, Lucky Luke? PP had no idea who I talked about, and it turned out that Lucky Luke, who I read all the time as a kid, probably didn't make it over the Atlantic. But he was my first introduction to the Wild West. The real Wild West, with bandits, cacti, sunsets, coyotes, and sharp-shooting cowboys in cowboy boots and western hats. This comic was dreamed up and then started by a Belgian artist, Maurice De Bevere. The Belgians were really into this, and gave us kids the unforgettable Asterix and Tintin too. Thanks, we loved you as kids! It is amazing that Americans don't know about the most amazing comic book Wild West hero of them all, Lucky Luke, and his mangy dog (Rantanplan, the stupidiest dog in the universe), riding away in the sunset after getting the bad guys...

Lucky Luke always smoked, and when I realized there were Lucky Strike cigarettes, I thought these two things obviously were connected. Not so.

Stamp of the Day: Biomass energy

2011-10-14T08:06:00.000-04:00

Here comes the forest, sliced up and ready to be put into the furnaces of the bioenergy plants. Stamp from Sweden, simple and clean graphics.

Stamp of the Day: Rink, ice, club, helmet, skates, puck...

2011-10-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

This US stamp is for AREA, our ice hockey fan in the family. Skate on!

Arrows in the soil...

2011-10-11T21:09:00.002-04:00

(LS: A wonderful poem about times past and connections between now and then)

American Life in Poetry: Column 337 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

South Dakota poet Leo Dangel has written some of the best and truest poems about rural life that I’m aware of. Here’s a fine one about a chance discovery.

Behind the Plow

I look in the turned sod
for an iron bolt that fell
from the plow frame
and find instead an arrowhead
with delicate, chipped edges,
still sharp, not much larger
than a woman’s long fingernail.
Pleased, I put the arrowhead
into my overalls pocket,
knowing that the man who shot
the arrow and lost his work
must have looked for it
much longer than I will
look for that bolt.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©1987 by Leo Dangel, whose most recent book of poems is The Crow on the Golden Arches, Spoon River Poetry Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from A Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota Poetry, Patrick Hicks, Ed., Pine Hill Press, Inc., 2010, by permission of Leo Dangel and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2011 by The Poetry Foundation.

OK snapshot: Money CAN buy happiness (lycka)!

2011-10-10T08:50:00.002-04:00

1 hour, only 200 SEK! ;)
(LS added: And, comes with nuns! Seen in Stockholm)

OK snapshot: Fall flurry

2011-10-10T08:49:00.002-04:00

"If I only had more speed..."
(from Stockholm, Sweden)

OK snapshot: Stockholms hamnar... (Stockholm's harbor....)

2011-10-10T08:48:00.005-04:00

...jumps the shark.

(LS comment: I guess they mean mind the gap, but I didn't get that at first :)

OK snapshot: Small window of opportunity

2011-10-10T08:48:00.004-04:00

Just another brick in the wall.

Stamp of the Day: Vallmokapslar (poppy fruits)

2011-10-09T21:32:00.001-04:00

Sweden does have gorgeous stamps. In the US, stamps have to be so politically perfect, fit the general population and absolutely fit the political climate. In Sweden, there is a different sense of what is beautiful, like these poppy fruits. These are from three species of poppies, two are common agricultural weeds, and the third is, you guessed it, opium poppy, commonly grown as an ornamental, advertently or inadvertently, but still part of the unofficial Swedish flora. Lovely stamp, don't you think? BREV means letter, which for practical purposes is the same as first class stamps in the US. (For the botanically inclined, Papaver is the Latin name for poppies.)

Tranströmer - oh yes.

2011-10-06T23:16:00.001-04:00

Another great Swedish poet is getting the Nobel prize: Tomas Tranströmer. The other one was Harry Martinson, one of my absolute favorites. I haven 't read much of Transtromer, but what I have seen so far id fantastic. it is very different from Martinson's poetry, indeed. Congratulations!

Some reactions from American press:
The New Yorker
The New York Times
Poets.org
NPR

and a poem, with translation by me:

MINUSGRADER by Tomas Tranströmer (ur SANNINGSBARRIÄREN 1978)

Vi är på en fest som inte älskar oss. Till sist låter festen sin mask falla och visar sig som den verkligen är: en växlingsbangård. Kalla kolosser står på skenor i dimman. En krita har klottrat på vagnsdörrarna.

Det får inte nämnas, men här finns mycket undertryckt våld. Därför är detaljerna så tunga. Och så svårt att se det andra som också finns: en solkatt som flyttar sig på husväggen och glider genom den ovetande skogen av flimrande ansikten, ett bibelord som aldrig skrevs: 'Kom till mig, ty jag är motsägelsefull som du själv.'

I morgon arbetar jag i en annan stad. Jag susar dit genom morgontimman som är en stor svartblå cylinder. Orion hänger ovanför tjälen. Barn står i en tyst klunga och väntar på skolbussen, barn som ingen ber för. Ljuset växer sakta som vårt hår.

BELOW ZERO by Tomas Tranströmer, translation by LS

We are at a party that doesn't love us. Finally the party lets its mask fall off and shows what it really is: a railroad switchyard. Cold giants stand on rails in the fog. A chalk has scribbled on the rail car doors.

It can't be mentioned, but here is much suppressed violence. Therefore the details are so heavy. And so hard to see the other things that also exist: a reflection from the sun that moves along the building wall and glides through the unknown forest of unaware faces, a bibel quote that never was written: "Come to me, because I am as contradictory as yourself."

Tomorrow I work in another town. I whirl there through the morning hour that is a large blackblue cylinder. Orion is hanging over the frozen ground. Children are standing in a quiet group and waiting for the school bus, children that nobody is praying for. The light is growing as slow as our hair.

Weird real quotes: Waiter

2011-10-06T06:45:00.000-04:00

While having lunch here in New Jersey a few days ago, the waiter came up after we had received our food and said:

"How did everything come out so far?"

Excuse me, but I am not in the bathroom. I am eating!

Stamp of the Day: Eskilstuna

2011-10-05T23:13:00.000-04:00

Can you believe it? My hometown in Sweden has a Swedish stamp! This is Eskilstuna, a town about an hour west of Stockholm. Listed at the bottom of the stamp is the friendship cities of Eskilstuna in Norway, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark. The images are typical for the town, the double-towered cathedral (not as old as it looks like), a sculpture in Torshalla by local artist Ebeling (I think), and the old 16th century blacksmith houses in the old historic town area for traditional trades (Rademachersmedjorna). When I grew up it was mostly famous for being the home of Volvo BM's factory of giant dump trucks, a hospital, the home of one of the ABBA girls, and... I can't remember. I am sure it has changed now.

Stamp of the day: the power of wind and lines

2011-10-04T22:08:00.001-04:00

We are continuing our little series (2 so far) of energy related stamps, here with a Swedish stamp featuring wind power (vindenergi). I love the clean lines... Sweden stuck to real engraved stamps for along time, and some are still done this way, but I think most American stamps by now are made with less time-consuming graphical techniques. The engraver of this one, Czeslaw Slania, was the master of Swedish engraving, and in fact, the world master of stamp engraving and world famous for his work for 28 countries. He was hired by the Swedish postal office in 1959. Here is the 1000th stamp he engraved: link.

Book review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2011-10-02T21:39:00.000-04:00

After a long stretch of semi-interesting to really bad books (see this, for example), I opened up this book and just loved it. I don't want to write a long review, because the book has to be experienced, be loved, and be enjoyed on its own terms, because this is what it deserves. The Help by Kathryn Stockett is about the black maids in southern US in the 1960s, their lives, loves, and despair, and about the white women that hire them, use them, depend on them, and sometimes, respect them. I insisted on reading it before I watched the newly made movie based on it, so now I am ready. If you have read the book, the movie is never better than the book, I think. But this book gets a 9 out of a 10, so I am not worried about the movie being really bad. I heard some had complained that a white woman shouldn't write a book about black women, but come on, that is the stupidiest thing I have heard. If that is so, then women can't write about men, Swedes can't write about Norwegians, and black men can't write about white men. We are foremost people, humans, and not our color, citizenship, or gender. Compassion and understanding is deeper than skin color or culture, at least it ought to be. So, if you want a great read, a good story, and deep thought mixed with fun stories, this is the book. It is just like life is. Just read it. A++

Vote for the most bizarre comment from a service tech....

2011-10-02T17:53:00.000-04:00

This is from an online chat today that I had with a service tech for an online course system. After this morning, it was no longer possible for me to upload any files to the course website, and the error message was "the files do not exist or are empty". They were there and they were certainly not empty. The problem - their system does not support Firefox 7 and now they want everybody to go back to Firefox 3.6. Ha. Firefox 4, 5, and 6 worked fine, and suddenly Firefox 7 doesn't work, and then they want me to take 3.4 steps back in versions?

So, here are selected quotes from the chat:

1. Abel: I can only tell you what we know.


2. Abel: The decision is yours.

3. Abel: It is a decision above my pay grade.

So, which one do you vote for in as the most bizarre or weird? I won't tell you my favorite, not yet.

Stamp of the day: piston, flywheel, and cylinder

2011-10-02T10:14:00.002-04:00

Germany has some really nicely designed stamps, clean and simple. Here is an engine piston (I think). Maybe PP can interpret it better? Looks like a flywheel with gears and a cylinder with a piston inside. I am not sure if this is from a steam engine, gas engine, or what...

UPDATE: Our friend BV just sent me this, which explains the stamp in detail (thanks!!!!):

If PP hasn't let you know, the engine pictured on the stamp is a Otto
Langen Free Piston Atmospheric Engine, circa 1867.

A small flame, like a pilot light on a stove was at the base of the cylinder.
I do not know the starting procedure, but as the engine was running, if
the wheel started to slow down, a gas, like natural or coal gas, was
admitted into the bottom of the cylinder, and a little trap door would
open next to the base.  The flame would be drawn into the base, igniting
the gas, and drive the piston upward.  This would push the vertical rack
gear attached to the piston and engage the gear on the flywheel shaft,
increasing the speed of the wheel. The inertial energy would be stored in
the rotating wheel, which drove a load attached to it.  As the flywheel
slowed down to a certain speed, a governing mechanism would start the
process over again to keep the engine running until the fuel supply was
removed.

You can see one at the Rough & Tumble Museum at Kinzer, PA.
It is run for exhibition days.

looking in...

2011-09-29T07:47:00.002-04:00

morning glory studies, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

... into the center of a morning glory (blomman för dagen).

They are back... en masse!

2011-09-25T17:16:00.000-04:00

The Asian invasive species, brown marmorated stink bug, is once again crawling over the outside of our house in hundreds, maybe thousands... Every little crack for them is a possible place to overwinter. What a stinky pest. Here is how you identify them, and we think the best way to kill them is to take a glass of water with some soap in it, and drown them in there. They smell less when they are in the water, and they die quickly. More good information about these pesty insects here. (I can smell them where I sit in the living room, from the outside. Ick.

Stamp of the day: Tulips

2011-09-25T04:25:00.005-04:00

It might seem strange to choose tulips, a spring flower, for a stamp of the day in autumn. I have a good reason for that, it´s planting time if you want spring flowers.

Tulips originate from slopes of the great Asian mountains. Small, exquisite flowers. Nothing like the ones we grow as cultivars.
I have some concern regarding the tulip growing environmental impact, since swedes love tulips. We buy them as bulbs in autumn for our flower borders and we buy them as cut flowers in stores all the spring months. The environmental impact is possibly pretty large, since the bulbs are grown in large fields in Holland with lots of fertilizing and then shipped here. Or grown in heated greenhouses and shipped here by truck. To get the right bloom, the bulbs are also store in temperated climate during summer. Chilling and heating takes energy. These bulbs are always bigger than the ones you can grow yourself in your garden.

But there are alternatives, if you like. Old tulips that where grown for perennial behavior still exist. I have tried to choose these rather than the large blooming "annual" bulbs.
There are several kinds you can choose from. The botanical species such as Tulipa tarda and Tulipa clusiana among others. Old Darwin tulips like Couleur Cardinal from 1845, this is my favorite. All the Apeldoorn tulips, good perennials. This year I am planting Carnaval the Nice, Marilyn and Verona, which has a scent of lemon!

Deers love the taste of tulips too, so I prepare my tulips with a mix of oil and tabasco sauce. And I fence them.

Stamp of the Day Citroen

2011-09-24T09:22:00.001-04:00

There is nothing like a French car, right!? Here is an old Citroen, Traction Avant. Nice! We have been watching a great French movie "The secret of the grain" (link to review), which is set in southern France among Tunisian immigrants. It is fantastic! See it if you can. OK, so there are no old Citroens in it, but that is OK. It is filled with cous-cous, emotions, and great moments.

Equinox

2011-09-23T06:45:00.005-04:00

Today is Equinox, the day when day and night are the same length. Wikipedia has an article about this astronomical and earthly fact here.

I checked up the English name, in Swedish it´s "höstdagjämningen".

Equinoxe...thoughts go back to childhood and music of Jean-Michel Jarre, a french musician who made music with synthezisers only. Very futuristic at the time, by 1978. LS used to listen to this at home a lot. Do you recall the music, LS?

Late bloom in my garden

2011-09-19T03:39:00.006-04:00

Såhär på hösten är det bara några få växter kvar i blom. En sommarens sista hälsning innan allt börjar vissna ner när temperaturen sjunker. Nu börjar det bli kallare på nätterna men dagen är fortfarande varm, upp mot 15 C grader.
Nävan Geranium 'Rozanne' blommar envist vidare och och sommarljuset Gaura linderheimi i vitt ackompanjerar med vita fjärilsliknande blommor.

Chokladblomman (Cosmos atrosanguineus) från Mexicos pinjeskogar har blommat hela sommaren. Den ska jag övervintra torrt för ny njutning nästa sommar! Dessutom doftar den kakao.
En solhatt Echinacea purpurea har bekänt färg i år. Den första blomman (och enda) från fröer som LS har skickat mig.

Här tillsammans med en annan blomma, drakmynta,Physostegia virginiana, som jag drivit upp från en liten stickling. Blommar länge på ett tätt ax med stora gapliknande blommor. Jag hoppas den kommer att trivas och blir en tät planta med tiden.

En älskad höstflox, Phlox sp., från torpet, nu hitflyttad till Södertälje.

En senblommande trädgårdsstormhatt, Aconitum sp. En blomma som välskyddad ut för regn och rusk, vilket passar bra idag när vädret är ruskigt ute.

Om jag vore humla skulle jag ta skydd i en stormhatt!

Chokladblomman, med en härlig doft och sidenglans.

Gorgeous weed in our garden

2011-09-15T21:51:00.001-04:00

Ivy-leaved morning glory (Ipomoea hederacea), originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Isn't it beautiful, climbing around in the asparagus?

It is Ivy-leaved morning glory (Ipomoea hederacea).

Things have slowed down here on the blog due to too many things that needs to be done, but there will be more interesting things soon. This weekend is BioBlitz, and I am sure there will be stuff to report!

Today's stamp: Kantarell (Chanterelle mushrooms)

2011-09-11T16:12:00.006-04:00

Har du sett herr Kantarell?...uti i enebacken! Han är glader, han är snäll och är så gul på hatten....

(Translation of Swedish childrens' song: "Have you seen Mr Chanterelle? On the juniperslope! He is happy, he is kind and so yellow on his hat...)

Today's mushroom picking results: 13 liters of prime kantarells and 3 liters of trattkantarells. (Sorry for the svenglish, guys!) All found in the vicinity of Barking Dog Plaza!

(Update - translation by LS)

A visit to Longwood gardens

2011-09-07T21:25:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago we had reason to drive to the other side of Philadelphia, about 2 hours away, to pick up a great machine we bought, a Gravely mini-tractor! The pick up place was only 10 min from Longwood Gardens, one of the most famous gardens in the US, so of course we had to stop and visit. I have been there several times, but each time is a little different. It was an overcast day, and pretty hot, but still a real garden experience. Here are some impressions, and click on the photos for larger versions on Flickr.

This just doesn't do it for me. Totally artificial, and all about having controlling power over nature and shape it into unnatural forms. Topiary craziness, indeed.

Bonsais, like this pomegranate, are also about power over nature, but somehow this is more based on nature's own circumstances. The plants will simply die if you don't take care of them at all, and the plants are meant to look natural, even if in smaller, dwarfish shapes.

The palm house with cycads and Monstera's is always such a lush and overwhelming place.

I love the water lily ponds. Even if they add black dye to the water to get better reflections.

From inside the greenhouse, between one of the greenhouse rooms and a music room. I liked the contrast between the soft fabric and the climbing plant.

Nice reflections in the sunken tree fern greenhouse, with pink plumerias.

In the tree house you can listened to the sound of the forest. We didn't hear anything. It is not only light pollution at night around here, but also sound pollution in the daytime.

Green, green, green forest. Nice.

\
From the Du Pont Mansion's exhibit: Just like this figure caption, my mother also told us to differentiate between 'clean dirt' and 'dirty dirt'. The clean stuff was, for example, if you dropped your sandwich in the forest and it was down for a few seconds, then you could pick it up, blow the pine needles off, and then continue eating it. Dirty dirt was somehow more related to humans and other animals.

Too perfect landscaping is boring and stressful. It is like a painting with geometric shapes, not how living things really want to be. Again, all about control. this kind of landscaping is like painting with plants, forcing them into your own design, without any respect to them and what they can and will do. And not a weed, as far as yo can see.

Book Review: and I shall have some peace there by Margaret Roach

2011-09-05T10:04:00.000-04:00

I like biographical books describing someones sudden change in life, travel to new places, or how they deal with new environments and experiences. There are many great books about such challenges, from very introspective, to nature writing, to childhood tragedies.

So, when I picked up this book, I thought it would be about something similar, how a person did find peace on her own little dirt road.

Margaret Roach was an editor at Martha Stewart Living for many years, and lived a fast and stressed Manhattan life. On the weekends she drove up to a cottage she owned a few hours north of New York City, where she tended a garden on a slope near the Berkshire mountains.

In the book she describes how she quits her job, leaves the city, and moves up to the cottage (hmm, I just realize that I have no idea how big her house is or how it looks), to live there full-time. This is when the trouble starts, both in reality for her, and with the book. She never describes WHY she left, what it was she wanted to get away from. It is just very vague. Same thing when she is in her cottage, WHY is she lost and feel invaluable? Her writing is great, but the content is fragmented, and there is hint after hint, but very little data about her (except she needs to point out several times that she is very petite and only a size 2, and a vegetarian for 30 years... it gets a bit tiresome). I wish that she had described the situations and challenges better. After reading the book I can't even picture her garden or house, nor the landscape it is situated in. I can picture many of her snakes though... It is just not descriptive in a sense where you can understand, it is just fragments, like specks of paint on an old T-shirt.

She leaves her job at the start of the American recession in 2008, while the health care debate is going full steam and we are about to elect a new president. The world is full of war, environmental problems, health care issues, unemployment disasters, and stock market crashes. But all she cares about is to move to her little cottage, tend her garden and be alone. That is all well, but she never seems to realize that she is incredibly lucky by obviously having amassed a fortune big enough to buy such a place, not work for pay, and still be able to have health insurance, enough food, and all others of life necessities. This is not how most people's lives are, so if she want us to understand her personal challenges and life story she better have to describe them better because most people would LOVE to be in her position. But, I have a feeling she thought that writing this book would be a great way to get some more money (she says so), so the content of the book was less important than that it was a book, period.

Maybe many upper-class women at a similar age (50s) can connect with her feeling of being lost in the world, but I cannot. Is that because my world is filled with valuable things such as education of a new generation and research that improves society, knowledge and people around me...? I can see that if you work at Martha Stewart Living how mostly caring about wall color, having a perfect geranium, and collecting green glass could get tiresome in the end. Tiresome and maybe with a loss of doing things that really matter in the world. But the solution to this would not be to create a garden just for you, but to do something that matters and brings change to many, I would think. But Margaret Roach did not. There is a lack of balance here, and the lack of balance consist throughout the whole book.

She really lives a luxurious life in that she could make this decision and spend 2 years gardening and write a book... but she seems totally unaware of what is going on in other people's lives and the world and is 100% self-centered. In fact, after reading the book I must say that she portrays herself as very selfish. Many people would love to have a garden they could spend all their time in, but few can realize this dream. Margaret does, and she opens up her garden to the public a few times a year, but the rest of the time it is mostly her and the garden and a few friends. The worst things that seem to happen is when a gray fox family moves into the garden and starts a communal fox bathroom in a corner, which she fights day after day with coyote urine. She comes through as a spoiled Manhattan rich girl, unfortunately. I am sure she is a nice person, but her self-centered focus gets tiresome early on in the book.

Her deep fear of snakes is a theme in the book, as is her longing for 'being someone'. So, there are snakes, and I am afraid of them too, and eventually she deals with them and manages her fear. But everything is so personal, in the sense that you get the feeling she thinks the frogs are there for her, and her only.

People love her book, and her blog (which is equally self-promoting and selfish, I think), but I got rather annoyed. If you want to make the world a better place, then go out and do something about it. Make small changes in your local community if you like, you don't have to join the Peace Corps. It is a great way to feel important and valuable, if you become valuable to others and creative positive change. (All Margaret seems to have done is to flip burgers on the grill once in a while at a local community picnic.) But hunkering down behind a garden gate that you rarely open more than once a week and become an hermit living on past earned money, it is luxury and not a challenge. Well, maybe a mental challenge, of course, depending on how your mind works. I don't like to critize people that write biographies and stories like this, but I have to say that this book rubbed me so much the wrong way.

Summary: Rich girl moves to country where she writes and gardens, full of self-pity, selfishness, fear of snakes, and in the end realizes she is somebody. Grade: C (but the writing is good).
(Note: I am sure Margaret Roach is a nice person, and this review is only based on the book. But if you write books like this you set yourself up to get criticized, especially if you turn out to be as navel-gazing as portrayed in this book.)

The Pacman plant (according to my husband)

2011-09-04T22:12:00.001-04:00

The Pacman plant (according to my husband), originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Just a regular water lily at Longwood Garden that suddenly took on a whole different meaning...

2011-09-04T21:16:00.000-04:00

Acid Rain stamp from 1986 in Sweden. Around this time I was active in a non-profit youth organization in Sweden and we inventoried the acid rain damage on spruces in our neighborhood as well as taped up protest posters against the acid rain falling over Sweden. A lot of the acid rain was created by German industries, but some was from within Sweden as well. I remember well how we biked around taping posters at intersections without trying to get noticed by anybody (=police mostly) at 5 AM. I don't think our parents knew, or if they did, they let us do it. Nothing ever happened, no police car ever showed up... but the acid rain threat was real, and the forests were dying. It is better now, because of better cleaning of exhausts from energy and other industrial plants. Oh, and of course the cars made a lot of acid rain. Somehow it feels like we are fighting a bigger threat today, bigger and more omnipresent and more hard to grasp - global climate change. Back in the 80s, things were simpler, at least for us teenagers.

Stamp of the Day: Sauna

2011-09-03T22:48:00.000-04:00

Leave it to the Finns to have a sauna stamp (or 'bastu', as it is called in Swedish, after badstuga, meaning bathing house). These men are unusually dressed for sauna, with fresh birch branches strategically located in front of their bodies. Some sumemr days it feels like a sauna in New Jersey, but it never really gets that hot (about 19- degrees!), and here certainly are no nice lakes or oceans to take a cooling off dip in. Sauna is a great invention, and wonderful for both body and mind...

Quote from the news: Are we there or not?

2011-09-01T23:00:00.000-04:00

"You hear so much about how instantly reachable we all are, how hyperconnected, with our smartphones, laptops, tablets and such. But the maddening truth is that we’ve become so accessible we’re often inaccessible, the process of getting to any of us more tortured and tortuous than ever."

Great article, or maybe more opinion piece, by Frank Bruni in New York Times, about how difficult it has become to reach each other. It is really true. I monitor 3 e-mail addresses several times a day, have 2 more I check sometimes, and one cell phone, and one home phone. I do not text, twitter or do facebook... so people know that they should e-mail me. I have a work phone with an answering machine I rarely check (few messages on it). I am on Skype, sometimes, used to be on all the time, but it got too interrupty. I write comments on blogs and Flickr... there is many many snippets of communication going on, all the time.

It used to be that phone answering machines were checked often, now they can stay unchecked for days. I strongly believe that we are so connected that we feel the need to hide, to disconnect, or we won't have time to do anything. But, if anybody in my family calls my cell, I will call back as soon as I can, always. But do we really need all of this? My most precious communication events are the dining room conversations here at home, handwritten letters and notes sent to me, and long, thoughtful e-mails from friends and family. None of those can be done on Skype, twitter, texting (SMS), Facebook, phone answering machines... it would just become to short and fragmented.

Maybe it has become so easy to communicate that we no longer think about what we write. In the old days, when you had to dip the pen into the ink every few seconds, you had more time to think, to formulate, and decide what to say and not to say. These days you just throw things out there. And there are so many things thrown out there, that your message might be drowning, severely, unless someone really, really cares about what you have to say at that particular moment. But, maybe we often don't even have the time to care even if we wanted to, because we are stressed animals with too many distractions and too much to do... running around in circles trying to make ends and time meet.

Happy Birthday, EH!

2011-08-31T23:00:00.000-04:00

Here are two ladybugs for you. In Sweden, these beetles symbolize good luck.

Hurricane Irene: calculations...

2011-08-31T22:51:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Katia is on her way towards USA.... stop it, we don't need any more hurricanes!

From a comment on NY Times:

"Bridges must survive (bottom of the structure to be above the flood water elevation) a 100 year storm. This is a storm that statistically happens once every 100 years although it can happen at any moment. Large drainage structures under principal roadways must pass a 50 year design storm and common pipe and catch basin systems are to carry a 10 year storm. Above that, damage and clean up occurs.
Rainfall from Irene was somewhere between a 100 and 500 year storm. "

Imagine that. I can't. And I am afraid there are more of these on their way.

Even Maureen Dowd, opinionator in New York Times, is annoyed at self-pitying New Yorkers that thought the storm was too hyped, and they bought too much bread.

And, things are still very bad for many. Poor Vermont. We are aching for you!

Hurricane news won't stop

2011-08-30T17:27:00.000-04:00

And more bad things from hurricane Irene:

Wilmington, VT is destroyed: link with many photos
We have passed through here several times, it was a cute lovely town.

Just went to our supermarket, which was without power for two days and the workers are now emptying out ALL persihables. Tons of icecream, all fish, meat, lots of cheeses, frozen pizza, it all goes to landfills now. Shelves are naked, including lettuce and produce. It was interesting what was left. Eggs were OK, and milk, and vaccuum packed cheeses. Bacon was OK, but not much of the yougurt...

Saw a new road sign on the way home, from our police department:
FLOODED ROAD
TURN AROUND
DON'T DROWN

(sorry, didn't have my camera, it would have been worth many photos)

As per request: more hurricane aftermath news

2011-08-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

Vermont towns isolated: link

Summary on CNN about the devastation (check out the Vermont photo gallery!): link
LIFE magazine, best photos: link
More on the devastated Prattsville in NY: link

We also heard that our local supermarket in our town has been without power, and now is throwing out half its food.
NJ flood map: link
NJ summary of still bad flood news: link

We are doing fine here, we have water, power, open road, and just two trees and mud to deal with...

More horror photos from flooded places after hurricane Irene

2011-08-29T22:45:00.001-04:00

Click on photos to get to the originals on Flickr...

And more: NJ flooding from the air

More news about how easy the New Yorkers had it compared to many others

OK, soon it will enough of hurricane coverage here on the blog. But we are still right in it. One bridge has reopened, part of our town won't have power for another two days maybe, our tree is still leaning over the road and only hanging on because of a telephone wire, and many of our friends have lost basements, bridges, and other important things... It is a giant mess out there. I am really longing for a house where you can be self-sufficient (with internet) for 2-3 weeks without problems.

Dreaming: Wishlist for a new house further north...

2011-08-29T22:02:00.000-04:00

...a little bit further away from 9 milliion people of New Jersey, highways, and hot humid summers... (Vermont and New Hampshire, do you hear me?) This is what I dream of, in no particular order, for our new house...

solar power
solar heated water or something like that
greenhouse attached to the house with a big thick brickwall on the northern end to keep the heat during sunny water and spring days
own well, water that works when power is off, and enough water for watering garden in the summer without worries
high ground, no risk for flooding house or basement or lost bridges
no basement
wood stove, to heat the house and to cook food on if needed
smart design and architecture to conserve energy and easy to heat
lots of forest and fields, no noisy neighbors
vegetable garden, deer free, easy to care for raised beds, good soil for everything, sunny spot for longer season than usual
not too many bears, I hope none
pond you can swim in, or tiny lake, downhill from house of course
little easy to drive tractor
not too long driveway to plow
not too far from pleasant town with library, friendly store and coffee shop
farmers market with locally made eggs, cheese, and meat, or at least this within 30 miles or so
a nice job without a too long commute for me (30 min is OK)
guestroom, maybe two, for all our friends
lots of firewood for free
a giant barn or workshop for PP's machines, tools, and equipment
a garage to park the car in during snow storms
no big trees close to the house, so I don't have to worry about them falling on me while I sleep
a nice pantry for storing lots of preserved and dried foods
an orchard without sickly fruit trees: pears, apples, plums, and cherries
rhubarb, gooseberries, currants in the gardens
nice neighbors, friendly and funny
gorgeous views of hills and mountains, sunny spot
many good places in the forests for wild mushrooms
a house not built between 1965 and 1985... (I generally can't stand that style)
satellite internet or something like it
a tractor with a plow
affordable cost to buy and not too high taxes
an outside kitchen area with place for a grill, even when it rains or snows
propane stove (never going back to electric, ever)
generators for when the power goes out, which could go on for weeks if necessary
freezer with good food
cable TV/internet for netflix movies when the storms hit (I could live without this, but I like it)
birdfeeders for all the lonely birds that need to be fed
few snakes, few mice that goes inside, and a happy spot for Smokey and Ella outside
a nice reading chair and a nice reading lamp by a window and a cozy corner for winter afternoons for me
owls at night, when you open the bedroom window
a studio/guestroom with northern lights for AREA
a studio/guestroom with northern lights for LA

I think this list might be getting too long...but I am a bit tired of New Jersey.
Do you believe that if you wish for something really hard, it will eventually happen? At least partially?

Media in Manhattan should think before they talk

2011-08-29T14:00:00.002-04:00

I find it very disturbing that those people that think this storm was 'not so bad' and that the government 'cried wolf' and 'over-warned' people, seems to be the ones that are sitting in a high-ground area and never lost power (such as Manhattan). Guys, look around you, outside of your immediate comfort zone. In the media, both Swedish and American, there has been several articles saying this or quoting people saying just that.

I bet these are not the people that are volunteer firefighters trying to get a sick 7-month old to a hospital in the middle of the storm, or a friendly neighbor that comes over at 4 AM to get a second sump pump going in someone's basement. No, these are people complaining that they bought too much bread and water because of the warnings. Guys, grow up. Be real.

Millstone River, had record flooding at Blackwells Mills, the highest EVER recorded, at 21.24 feet (about 7 m) over normal. This is the river I have to cross to get to work... might take some days before the bridges are open. Manville downriver is evacuated and flooded. Bound Brook is horribly flooded. Things are bad and crazy out there, and New Yorkers complain that they bought too many batteries?

Note that of the last six major floods, three has been in the last five years. We are getting more rain than ever. This is the effects of climate change. Less than a week ago, we had record rainfall... the list will not stop, it will get worse.

(1) 21.01 ft on 09/17/1999
(2) 19.24 ft on 04/16/2007
(3) 18.68 ft on 08/28/1971
(4) 16.84 ft on 07/15/1975
(5) 16.15 ft on 03/14/2010

300 000 households in New Jersey have no power back yet. We were just lucky to get it back so soon. (Actually, it is even more people without power. And part of a highway is now in a River. And so on, read more here. )

Brattleboro and many other towns in Vermont are under water. That is a street down there, under the brown guck. Our favorite stores in Brattleboro are under water, as is historic Hotel Latchis, you can see their brick building in the distance.

So, if you managed through the storm OK, that is great, but do not complain that you were warned too much. Next time your house might be hit by a tree, your stuff might be under muddy waters, or you might be out of power for days. You never know. You might just have been lucky this time. Nature is more powerful than you.

Here is a summary of the media coverage and destruction caused by hurricane Irene, showing that in fact it was really bad, whatever media and unaffected people say. Maybe not bad not for some pampered and grumpy city people in New York, but for the rest of us. Here is a quote from the same article:

"On average, hurricanes that make landfall in the United States as Category 1 storms have produced about $600 million in economic damage. The losses from Irene look as though they’ll be something like 25 times that. In terms of the amount of economic damage it caused, in fact, Irene is much more like a typical Category 3 hurricane than a weak Category 1."

Bye Hurricane Irene...

2011-08-29T09:12:00.002-04:00

We are glad Irene is gone now. A map from NY Times showing rainfalls and the track of the storm.

I can't get to work today, the bridges across Millstone River are all flooded. I wouldn't go to work anyway, we have enough to deal with here at home.

A giant tree down in our backyard.

Actually two trees, but the second one is leaning out over the road and hanging on the telephone, cable TV and internet wires. I guess the township will come and clean that up, we can't. If the wires break, then the tree will fall down in the road (which is closed right now, but people that live along the drive drive by carefully). Both trees were uprooted in the storm and stood outside our fence but fell onto our property. It is kind of crazy how trees can stand upright at all when a 25 m tall tree with a 1 m thick trunk has such as small root system. The powerline was under this tree too, but PSEG fixed that yesterday (see below).

Clean the floor in the basement, full of soil and dirt from the flooding. The soil here was soaked after giant rains previous in the week so just a few hours after it started raining, we had water flowing into our higher-level older part of the basement and when it was the worst we had 2 inches around our furnace. But no major damage to machines and other basement things that we know of yet.

By 2.30 in the morning we had 4 siphon lines sucking water out of the basement using long garden hoses, and we are lucky we have a door out to a lower part of the garden where the water can go, all by itself using the amazing thing called gravity. But it took us hours to get the hoses going, it is more complicated than you might think when you have no pumps and have to manually suck or push water through 100 feet or rubber hose to get it going. It rained until around noon yesterday, and by then the wind came on stronger too. I am so glad I bought 2 more hoses (the last ones in the store) two days before the storm. It is always good to have an extra 100 feet (30 m) of heavy-duty garden hose.

The kids were amazing (thanks AREA and LA), being out in the dark helping us with hoses, keeping their spirits up despite thunder, darkness, water-filled boots, mud, wet clothes, and just general despair at times. PP was a hero too of course, he saved the basement by having the battery backup for the sump pump going. And our friends BV times two, were great. Thanks all of you.

People died here in the state, mostly from driving into deep water in rain and darkness and being swept away. Why are people out driving when it is so bad? And then when they get rescued, they risk the rescuers' lives. People are sometimes so incredibly unprepared and stupid. Do not get into your car when the weather is bad... it is very simple. Some people seem to think that nature is not more powerful than society, but they are so wrong.

Here comes the new powerline! This time our power company PSEG was amazingly good! Heroic! When I first called in our power outage the calling center said we would get power back on September 4, next Sunday, which would have been VERY BAD (that is more than a week). And then the tree fell, and I called that in, and a few hours later three giant PSEG trucks were here to restore the power and sure, by 5 PM yesterday it was back! Yipee. Showers, hot water, sump pumps, computers, and even the internet (through cable) was back!

Uprooted tomato and pepper plants. Sunflowers to the right have seen better days.

Our driveway after the storm. Those ruts are about a foot deep. Unfortunately all the water from the neighboring horse fields drains down into the corner opposite our driveway and a large amount of it then goes straight into our driveway and then into our basement... this has to be fixed!

It was really strange (and nice) to wake up this morning to a clear blue sky, lots of sunshine, and no wind. Low nice temperatures and only 41% humidity. Perfect for washing and drying all those clothes, rags, towels, etc. that are still wet from the storm.

One neighbor has a tree down over their hot water tub house (which didn't break the glass window on the roof, amazing), another had 4 trees down over their driveway, and our driveway is totally destroyed by rushing water. Oh well, but taken all into account, we did OK, nobody is hurt, the basement is relatively dry, and others had it and still have it much, much worse. Some people have lost everything, had to be rescued from their houses in the dark, buildings collapsed in Philadelphia, and many cars are under water. So, we are doing fine, relatively speaking. Oh yes, we are terribly sore in our muscles from the basement work, but that is OK too. Most workplaces are closed, the trains are not running (Trenton train station tracks are under 1 m of water), and the big university has postponed the start of classes with one day, to Thursday. In Vermont they have unprecedented flooding and some of our favorite places there are under water. So it is not over yet.

Back from powerlessness....

2011-08-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

Short report...

We are back on the electric grid since 30 min, after 18 hours in the dark. Last night was kind of tricky, with trying to get trickling siphon hoses from the flooding basement areas out through the door for automatic but slow (and realiable) water removal. The backup battery to the sumppump worked too, yeah! If it weren't for this stupid position of this house with water coming in and flooding it from uphill at major storms, and therefore the need to an all-on-call sump pump to pump out water... but more on that later. Our next house should not have a basement! Damage in the garden as been assessed and will be reported later. I am just writing this to let you know we are all OK, even if very tired (up to 2.30 AM dealing with basement floods), dirty, sweaty, but all safe and not hungry. Trees are down, our road is closed, but more on that later (with pictures!). We might loose power soon again, so I am going to rush and take a shower now, while I can. Many, many trees can still fall in the strong winds...

Here it comes (hurricane eye is 6 hours away)

2011-08-27T19:50:00.000-04:00

It is still over North Carolina, but we here in New Jersey are getting some winds and lots of rain now. Only one outside cats (Smokey) have been seen. We grilled tonight, probably the only people in the township that bothered to try to light a grill fire. Mmm, grilled turkey breast. If the power doesn't go out tomorrow, then we will post how things are... I am pretty happy there are no hurricanes in Sweden.

Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae)

2011-08-27T17:51:00.002-04:00

morgning glories, Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae), originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Our morning glories [blomman för dagen], self-seeded weeds in our vegetable garden, are especially gorgeous this year. Well, we will see how great they look after the storm.

What's under the hurricane clouds?

2011-08-27T15:23:00.001-04:00

TRMM Satellite Shows What's Happening Under the Hood of Hurricane Irene's Clouds, originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

Rain and more rain. Click on the picture to read more from NASA about this.

Hurricane Irene from the International space station...

2011-08-27T14:02:00.002-04:00

Hurricane Irene (NASA, International Space Station, 08/24/11), originally uploaded by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

That cloud vortex is just incredible...

Preparations for the hurricane...

2011-08-27T09:52:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Irene has hit the North Carolina coast, and our area has been downgraded to an expected tropical storm, still storm vinds and lots of rain starting tonight. Without a backup generator, we are prepared with filled up waterbottles, flashlights, backup batteries to sump pump, hoses, drillpumps, buckets with water to flush toilets, ice cooler, and all loose things in the yard have been stowed away as good as possible. The area along the wall of the house that usually leaks water during heavy rains got a new layer of soil yesterday (thanks kids!), and is not covered with a tarp with stones on top. The cats will stay outside, but have their houses to huddle in. Lots of food and propane stove will keep us fed. So, as long as not too much water gets into the basement, we will be OK, even if cut off from power. But it is a strange feeling. Sitting here and waiting for a storm we know will come. It is no wind at all outside, totally still. Foggy, cloudy, 91% humidity, and a bit eerie. I feel like making cinnamon rolls.

Still some more to do first... check all flashlight batteries. Close the attic window and remove its fan. Pick all ready tomatoes in the garden. Brine the turkey breast for dinner...

More tomato dishes

2011-08-27T09:45:00.000-04:00

..from our overabundance of tomatoes...

Tomato, mozzarella and basil salad plate.

Tomato, avocado, mozzarella salad.

Making sundried tomatoes in the food dehydrator.

Bluest purple....

2011-08-27T09:41:00.001-04:00

morgning glories, Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae), originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

From our garden...

A new steam boat!

2011-08-26T16:57:00.009-04:00

Igår hade vi celebert besök i Södertälje. [Translation by LS: Yesterday we have a famous visit in Södertälje.]

Ångbåten Eric Nordevall (II) är en kopia av en båt som trafikerade Göta kanal ( Stockholm-Göteborg) från 1837 till 1856 då hon sjönk. Det var en av Sveriges första ångbåtar.
[Steam boat Eric Nordevall (II) is a copy of a ship that once toured Göta kanal ( Stockholm-Göteborg) from 1837 to 1856 until it sank.]

Eric Nordevall is letting the steam whistle blow to salute another boat.
Below: Södertäljes own steam boat, Edjern on the way back to the Baltic sea through the #sluss#.
[sluss = lock in English]

Inside the hot machine room with the impressive steam engines visible left and right.

Eric Nordevall from back, below the deck are the passenger cabins.

Vraket hittades på 45 meters djup i Vättern i närheten av Vadstena 1980 och har väckt intresse då det är en hjulångare med sidohjul, med två separata ångmaskiner på vardera 7 hk. Forsviks bruk startade ett projekt att bygga en kopia och den är nu klar och ska döpas av HKM kronprinsessan Victoria på måndag i Stockholm. På fartygets dopresa har de angjort ett flertal hamnar och kom igenom Södertälje igår. Vill du se filmer så finns de här.

[The wreck of this boat was found at 45 m depth in Lake Vättern nerar Vadstena in 1980 and created a lot of interest since it is a paddle wheel steam boat with two separate steam engines of 7 horsepowers each. Forsviks Bruk started the project to produce a copy of this boat, which is not finished, and it will be christened by Crown Prinsess Victoria on Monday in Stockholm. During the ship's virgin trip they have stopped at several places and passed through Södertälje yesterday. If you want to see some movies of it, they are here .]

Vi klev ombord och intrycken var många. Det luktade nytt trä, ved, ångmaskinsolja, vedrök, tjära, nyoljade relingar. I pannrummet var det varmt, som i en vedeldad bastu och nytt och fräscht. Nordevall kan bara eldas med ved, 1 kubikmeter i timmen vid 5 knops fart. På däck låg vedtravar redo. Båten ger både intryck av att vara gammal och vara ny, då den är byggd enligt de gamla ritningarna. Ångmaskinen, båtens hjärta, är byggd av Motala verkstad, precis som den som en gång fanns på den första Eric Nordevall. Det är en lågtrycksbalansångmaskin med kondensering. Bilder finns här.

[We stepped onboard and the impressions were abundant. It smelled like fresh wood, firewood, steam engine oil, woodsmoke, tar, newly oiled railings. In the boiler room it was hot, like a woodfired sauna, and new and clean. Nordevall can only be fired with firewood, 1 cubic meter per hour at 5 knots speed. On the deck was heaps with firewood ready to be used. The ship gives both the impression of old and new, since it is built using the original drawings. The steam boiler, the heart of the ship, was built by Motala works (verkstad), just like the original steam boiler in the first Eric Nordevall ship. It is a low pressure balance steam engine with condensation (not sure if I translated that correctly, PP can correct in the comments). More pictures are here. ]

Vi besökte Forsvik för ett antal år sedan och såg redan då bygget, därför var det extra roligt att möta upp båten här i Södertälje. Vi hoppas kunna resa ett stycke med denna båt i framtiden.

[We visited Forsvik a few years ago and saw this ship being built, so therefore it was extra fun to meet this ship in Södertälje. We hope to be passengers on this boat for real at some point in the future.]

Hurricane Irene August 26th [hd video]

2011-08-26T12:03:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Irene August 26th [hd video], originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

It is amazing we can see these things and predict them. Imagine 100 years ago, before satellites and computers. There was no warning, suddenly the hurricanes just showed up. Here comes hurricane Irene...