Happy birthday, EH!

I hope you have a gorgeous happy birthday!  I am also sure all the moths and butterflies, mushrooms, birds, and flowers wish you a great day!


Giant Leopard Moth, seen in New Jersey

Happy Birthday LS!

Here is a Birthday bug for you!

Aspglansbagge

Chrysomela populi

Happy Birthday, KV!

We have known each other and been friends 3/4 of our lives now.  :)

Here is a special flowering plant for you!

It is the fruit of the lipstick plant, Bixa orellana, also known as annatto. And yes, it is added to lipsticks for color.

Happy birthday, EH!

Another year, another summer, the life cycle goes on! :)
Congratulations on your birthday with this bouquet of flowers!

Happy Birthday, PP!

Instead of oysters, there will be other amazing stuff.  Remember these oysters from the Oyster Bar at Grand Central?  I think that was another birthday :)

Happy Birthday, B!!!

This is a wonderful day to have a birthday!  Midsummer solstice, sunshine, an abundance of flowers, crisp air and good insects and birds everywhere.  So, a very happy birthday to B! 

17 maj - A day of celebration!

Happy birthday LS and Norway! (It would be great to visit Oslo on this day.)

 I hope you, dear sister, have a great day! Have some bacon for me as well! Hugs!!

Happy Birthday AREA!!!

light house and pebbles, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

How does it feel?
How does it feel to be nearly 20?
Yippee, you are the best!
Congratulations with a scene from Little Cranberry Island in Maine. Remember this place?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANS!

CONGRATULATIONS on the big day, mamma!  Here are some flowers to enjoy in wintry Sweden on your birthday and in the future.  (Click on the photos for more information)

Happy Birthday, EH!

old telegraph pole with glass insulators, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Massor med grattis pa fodelsedagen!!!

If I could, I would give you all these glass insulators. /LS

Congratulations! Five years ago....

...to the day, this blog was born.  Thanks for hanging out here now and then, and reading our thoughts, looking at our photos, and thinking about stuff with us.  Like today, five years ago it was a very green, springy day and that was reflected in the first blog post, reposted below. 
_____________________________________

Wow, första posten/first post!  
Don't worry, not everything will be written in two languages, and posts and comments in either Swedish or English are fine.
Today is a beautiful day here in New Jersey, flowers everywhere, spring has sprung!
Or as the Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding said:

Ett grönt blad på marken
Grönt! Gott,
friskt, skönt vått!
Rik luft, mark!
Ljuvt stark,
rik saft,
stor kraft!
Friskt skönt
grönt!

A green leaf on the ground
Green! Good,
Fresh, nice wet!
Rich air, land!
Deliciously strong,
rich sap,
big power!
Fresh nice,
green!

Happy Birthday, AA!

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...]

Happy Birthday, EH!

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

Happy Birthday, PP!

Full steam ahead! (through the sage brush in Antonito, Colorado...)

Happy Birthday, OK!

We celebrate with a photo of your own, about taking it easy and not stress to much in life. There is something really good about snail pace sometimes....

Happy Earth Day!!!

And happy birthday to LA too, of course.  News of the day:  LA's little ant colony survived the winter, despite being housed just in a little plastic box without protection.  We were sure they were dead, but they were just sleeping and now 4-5 months later they are awake again.  Do ants have anti-freeze in their veins?  It is time to build them a real home. 

Congratulations, world.

Today is the 100th International Women's Day.  I have mixed feelings about this day, which I have celebrated over the years.  Why do we need one day to focus on half of humanity? It is the same thing as Black History month.... why not focus on black history and women whenever it is relevant, i.e. at least half the time?

Anyway, congratulations all women of the world.  Without you there would be no more humans.  Neither would there be humans without men, so we should all be equal. Lets row together...

Woman in a rowing boat, about 1890

Collection of National Media Museum/Kodak Museum

eye to eye

Happy birthday to KV - a frequent reader of this blog!  Grattis!

Swedish telegram for AREA

..HAPPY BIRTHDAY AREA. STOP. 17 YEARs. FANTASTIC. STOP. WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED YOUR PRESENTS AND A GOOD BIRTHDAY DINNER. STOP. LOVE AND HUGS FROM SWEDEN. FULL STOP.

Setting a curved record straight

If you have heard, like me, that there now are more people alive than ever have been alive before on Earth, you have heard a myth that seems very resistant and impossible to kill off.  Apparently somebody in the 1970s uttered this false fact, and it has made the rounds many times now in articles and books.

The truth, as calculated by the Population Reference Bureau, is that "about 5.8 percent of all people ever born are alive today."  (That is today = year 2002). Read their article, it is very interesting how they calculated it, taking birthrates and death rates, world population sizes, average age of death, etc. In total, they estimate that 106 billion people have lived on Earth until now.

Imagine all those millions and billions of people!  I think it is strange we don't run into old archeological bones more often than we do.