My dear friend Viveka (of Myguiltypleasures) and I went to Wanås Castle – we usually do once a year. And we enjoy the art and our delicious meal, chatting along together.
If you like outdoor exhibitions – and surpises – let’s go!
Carola Grahn is the new artist this year, and she deals with Sami art and beliefs.
The giant boxes with logs at the entrance were impressive, but then the glassed wall was our first stop – at the sight of the blue mountain.
This is a rather impressive size of art work for the little pond, but we liked it. You can read about the artist’s idea below in the gallery.
The natural theme as well as the Sami connections were ever present. The ”building” made of birches shows a free interpretation of a sign on a Sami sacred drum.
Thank you for being our lovely company here at Wanås, and hopefully you want a new tour next year!
Thursday again, time flies, and faster in the warmer seasons. There is much to do in my garden, but forest baths are essential. I try to take good care of the best season here up north. Life is short, I try not to waste it – but it is difficult to live in the moment…I wonder how many of us succeed in really doing that.
Spring colours in Skane. So longed for and so needed. But a cold spring and early summer. Everything is late. There are few insects and pollinators as the cold and windy days have taken their toll. Still – I hope you will enjoy a piece of our late spring too!
A forest bath is never wrong. Healing and uplifting…if I could I would fly out over the treetops, savouring everything green. I know you would fly with me.
Anne is leading us this week, looking for New Experiences.
Every day there are new experiences, but some days there are fantastic new experiences. Looking forward to that experience can create overwhelming feelings, and even more so when the experience is something you wished for but thought would never happen.
Anne went to Australia and had a long wished for photographic tour with Leanne Cole. An amazing adventure! I too have chosen a dream come true – The Amazon Forest and the Galapagos Islands. In 2016 we left Sweden for the great adventure. Here – some memories from the Amazon.
Arriving at the lodge!
We went to Ecuador, lived in the jungle for a week and then sailed the Galapagos Islands. Every day was an adventure, something I had dreamed of since I was a child. To fall asleep to the sounds of the jungle, to walk high above the gigantic canopy of trees… fighting mosquitos in the morning, but wow, these are unforgettable memories.
Trees are a passion with me, and at Sacha Lodge on the Napo River, I lived my dream in every moment. The birds, the flowers, the hilarious monkeys shouting through the jungle while jumping over our canoe. And, watching the sunset over the Amazon from a Kapok tree, to all the sounds of the jungle – is hard to beat.
From the canopy down to the forest floor, everything was fascinating. The night walk was intense…no light, only sounds. Our excellent guide knew where to look, and he spotted Tarantulas, lizards, snakes and frogs – effortlessly. We were so impressed, but of course – he grew up in the jungle and was well acquainted with every creature there.
Every day we spent many hours in the canoe, ”looking for anacondas”, but we felt (rather…) safe. Immersed in the dense jungle and its many sounds, I just wanted to stay forever.
When we returned home in the evenings we always felt we’d been blessed with new, exciting experiences. I wished we could have stopped the time there for a while.
But today, your challenge is to show and tell us about a new experience You had. It could be a trip, the birth of a child or grandchild, a road trip to a new place, the possibilities are endless. Please link to Anne’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag.
We all enjoyed your responses to Sofia’s challenge of Spring. Your beautiful images made us all long for spring wherever in the world we live. Next week, April 1, Donna Holland will be challenging you so …Be ready for anything! Go to her lovely site for more inspiration.
Thank you to this week’s host, Anne, for encouraging us to share our New Experiences. Visit her site to see photos from her travel to Australia. Amazing!
Interesting in joining the Lens-Artists Challenge? Click here for for information.
Our old apple tree lost one of its trunks in the storm some weeks ago, maybe that was a sign. Time to go.
My father was a forest man. ( In the header a photo from a walk in Fulltofta, where he worked) Since early childhood he roamed the forests, watching birds, collecting eggs (this was 70-80 years ago, when it was not forbidden to collect eggs) and learning about nature around him. He passed away last Friday. I had hoped for him to stay through spring, but at least I was fortunate enough to be with him his last hours.
We always talked about the forest and his work there, and what he had seen and observed during all those years, 50-60 all in all. He had witnessed many stories from the animal world, but also stories from the many young men he guided and taught. Sometimes he found dead people in the forest. A rugged story was about a 10 year old girl, Helen, who disappeared on her way home from school, in 1989. She was found a week later, murdered.
My father saw the car in the forest the day she was kidnapped, and as the car passed him he heard a child screaming from the trunk of the car. Unfortunately he did not get the number, and this haunted him for years. The police got his description of the car though, and it was sent out in media all over Sweden. My father cooperated with the police for some years after this, and he became friends with the head investigator. Not until 15 years later, they finally found the murderer, and the car fitting my father’s description.
This was one of the most talked about murder histories in Sweden. I remember it well. Nothing like this had ever happened here before.
He was a forest man, yes, and what he did not know about forests and its inhabitants was hardly worth knowing. I only wonder – who will I call now with all my questions?
I am not a bird photographer, but I sometimes try when they come to one of my feeders. I know my father would have liked them. So, here’s to you, sweet dad! Birds from my garden this winter.
Starlings were one of his favourites – and mine too. Nowadays some of them stay as the climate is changing for the warmer.
A brambling waiting for me to fill the feeder.
The Western jackdaw is a very intelligent and social bird. They often visit our garden to pick up what the smaller birds have left on the ground.
The hawfinch usually visits when there is snow and the temperature has fallen some degrees below zero. His company here is a European greenfinch.
A beautiful bird, only seen in my garden during winter.
At the end of my post, I want to share a story from his best friend, living in Canada and for many years a ranger in Banff national park. He is also the author of several nature books, Halle Flygare, Alberta:
When I was young, your dad and I roamed fields and forests looking for birds’ nests to collect eggs. One day we went to a big oak tree, where we knew a tawny owl had her nest. Your dad climbed the tree and found the nest, but the owl flew out and attacked me, hit my head and took my red cap. We found it later in the forest. We only took one, white egg for our collection.
Thanks to your dad I became interested in the natural world, collected eggs and bought myself bird books. This bird interest has stayed with me throughout my life and I have travelled the world on numerous guided bird adventures. My list of birds is now containing more than 3000 species.
Thank you, Hälle, for calling him every week, all these years, and thank you for sharing this story with us!
Ann-Christine
Life is short – live it, love it, treasure every moment.
My father is 89, and unfortunately life did not grant us much time together. But I love him and always will. His stories and his laugh, his kind eyes and his wisdom.
Being a forest man and a hunter, he’s had many dogs over the years, but the last 15-20 years he did not want to have any more dogs. He said the goodbyes were too difficult.
– and they are. But I feel all the love given over the years makes it worth the pain.
My father worked in this forest for 50 years, and these stones are what is left of the house he once lived in.
I sometimes miss what we could have had together, but I am very grateful for the moments we got. Only these last two or three years, we have come closer, and now it seems time is slowly running out.
I hope to have him with us a bit longer, and that there will be enough time left to give him another beautiful spring. I am not religious, but I pray.
Learning to distance yourself from all the negativity is one of the greatest lessons to achieve inner peace.
― Roy T. Bennett
Tina is our host this week, and she wants to know how we find peace in this busy world. For me, it’s a struggle, but in short, I need alone time and to immerse myself in Nature, Beauty and Art.
A combination of architecture – old and new – and books, is just perfect. It is enough for me to enter a library – any library… But, an exquisite one, like the Long Room in Trinity College, Dublin, is unforgettable. There is an atmosphere around all these books, the authors’ aura peacefully descending on you.
Art – especially otherworldly and fantastic art, like this of Yasec Yerka, expands my mind and thoughts. Yerka’s Surrealistic art is inspired by old masters like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel. I often sit in my armchair and wander through his books, resting in peaceful wonder.
On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.
– Jules Renard
Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind.
– Amit Ray
Lose yourself in nature and find peace.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Time spent amongst trees is never time wasted.
– Katrina Mayer
Wander often. Wonder always – Anonymous
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
—John Muir
Thank you for all your inspiring images and words on Alone time! I enjoyed every piece of them, and I think we also got to know each other a bit more. This week Tina is taking last week’s theme a bit further – hopefully we will get many ideas on how to find peace in this busy world. Please visit Tina for more inspiration, and don’t forget to use the Lens-Artist’s tag when you link to her original post.
Next week it is John’s turn to lead, make sure to visit his site for more about the challenge.
We need softness in the world. When you go to sleep at night, do you lay your head on a brick?
– Adrienne Posey
For this week’s challenge, our guest host, Bren, wants us to show how we soften our images. Bren is a master of this, and now we can learn how it works. ” You don’t have to stick to flowers, landscapes and architecture are also ideal subjects. By lowering the clarity and creating softness in those areas frames the subject in an image, be it a tree, path, bridge, even a door or house or just a dreamy looking image.”
I decided to try some different subjects, starting with a flower and finishing with a seascape.
My first try was a Nasturtium plant close-up –
Then some fluffiness against a rough wall – I guess the bee was collecting building material for his home.
My red camellia is in flower now. I love what the softening did in this image – it made the ”unreal” look of this flower more tempting and strikingly beautiful. The white camellia is in flower as well, but the softness did not work as well as in this one.
The blue colour of the chikory flower is unsurpassed, according to me.
A gallery from my forest walks and Hovdala Castle. Colourful tapestries and soft trees mimicking the clouds.
Golden beech leaves among the larch trees. A picture I was to throw away – until Bren’s challenge saved it for me!
The last tree standing. I made the layers of twigs, grass, forest and sky soft/clear in those sections.
Another gently woven tapestry with field, forest and sky. The colours really appealed to me, and the skies were great that day.
I didn’t believe this technique would work quite that well with a seascape – but I just had to try.
Thank you, Amy, for last week’s wonderful challenge with so many interesting interpretations! And thank you, Bren, for letting us play and learn – I hope you all had as much fun as I had. Now we are looking forward to seeing your responses to this week’s challenge! Please remember to link to Bren’s original post and use the Lens-Artists tag.
Next week it will be me, Ann-Christine/Leya who is your host. See you then!
For more information on joining the challenge each week, check here.
Leya 
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