Happiness can be many things – why not to have a happy, newly married young man, rummaging with his friends in my kitchen, baking bread by candle light, wearing a funny apron? I guess Ese has many other solutions at her place!
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
Dalai Lama
When I read or hear the word ”community” I immediately think of bees and ants, whose communities are extraordinary interesting. On our week in Spain this autumn, we had an apartement with a terrass/balcony, on which also resided the tiniest ants. So small that they in fact were almost invisible. Until someone dropped a cheese crumb on his way out from the kitchen…
När jag hör eller läser ordet ”community” eller ”samhälle” tänker jag nog först på bin eller myror. De är intressanta varelser och jag och min familj tycker mycket om dem. Till vår stora glädje delade vi lägenhet och terrass med ett litet samhälle minimyror i Spanien. Jag tror knappast att vi hade upptäckt dem om inte någon tappat en ostsmula på väg ut från köket med frukosten…
My spoon left my cup of coffee and ended up beside the ants to make you see their tininess…To see other communities, click here.
Faktiskt är vi så tokiga att vi brukar jämföra myror i olika länder vi besöker, hur stora/små de är och hur de lever. Det kan låta galet, men vi är sådana bara…
I like ants, and so do our whole family. In every country we visit we notice the size of the ants and compare them to ants in other countries. This might sound a bit weird, but that’s the way we are…
Why are they so interesting then? Well, if you peer into the deep recesses of an ant colony, you will discover an extremely well organized community with thousands of workers quietly going about their jobs. Some dig nests while others gather food or tend the young. Remarkably, every chore is done without supervision or direction, and some workers even switch jobs to meet the ever-changing needs of the colony.
How does an insect as tiny as this with a brain smaller than a poppy seed decide to carry out a particular task? The answer, is that it has less to do with brainpower than with the ant’s extraordinary sense of smell. Scientists have found that, when a parade of patroller ants returns to the nest, their distinctive body odor cues other workers to go out and forage for food. I don’t think that this crumb of cheese had been left on the floor for more than a couple of minutes when I took this photo. And then we should remember that the distance between this crumb inside the apartment and the ant colony below the rail at the rear end of the terrace must have been – say about 3-4 metres. So, ants use chemicals the way we use sight and sound.
Vad är det som är så intressant med dem då? Jo, hur kan en så liten varelse, med en närmast obefintlig hjärna leva i och sköta ett så välorganiserat samhälle? En del bygger i boet, andra samlar mat och ytterligare andra tar hand om de små nya myrorna. Och detta gör de helt av sig själva. De till och med byter jobb och täcker upp för varandra när så krävs. Forskare har kommit fram till att det är myrornas dofter som leder dem. De använder alltså kemi för att tala om vad som ska göras och var man finner mat. Fotot, med min tesked som storleksmätare, tog jag kanske två minuter efter att smulan tappats, och den låg inne i lägenheten. Myrorna bodde under terrassräcket kanske 3-4 meter bort – utomhus.
Från det vi förstod att vi delade lägenhet med dessa våra minsta, såg vi till att tappa några smulor då och då…och innan vi åkte tillbaka till Sverige fick de levererat en farvälsmulhög att kalasa på – alldeles vid deras egen ingång under terrassräcket.
From the moment we understood we shared apartement with these pleasant little creatures, we made sure to drop some little crumbs every now and then…and when we left for Sweden again, they got a farewell load of crumbs delivered right by their door.
Memories, well, some say you should forget the past and only live for the future. I do not think that is a wise way of thinking. I think we all need memories to be able to live for the future. I simply had to use two quotes to make this work:
My children when they were small. The happiest days in my life.
Occasionally I stumble upon a student who loves books and reading…and who even stays behind in the classroom when the lesson is over!
Mille came back to life again…his severe illness almost cost him his life. This photo is from April 2012, when he was home again after a stay in hospital. He had lost at least half his weight.
A happy moment when I believed we had saved this magnificent bird. We found him exhausted under a tree and took him to a wildlife specialist. Unfortunately he couldn’t be saved in the end.
A Christmas greeting from a student – found one morning on my locker at school.
My always smart, funny, inspiring and lovely children – thank you for all the happy, hilarious and wonderful moments we’ve had together so far!
For more great memories, visit Ese!
Grand – a concept with many enterpretations. A moment I will never forget, is when I was walking down this street and first layed eyes on the Aqueduct in Segovia, Spain. In front of me were these two grand old gentlemen too, and I could listen to them discussing everyday problems.
The Aqueduct’s date of construction cannot be definitively determined, but at the end of the 20th century, a German archaeologist managed to determine that actually it was the Emperor Domitian (AD 81-96) who ordered its construction.
The aqueduct transports water from Fuente Fría river, situated in the nearby mountains, some 17 km (11 mi) from the city in the region La Acebeda. It runs another 15 km (9.3 mi) before arriving in the city.
The water is first gathered in a tank known as El Caserón (or Big House), and is then led through a channel to a second tower known as the Casa de Aguas (or Waterhouse). There it is naturally decanted and sand settles out before the water continues its route. Next the water travels 728 m (796 yd) on a one-percent grade until it is high upon the Postigo, a rocky outcropping on which the old city center was built. Then, at Plaza de Díaz Sanz (Díaz Sanz Square), the structure makes an abrupt turn and heads toward Plaza Azoguejo (Azoguejo Square). It is there the monument begins to display its full splendour.
At its tallest, the aqueduct reaches a height of 28.5 m (93 ft 6 in), including nearly 6 m (19 ft 8 in) of foundation. There are both single and double arches supported by pillars. From the point the aqueduct enters the city until it reaches Plaza de Díaz Sanz, it includes 75 single arches and 44 double arches (or 88 arches when counted individually), followed by four single arches, totalling 167 arches in all. The construction of the aqueduct follows the principles laid out by Vitruvius as he describes in his De Architectura published in the mid-first century.
For me, this meeting with the ancient Aqueduct was a truly grand moment.
Silence is a favourite sound of mine. And, Ese gives us the chance of showing what this essentially means to us. To me, it can be hiking an early morning alone in the mountains, and then enjoying the first rays of sun in silent awe of Mother Nature.
True silence is the rest of mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
William Penn
Light and lights are essential to almost all living beings. And, the play of light is fascinating. It cathes the eye and holds our imagination alive.
My choices for this challenge about Lights are all from Spain. The first one from an early morning outside the great palace, when the sun lets its rays play with the lamp post making us believe it’s being lit up from inside… The second photo from a gallery, is also lit up naturally by the sun.
The third photo and the fourth are both from Gaudí – The lamp from the ceiling in his house, lit up from inside as well as from the natural light through the side windows and the figure of Christ bathing in light – also from above.
Direction is what Ese points out to us this week…as usual a delightful challenge – why don’t you join in?
Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!
John Muir
The WordPress challenge this week is about the unexpected. Walking along the beach I met these two friends where the unexpected had already happened…
Ese gave us another beautiful task this week – Intangible. The best things in our lives are indeed intangible, love, for example. Or, a morning rainbow over my old appletree.
The true harvest of my life is intangible – a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched.
Henry David Thoreau
Leya 
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