@brittarnhild
I had big plans to post from our travels in Sweden and Denmark this summer. And failed.
I had big plans to post about our travels in France in October, and the retreat where I taught knitting. And failed.
Now I am challenging myself to come back here in my House in the Woods, if not on a daily basis, at least more regular.
I ah crossing my fingers and hope you cross yours :-)
The pictures today are from yesterday's playing in the garden, making moss trees.
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@brittarnhild
Frost has come, with no snow yet, which makes the garden look and feel icy cold.
Plants have died down, gone to sleep, and one could think there is nothing more to do in the garden for some months.
Which is not trur of course.
I keep on doing my daily morning walks in the garden. I feed the birds, I check on plants, I visit the greenhouse, where we have no electricity on any more so it is as frosted as the rest of the garden.
And most important of all, I have my plant table.
I filled a pot the other day with hyacinth, a hellebores, moss, cones and hips. It n ow stands on a small round table close to our entrance door, welcoming guests and ourselves. When the temperatures fall below zero (which is the Celsius freezing point) I let the pot inside the entrance hall, then carry it outside again when the temperature rises.
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By the way, the plant table will hopefully play an important part when I start recording my advent episodes on YouTube.
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@brittarnhild
My grandpa Johannes was a headmaster, my grandma Ragna Josefine was an art teacher. They lived in an appartement in one of the old buildings in the school area, with a classroom up on the loft where we kids were sent to play during family dinners. Oh my, what fun we had. The house had a garden, with old trees and columbines and a bench, with old chairs and a wooden table where we sat down and had ice cream on hot summer afternoons. The adults had coffee as well, of course, for us kids ice cream was more than enough, Eaten in small glass bowls, using silver spoons, the silver giving you this very exciting brain freeze when you topped the spoon with home made vanilla ice cream and ate it all at the same time.
When Johannes and Ragna Josefine retired, they moved to a small house with a big garden. Grandma loved her flowers, and every time we came to visit, we found her on her knees in the alpine bed, her huge pride. While my grandpa planted trees.
I played with my brothers and cousins in the garden, and one day I was unlucky and cut the top of a tree with the ball we were playing with. Pa got angry. Grandpa said, no problem, let the children play.
For me it is important to have a garden where children, and of course adults as well, can play and have fun.
Today our grandson Milian, 2 years old, has been with us. We have an area in the back garden where we have created an area especially for our grandchildren. We had lunch there, while Milian played in the sandbox. A fairy tale garden. For children of all ages.
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@brittarnhild
"Before we start we need wheelbarrows. Those objects that can rend gardening compatibility apart. Marriages may founder as each person tries to be the first to find the empty one." I have borrowed these words from Mirabel Osler in her book The Rain Tree, a Memoir. I have already read Oysler´s book about the garden she end her husband created, this is the memoir she wrote after her husbands death.
After what feels like weeks of rain, the weather is beautiful today. Mild and sunny and the autumn colours are sparkling. Terje and I plan to have a day working in the garden, with a long list of things to do to prepare the garden for winter, and a coming spring. We have only one wheelbarrow. After being married for 40 years, running a garden together for 35 of these, we still have never gone around to buy a second one (which I think we should have,Terje is completely satisfied with the single one). I know there will be times today, more than once, when one of us will start walking around in the garden, hunting for The One. "Hi, have you seen the wheelbarrow? Oh, there it is? When will you be finished?"
Ha, we are still married, with our solo wheelbarrow between us, and now it looks like we have got a competitor. The little red robin :-) It is time for some coffee, and while I sit down I think I will read some pages from The Secret Garden and the red robin which showed Mary the key.
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@brittarnhild
I wonder if today is the last day of summer. From tomorrow rain and lower temperatures are predicted. In a few days the sun will be back, but not the warmth of summer. I woke early this morning, my pillow wet with the nights sweat. Still in my night dress I walked out in the garden, feeding the birds, opening the greenhouse, checking the growth of the spinach which I sown just a few days ago.
I will spend today in the garden. I will walk around, watering some pots, deadheading roses, enjoying colours, fragrances and beauty, taking photos, but most of all, collecting memories for the coming seasons.
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@brittarnhild
Still cold, still snow, still deep frost in the soil, but now I refuse to wait any more.......
I drove over to a local garden center after breakfast, filled up my stock of sunflower seeds for the birds, and bought quite a few pots of spring flowers to plant in the greenhouse. A hellebores, a few irises, a bunch of daffodils.
Soon I had a cozy corner where I could sit down with a mug of tea and my greenhouse journal.
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Touring my blog world today will take you to:
Akeleiehagen, The Blue Garden,
Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my journal
By the way, have I ever told you about my different instagram accounts?
And as always, my dear baby, Britt Arnhild on YouTube:
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@brittarnhild
Summer in April is not something we experience every year here where I live. But these days we are having such a lovely weather. The colours in the garden are exploding, there will hopefully be more garden posts here in the days to come, and the birds are super busy.
Terje and I skipped church today (yes, I know we shouldn't.......) and spent all day in the garden instead.
While we had our morning coffee (Jane, you know all about our non-calory coffees.......) a male house sparrow was busy building his nest. It was amazing to watch how fast he worked with his beak.
For many years the house sparrows were the most common song birds here. They they seemed to have left us for several years, but now they are fully back. I love them. Gray and somewhat plain as they might look, they really are among my favourites. And a children's song about a little house sparrow boy is the song I sang most for Leander when he was a baby, and now sing for Milian.
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@brittarnhild
November light. When the sun is low, but shines with such a warm force, like it want to give us all her love before she disappears for some weeks. We live south of the Arctic Circle, so we have sun all winter, but as there is a small hill south of our house, part of December and part of January the sun does not make it over this hill, to reach The Columbine Garden.
Saturday morning was a morning for garden work for Terje and me. Garden work for the two of us means he working, me photographing :-) Well, not all the time. I do work as well, but with the sun playing hide and seek in between the logs and the falling leaves and the herbs, I simply had to shot photos.
On top of our working list was to prune the fruit trees, and here we really worked, both of us. I told Terje which branches to cut. He cut them :-)
We have three fruit trees only. One apple, one cherry and one plum. The apple tree is to be pruned in spring, and so we did, but the two others want to have some of their branches cut in winter. I took part in a workshop to learn this in spring this year, so I am the master :-)
But then the sun started to play again, and I had to sun.......
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In my blog world today:
Today my knitting blog, maskerade changed from English text into Norwegian. This is something I have been planning to do for some time now, I explain why in the blog. But don´t despair. There will be an English translation in the end of every post.
I do not post in my squirrel blog any more, but on the squirrels´ facebookpage Familien Frø-Nøtt I post one squirrel picture every day.
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@brittarnhild
Though the temperatures are still quite mild for the area, autumn is letting us know that he is on the way, and the palette in the garden is changing.
A rowan tree with white berries.......I love the little red star on the tip.
Maple leaves changing colours.
A million funghis.
And best of all, still colours in bloom, here, there and everywhere.
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In my blog world today:
(to be updated)
maskerade, my knitting blog, day 2 of the secret crochet project
Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my online journal
Britt Arnhilds naturdagbok, my nature journal
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@brittarnhild
Summer in September. The very best thing you can do on a Sunday afternoon then, is to start on a garden project. With Terje as my garden apprentice, expert on digging, I am making a new extension in a corner of the main flower bed.
First some digging to remove plants which has become too big.
One moved away, another one into the new bed.
And here it is. My plan is to fill it with a collection of lovely blue gentianas, inspired by my visit to the botanical garden in Tromsø.......by the way, I am working on a post from there in Caffe Avec tonight.
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Jippi!!! The post from the arctic-alpine garden in Tromsø is up in Caffe Avec
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