Harvest is a quality nett magazine (in Norwegian) about nature and our behavour towards nature, because „Nature does not need us but we are nothing without it„. The makers also see it as a bonfire where stories are told. And the stories are diverse. Adventures, expeditions, philosophy and science. See for yourself!
I use this blog as an open diary to remember all the things that happened and it is fun to go through the whole year again. Going backwards from December – January, 2015 was the year I…
… lived in Bergen, Norway, where it rained 279 days
… traveled to China and leanrt a bit Chinese
… stared in 3 movies
… started to teach yoga at work
… bought fat skis and learnt to ski in powder
… traveled to Turkey
… learned Baysian Statistics
… got a kayak
… published a paper about local adaptation at range edges in Journal of Evolutionary Biology
… spent 50 days in the field
… learnt to identify grasses
… traveled to Oslo and Göteborg
… went on a camping trip with Mr. K, Sandhy and Sophia (a VW bus)
… went skiing on a galcier with Mari
… got an owl cup from a lovely person and bought a crocodile cup
… did a lot of field work in the snow
… visited my aunt at easter in the best place on earth and made a cutting bord and found a coke can in the forest from 1988
… moved my office twice and got a can see Ulriken from my new offcie
… started climbing again
… moved in with Mari
… got a new job doing the old thing
… wrote a farmers report to give back a thank you to all the land owners where we have our field sites
… digged out an old analog camera, which is really fun
… sold more than 20 stamps
… fell in love with El Hierro
and started the new year with some sun in Teneriffe
I will soon be on my way back to Switzerland. 6 weeks with family and friends. Hopefully a little skiing. I need to find out if my ski’s can manage the Alps or is it the other way round (?), probably. Then we go and catch the sun on an sandy, dusty island in the Atlantic. More of this later…
For now, god bye Bergen. Why do you always have to make it so difficult to leave you! Sunshine and snowy mountains!
Pepperkakehus is a Norwegian tradition unknown in Switzerland. In the advent time, Norwegians creat their „pepperkakehuset“ – the gingerbread house. The house is carefully designed on paper before it’s transferd to the dough. The different pieces of the house are then baked and glued together with caramel. Finally, the house is decorated with a white mass consisting of pouder sugar, lemon juice and egg white and usually „Non-stop“ as tiles on the roof.
If you are ambigous, you also make a sledge with reindeer, fir trees, stars and hearts. We felt extremely creative last night and went one step further. Because we are biologists and wanted to set an example for ongoing climate change we added a palm tree, a polar bear, a polar fox, a whale and pinguin.
I have lived for almost one and a half year in Norway now. It’s time to talk about the difference between Norway and Switzerland. There are a lot of books and blogs about these stereotypes. For example the brown little book called „Brown cheese please“ by Jenny K. Blake, which is a very cute description of the Norwegian way. Here, I would just like to talk about my experiences between the two countries.
In general, the two countries are very similar, except for the ocean that is missing in Switzerland. But if you dig a bit deeper, the people are a bit different. There is the phenomena about the sun that can be observed all over in Norway. It is probably the result of very long and dark winters. As soon as the sun comes out, people stop working and go out to enjoy the sun. I have never observed something similar in Switzerland. People do go out when the sun is shining, but there is never such a demand to enjoy every minute of sun.
So, today after a long period of rain, nothing could stop me to go for a walk both in the sun and rain to Ulriken.
A little quiz for the day:
Both pictures show Skjellingavatne. One picture was taken in early July in 2014 the other in early August 2015. The site is at approximately at 1000 m a.s.l. and 61°N.
Which picture is from which year?
It’s peak summer season and then again it’s not. For weeks it has been cold and rainy and not much of a summer up here in the North. But enough of that!
I spend 3-4 days in the field at the moment and it feels like I am living in my sleeping bag. Last week a lovely person from Switzerland visited me and I dragged her to the field. This was of course the deal all along and she enjoyed it half way I think. On the weekend we went to a festival in the mountains (vinjerock) which was spectacular. Spectacularly cold and wet, but also very much fun listening to Norwegian bands. I think we were the only non and half Norwegians at the festival and for a good reason. It’s a Norwegian thing, but we had fun.
A lot has happened but the days also repeat itself so here a few impressions from one rainy day at Gudmedalen!
A trip to three different sites thought me that patience is needed this year…
Summer in Norway is late this year. 2 weeks delayed in the lowlands and we don’t know about the mountains, because there is still too much snow to say. At least one of my sites is ready and I get a mini field trip each week. Last week some planst finally decided to start flowering: among the first are Viola palustris (Marsh violet), Anthoxanthum odoratum (sweet vernal grass) and Carex vaginata (Sheated sedge).
Today, I went on a hike with Mari to check out a mountain cabin where she will celebrate her birthday with some friends. The weather was miserable but this did not matter after the shoes were soaked.
We passed Rundemanen (mountain top #3) and wandered around Øvre Jordalsvatne without view. We came to the cabin and met two men, who were fixing up the place. We got coffee and they started to talk about the lack of summer, hiking in the mountains around Bergen and gardening. And then one of them suddenly described western Norway in three words: stein, skog og ugress (stone, woods and weed).
