Monthly Archives: April 2012

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It will be a late spring

While I can’t get out and about, I thought I would write a little about the weather and the season.

Last year by now a lot of the snow had melted and there was much open ground, and many summer migrant birds were returning.

This year; in early March the first migrants bird species to appear was Redpoll, then Greenfinch and after Greenfinch Chaffinch arrived.

During the second half of March the weather was relatively warm and the snow was melting, but then in early April and especially during Easter the weather turned colder with temperatures at night dropping as low as -20.  This made the snow surface very hard and easy to walk around on, but for predators such as owls and foxes, these conditions are not good, because the voles that live under the snow and they really on for food were now inaccessible due to the hard surface.

After Easter there came more snow and yesterday (Saturday) we had 10cms during the day.  On Friday I had seen a pair of Common Cranes flying over the house and I suspect they are regretting returning here just now.  Brown Bears that have been marked with GPS collars in this area are also awake now and out of their dens.

I am hoping that my back injury will be much improved by the time the weather improves and more summer migrants start to arrive.

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Easter at my cabin

I have just returned from 4 days at my cabin.

I have spent some time carving

I made this guksi/kuksa/kåsa

My home made stove survived the winter and is great for cooking coffee and keeping warm

I also spent some time ice fishing

with Teres and her parents

I did not catch anything, but Ingvar caught a Pike

My neighbours at the cabin were smoking some Moose meat, so after leaving some reindeer meat in salt water for 36 hours,

they also smoked meat for us.  We hung up the meat

they made a fire using green Birch

The meat was smoked for 30 hours

The rest of the time was spent sitting out enjoying the sunshine

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My last day at Solberget Vildmarksbyn

After three months, Sunday was my final day working at Solberget Vildmarksbyn.

During my final day we had 12 travel agents from Austria visiting to try some of the activities, so after feeding the reindeer

my job was to demonstrate firelighting techniques

I have made this tinder board to help people learn some items they can use to make fire

We also had a local Sámi man who talked to them about his life as a reindeer herder

It had been -18 degrees the previous night and there were some beautiful ice crystal formations (like millions of bird feathers) around the fresh water spring.

We also had a Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) returning from its wintering grounds further south, which for many people here signifies the arrival of spring.

We finished the day in a large tent in the forest with cake, biscuits and coffee