5 days at my cabin – day 4

I spent the morning gathering wood and splitting logs.  Late morning I heard a vehicle and eventually my friend and neighbour Erik appeared.  He had been ploughing the road to our cabins with his military valp and it was nice to see that I would have some company.

He drove up to his cabin and made fire to get the cabin warm and then came to join me for coffee at my cabin.  Later in the afternoon we decided to try and walk across the marshes to another large lake.

There was still a layer of ice under the water so I wasn’t too difficult to get across to the lake.

As we walked back across the marsh there were quite a few Wood Sandpipers, Spotted Redshanks and Greenshanks feeding there.  This Green shank sat up in a tree watching us.

We spent the evening fishing, but did not catch anything.

Later in the evening we drove around in the forest (the Valp will go just about anywhere!!) looking for birds, Moose or bear but we only saw a Capercaillie.

New bird species for the year were a pair of Smew on the cabin lake, a Dunnock and a Rustic Bunting singing at the cabin.

5 days at my cabin – day 3

I decided to start my day off with a good breakfast.  Curry and cheese bannock bread, with fried sausage!

Most of the day was taken up finishing off the new ceiling.

Over the fireplace, where rain water had leaked in before I bought the cabin a 2,4m long ceiling bearer was completely rotten.  I needed to replace it before the ceiling could be completed, but did not have anything long enough, so using my saw and axe

I made a housing joint to connect two shorter pieces together.

There were over 100 Bramblings feeding on seed I had put out and so a took a break mid-morning to take some photographs of them.

Because the walls and roof of the cabin (like most older properties here) is insulated with saw-dust, you get a continual fall of saw-dust when you are working.   To reduce the amount of saw-dust falling from the ceiling I have placed newspaper in all the gaps and open spaces.

Saw-dust falling all the time also meant that I got very dirty. So each evening after I had finished working,  I filled my solar shower with warm water and hung up out side the cabin so that I could shower and get clean.

The only new bird species today were a pair of Goosander.

5 days at my cabin – day 2

I awoke next morning and it was snowing heavily.   I estimated the time to be around 6am.

The main reason for my visit to the cabin was to remove the ceiling in the living room and replace it with a new one.

After making breakfast I started pulling down the ceiling.

I remembered that Teres had  little radio in the cabin, so I turned it on to listen and find out what the time was.  As I started fixing up the new ceiling panels the 8am news came on the radio.  This means that I had got up at about 4am!!!

It took most of the day to get half of the ceiling completed.  The 3.6m panels kept bending as I tried to put them up and this made it very difficult to connect the tongue and groove joints.

I made a great tasting meal with food items I had available and thought I would write up the receipt;

1 tin of Cambells Mushroom soup, 1 tin Baked Beans, Carrot, leak, onion, pepper, mushrooms, 1 stock cube, pepper & mixed herbs, tomato ketchup, powdered soup an sausage.

I fried the sausage and vegetables in a little oil.  Then I added a water and seasoning and cooked for 10 minutes.  Then I added the soup and tomato ketchup and cooked everything for another 15 minutes.  Finally I added the beans and powered soup (to thicken the mix) and coked for five more minutes.

The snow had stopped late afternoon and after that there were both Spotted Redshank and Greenshank present on the marsh.  There was also a Restart singing in the evening.

 

 

5 days at my cabin – day 1

This year spring is very late.  We still have  a lot of snow and thick ice on lakes.  Almost identical conditions to when I spent three weeks at my cabin in spring 2008 (which was the best time I have ever had in my life) and each day there were new bird species that arrived and animals that appeared.  I wrote a daily log during my stay and the log begins here http://naturallore.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/spring-in-lapland-the-jouney-there/.

Because of the same weather conditions I was keen to get out to my cabin for a few days, so last Wednesday I went there.  Like spring 2008, it was not possible to drive to my cabin, so I had a 5km walk to get there.  I dragged a pulka behind me with some food and a few other items it and behind the pulka I had attached skis to enable me to travel over any deep snow.

It was easy to drag my pulka where there was snow and ice, but it was very difficult to drag where there was only wet sand and gravel

I was sure that I would find bear tracks as I walked to the cabin, but I saw no sign of bear.  The last two and a half kilometres I was able to use skis and my progress was much easier and faster, although it still took 2 hours to get to my cabin (twice as long  as it usually takes to walk there).

Once I got to the cabin I made fire and gathered snow to melt for water.  The snow was very dirty and I had to filter all the water once cooked.  Some water I left outside to cool down to use for drinking water.  The only sound outside was a Mistle Thrush singing.

I realised that I had left part of my telephone charger in my car and as the battery was down to 20 percent, I decided to turn it off to use only for emergencies.

 

Paper rockets

On Friday evening we travelled to the cabin.  It wasn’t easy driving the snowmobile, because in some places there was no now, and in others there was deep snow, which the snowmobile sunk into.  I had to make two trips in to the cabin; one with Emma on the back of the snowmobile and then with Teres.

By the time we had made fire, got the cabin warm inside and cooked food, it was getting late so we went to bed.

Saturday was cold, with heavy showers of rain, sleet, hale and snow.

I spent the early part of the morning cutting up two Birch that had come down over winter.  When I started, the snow was hard enough to walk on and I used the snowmobile to drag large lengths of timber, but then both I and the snowmobile began sinking into the snow.  So I resorted to cutting smaller pieces and transporting them by dragging with the pulka.

Emma was bored in the cabin, so we made some paper rockets (many tutorials on YouTube)

which were made to fit over a piece of plastic tube.  When you blow hard into the tube

the rockets fly across the room (the yellow streak you see in the picture below)

we made different designs to see which flew the best.  Teres even made some paper birds for Emma to shoot down with the rockets

In between snow showers

we tested them outside and they flew surprisingly high.

I was a bit concerned as to how we would get back to the car, because the snow was now wet and soft.  Fortunately the sky cleared during the evening and at 4am when the temperature was -5 degrees and the snow nice and hard, I woke Teres and Emma, and we packed to leave.  I was reluctant to make two trips again so we put Emma in the pulka and drove out without any problems!

I have a tattoo

I have just returned from a visit to England to see my family.

While I was there I had a tattoo done, which is an early birthday present from Teres.

This is my design that I put into leather when I make knife sheaths and stuff. The star represents the night sky, the ring the sun, the four lines; north, south, east and west, the small lines coming off represent the forest and it’s importance to us for food and shelter, and the four sections represent the four seasons and the elements; fire, air water and earth.

I am planning to add more to the tattoo in the future.

Ltl Acorn Scouting Camera WINTER review

In January I received a Ltl Acorn Scouting Camera (model Ltl-5210A) from Mike at Wildlife Watching Equipment.  Mike was very helpful and even tested the camera for me before posting it to ensure there were no faults.  You can read about the camera’s specifications by clicking on the picture below.

The camera works like a security light.  PIR sensors detect movement and take a picture or video.

I had planned to use my camera out in the forest to capture pictures of animals that are not easy to get close to, such as Moose, Bear and Lynx but I have since found out that due to open access for all regulations here in Sweden, one must apply for permission to mount a camera in a specific location (which costs £300), and re-apply each time the camera is moved to a different location.  The only places were I can use my camera are on land that I own and that is where I have been testing the camera.

If you are interested to know what comes into your garden when you are sleeping or not at home, this is at great camera to use.

If you find tracks in the forest and are not sure what they are, this will also be a good way to find out.

The camera can take video/ and or photographs.  You can select how many seconds or minutes between each photograph also (I have it set to every five seconds).  All images are stored on an SD card.  The camera uses 8 AA batteries, but the camera uses so little power that I have not had to change the batteries at all and the camera still shows full battery.

There are three settings for the on/off button.  OFF when you are not using the camera, LIVE when the camera is set up in a location and TEST.  In test mode you can review pictures, alter camera settings via a menu or use the camera like a normal camera (press a button and take a picture (example below)

The camera also performed very well at temperature as low as -35 degrees C.

However, I was hoping for good quality pictures to use here and in magazine articles that I write and that appears to be beyond the capabilities of this camera, due to two major issues.

The first is exposure.  The white snow causes all of my pictures to be dark and there is unfortunately no setting in the menu to adjust exposure (This is why I am writing a Winter review just now and will then review the camera again in the summer when the snow has gone).

The second major issue is the focus, which also cannot be adjusted.  Unless the animal or bird fills the whole screen, the camera tends to focus on the background behind.

Though I think in the picture the squirrel was a little to close to the camera!

To resolve this problem you must have the background and animal close together, which is not often possible, but was with this Jay.

I am confident that the camera will perform better during the summer and even with the issues I have had, I have still managed to get some nice pictures.

Conclusion.

I feel that the camera does what it is designed to do and will meet the needs of most people, but does not meet my needs (in winter at least).  A software update which enables the use to adjust exposure would be a great addition.

What a difference a day makes!

We were out fishing on Saturday.  It was cloudy and around 0 degrees.  Unfortunately the fish were not interested in our bait and only Emma caught a fish, but the fish got off the hook as she took it out of the ice hole.

On Sunday the sun was shining and it was + 10 degrees.  I had to work as there was going to be an outdoor church service at the Arctic Circle where we have a Polar Circle Portal (this a picture from summer 2010)

It was a 40km drive with the snowmobile

I stopped halfway for a coffee break.

We had a number of people who travelled by snowmobile to the church service

We provided food for everyone, which was fried reindeer meat and vegetables

There were about 30 people present for the service and everyone had a great time.

The weather continues to be warm and the snow is melting very fast now.

A cold weekend at the cabin

Spring is going to be late this year.  A cold north wind has been blowing for three weeks now and although the sun lifts day time temperatures just above freezing, at night temperatures can still go down as low as -30 degrees.

I arrived at the cabin Friday evening and made fire in both the kitchen stove and in the fireplace.  After a couple of hours the cabin was warm and with a night time temperature of -20 degrees I kept the fires going all night.

Early on Saturday morning I cooked breakfast; potatoes, sausage, eggs and onions.

I spent some time ice fishing, but it was very cold and I caught no fish, so I decided to do some photography.

There were several different birds coming to the bird feeder and I particularly wanted to photograph Siberian Tit and Siberian Jay.  Siberian Jay’s were not so difficult to photograph.  After standing for 15 minutes they came to feed.

To get VERY close to the Siberian Tit’s, I put a reindeer skin on the snow, and some food just in front of me and laid there and waited for them to come down.  It proved more difficult than expected to get photo’s of them because they kept flying down and sitting on my head!!  Eventually they came for the food.

On Sunday, while out in the forest with my snowmobile I came across some very strange tracks.

I called my friend and neighbour at the cabin Erik, and explained what I had found and he drove out immediately to take a look.  Eventually we deduced that the spore was that of a displaying male Capercaillie.

We followed the tracks on our snowmobiles and found this fine print where the bird had originally landed (from the right you see where the tail touched the snow, then where the body impacted and finally the imprints of the wings, then he walks away displaying).

This is what the display looks and sounds like.

Easter at the cabin

Last weekend we were at the cabin for four days.

We spent most of the time fishing

and enjoying the sun

There was also a lot of coffee cooked and sausage grilled over the fire

I also used the Swedish Fire Torch to cook coffee

I caught 8 large Perch

Sebastian and myself also spent time driving snowmobiles with his grandfather and our neighbours