Dragonfly Ranch

It was a whirlwind tour of the San Francisco area, but Lena promises she’ll be back (with the family) for a longer visit. Arrival at SFO took a while to get through customs, but Arlin and I were finally relieved to see Lena come through the doors. And I’m pretty sure Lena was pleased to see us there.

On the Sunday, we went to Arlin’s church and from there we went to a winery for a tour and tasting. Don’t know what Lena learned, but I learned that if we ever get to Coarsegold, we’ll need owl houses (the California barn owls are the best for hunting gophers, those that the dogs don’t harass first) and an insectarium for Phil to manage (varieties of good bugs keep away the bad bugs).

On the Monday, we had a visit with another cousin. Ryan McDonald has a common great-great (etc) grandfather with us and with Lena. He seemed pleased to meet both his Swedish cousin and his American ones.

On the Tuesday, Lena visited the Martinez Junior High School in the morning and was able to observe a few classrooms. They are doing a lot with technology, so she got a few ideas to take back home with her. Then in the afternoon she went to Alcatraz! A friend of hers from Sweden was also visiting the area and had an extra ticket (hard to get any time of year now) and they both loved the tour. Now they see why Caryn and I count Alcatraz among the top “must do” activities.

A full day in the city, walking from Union Square through Chinatown, to Pier 39. Then Cable Car back to Market Street and the BART home again.

A morning in Berkeley at a scrapbooking store and a walk to the campus.

We managed to find time for fika and meals too. We tried to see the Golden Gate Bridge several times, but it was mostly fogged in as usual.

And then it was time to take her to SFO and bid farewell.

But she promises to come back!

… we went to Ystad to see Kurt Wallendar. Unfortunately he was busy solving a crime, but we did visit a Swedish film museum that illustrated the making of movies with a particular emphasis on Henning Mankill’s books.

And Cousin Olof takes me through the cow and sheep pastures of southern Sweden as a special treat, as he knows what an outdoors woman I am at heart.

Actually we were on our way to Ales Stenar, a Viking ship of stone with similarities to Stonehenge.

And lunch, of course, at the seaside.

On to Lund Cathredal and the astronomical clock.

Then on to a strange little village in the middle of nowhere, built as a new style of housing development but looking like an old German town. I guess it has social and architectural significance .

The significance for me of course was fika.

Even doing a load of wash is fascinating and new over here in Sweden. Instead of a tumble dryer, Olof has a drying cabinet. You hang the clothes inside and they are dried with heat but definitely it is not a dryer as we know it.

On the last day I was able to get pictures of Olof’s driving carriages. No horse though.

A quick trip to see more mull toa on the way to the airport.

And a fond farewell to Cousin Olof at the airport in Angelholm.

What I meant to say before the fat finger of fate sent the email too early was that the online auction that Olof follows allows for a viewing of the available items for two days before the live auction begins. This is just one of the lots I considered placing a bid on after we visited the auction house.

Here’s another.

Olof and his friend/landlord discuss the finer points of farming.

The following are views around Olof’s house. From the front towards the barn. There are often cows in the field to the right.

From the front toward the left.

The front.

The fruit orchard from the front to the right.

The back.

From the back. In the distance on the right is an industrial park, but you don’t even really know it is there because first you see the other farmhouse. There are usually horses in the field out there.

We went to a WWII museum near the coast. It was part of the coastal defense system, with guns facing Denmark.

Siting for a net across the channel. Unfortunately the system was built in collaboration with Germany to keep the Allies out.

Cook stove for soup and pancakes.

Dad would not have done well here: five minute time limit!

The Swedes did take in 40,000 Finnish children during the war.

I was calling this the flying stretcher, but really it shows a configuration by which a stretcher is carried between two bicycles.

And a barracks that could be dismantled and moved if the soldiers were to stay in one place longer than it was feasible or comfortable to use tents. The darker spots half way up the left of the window are the bolts.

Ceiling above the bunks, also with bolts visible.

Then to Palle and Helena’s house for dinner with first a visit to the horses. The horse has been to the World Championships in dressage.

And since in Sweden it is illegal to have only one horse (he must have companionship), this is his pony stablemate .

And of course the dog, Pennie.

The online auction that Olof frequents

Sent from my iPad

Our poor ash tree after the snow storm

A little obstacle at our front door

Pea soup and pancake Thursday at Soderasen. I mean, like, it’s a National Park and nature preserve but I prefer to dwell on the essentials rather than the incidentals.

Oh, wait, now I remember: I did see some nature:

Cousin Olof showed me one of the competition areas where he has done his carriage driving. The pictures, I am sorry to say, do not do justice to the skill necessary to getting a horse and carriage around and through the gates.

And, of course, Goster Carlsson’s monument to his close encounter experience.

Mr. Carlsson (not pictured*) encountered alien beings late one night while out on his bicycle near the beach. He swears he had never and has never indulged in alcoholic drinks. You be the judge. The aliens introduced him to the formula for a new use for beech pollen, the result of which was a multimillion dollar empire in the production of health/medicinal supplements. In appreciation for the aliens’ help, Mr. Carlsson had cast a model of their spaceship to memorialize the encounter. (*the gentleman communing with nature pictured here is called Olof Hägg)

Go ahead, you can look it up.

And even more fun facts:

You can see that I am having way too much fun!!!

We finally started taking pictures:

The Nordiska Museum was a wonder. Presenting culture and social mores through exhibits of table settings, fashion, jewelry, furniture and more.

After spending a full day (7 hours) at the Nordiska Museum we spent a day on the road down to Falkenberg in Southern Sweden to stay a few days with Cousin Lena (from the Westberg side, but not the av Klint side.

Cousin Olof was kind enough to drive us from Stockholm to Gothenberg where we met Lena and her daughter Tyra at the southernmost of the two IKEA in town. Olof left us after a walk around town and being sure we were safe at Lena’s house. The next day, Friday, we joined Lena at her school. This past week was a time for projects: twice a year the students devise or sign up for something non-academic but related, such as putting on a musical, working with fabrics or dyeing yarn from herbs and barks, geocaching. I think I now have to get an app for geocaching since it’s something one can do outside but alone. Don’t have to involve or even see anyone else to enjoy it.

Then we wandered in Varberg, home of (you’ll never guess) a castle! Also the home of the “bog man”, a medieval man found in a nearby peat bog, wonderfully preserved.

So, the Varberg castle and fortress was built at the end of the 13th century and was, I’m sure you will all remember, the home of the Norwegian Princess Ingeborg Hakonsdotter and her husband the Swedish Duke Erik Magnusson.

photo1

image1

Near Halmstad we drove along the coast with wonderful walking paths out to the water.

Then Lena delivered us to Olof on Sunday afternoon for more genealogy. She has researched the Gotland family back through the 1600s

Olof prepared a welcoming smorgasbord for us.

And on Monday off to Erik and Asa.

image5

image6

And on Tuesday to Denmark to Frederiksborg Castle. 15th century castle and home of the crazy King Christian VII (subject of the movie A Royal Affair).

image7

image8

This morning we refueled Caryn and put her on a plane from Angleholm to Stockholm and to infinity and beyond.

image9

image10

Then we moved on to the important things: looking at composting toilets! They have “big box” DYI stores like our Home Depot, one of which we visited. More later. I have a brochure (in Swedish) that we can all read.

We also stopped at a tire repair shop to see why Olof’s tire had lost air:

Then Olof and I came home for a quiet day. We have both had a bit of a cold, so we worked on the genealogy connecting us to Lena…..

image12

image13

…and watched some BBC. And kept eating smorgasbord and drinking tea.

Olof frequents an on-line auction every other Tuesday and had found these for me. So me, I think!

Today we have lunch at a preserve with ponds and walking trails. But the real reason we go is because it is Thursday: pea soup and pancakes day!!!

Mom’s tree in good shape & Kath of course!

I had been giving some thought to taking Callix to a “nose work” class. Since his hip dysplagia and arthritis have kept us from agility classes, and since he is allegedly one-quarter bloodhound, I thought a sniffing/find it class might be good to keep us both active and learning. As I was considering this, I came across an article in the July/August Smithsonian about how security/explosive detection dogs are trained. An abbreviated version:

The best breeds for finding bombs may be German shepherds, Belgian Malinoises, and Labrador retrievers, more for their tireless work ethic than any special olfactory prowess. Shepherds are “play reward”dogs. Labs, perpetually hungry, are “food reward” dogs. Shepherds will accept criticism; Labs won’t–the stress of not measuring up takes the starch right out of them.

Bloodhounds? They will follow a scent trail as is pulled by a string. But “they are way down on the intelligence scale” and “they stink like livestock”. Golden retrievers can outsmell everybody, but it’s tough to get them to buy into the system. “They’re so intelligent that if they don’t want to do something, they just don’t do it”.

So it looks like I have a neurotic, hungry, smelly dog. Think we have any hope?

Sent from my iPad