Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

I just wanted to wish all of my friends, family, other readers and followers a really merry Christmas, and thank you for following me here on the blog, on Twitter or on Facebook. I really appreciate it.

I will be back with more posts in 2012.

The last rose of 2011

I think these shots might be the last rose-shots this year. They did not last until Christmas eve this year, They gave in one week early, due to heavy snow and cold weather.

They will be back next year, as will I ;)

Skywatch?

Oh how I long for the warm and beautiful summer. These past weeks have been all about rain, snow and then rain again. All I could capture for this week's sky-watch was this picture of a very wet windows.

Just above freezing

No more than a mile and a half from where I captured the roses shown in my previous post, is Myrdalsvannet. It's almost on the same altitude as I live, but there are hill tops all around it and there is always a freezing breeze coming down the river from the colder mountains.


Just where the cold breeze hits the slightly warmer air, things tend to get covered in frost while the rest of nature stays above freezing.

These shots were taken on the exact same day (and an hour earlier) as the ones in the previous post. As you can see, the smaller puddles were slightly frozen, the grass was frozen, but the trees were not, once you got a couple of feet up.

The frost shots were taken in a spot where the sun never shines during the winter time, and that is probably one of the reasons it is colder here, than when I turned around and shot the picture of the water in the sun. It might be a bit hard to imagine, but the first and second shot in the row below was taken almost from the same spot. I only had to move a few feet.

It was a very special feeling on this trip, and i really got to see how wonderful mother nature can get :)

November roses

My roses have been through 2 tough summers. We've been doing a lot of reconstruction in the garden, and have moved them around.

Last year we decided we did not have time to keep all the flowerbeds tidy, and decided to convert the area to something useful. Then, one of the supporting walls gave in to the heavy snow and ice this previous winter, and we had to do some major changes this summer.


We gave a lot of rose-bushes away to friends who wanted them, and thought we had given them all away. But mid-summer we found a couple of bushes hidden in a corner. They were in a bad shape and we were about to through them away, but someone told us to trim them to the ground and give them a try.

To our great surprise they immediately grew new branches, and bloomed late in the summer. We thought that was it, but the roses had more in them. These shots were taken last weekend. And as you can see, they are now in great shape. (Roses in November isn't to common, as the first snow has usually fallen in these parts by then)