More swans!

There seems to get even more Whooper Swans every day! Today we met over 20 of them, both adults and grey young ones. They have completely cleaned our little river by eating all the plants that grew on the bottom..

They are lovely, and not at all afraid of people, having been fed (I assume) by passerbys. They aren't even afraid of the dog...

-Marianne-

Finally phone blogging success!

Have struggled a bit, but with this post as a proof the blogging feature directly from my Nokia cell phone to my blog works. Even with a picture attached! Trudes new Ed Hardy gym shoe became the first successful "victim" :-)

-Marianne-

Walk along the fjord

A bit cold, but today Toby and I had a walk along the fjord. Ian headed off for a business trip to Bergen for the day. The weather was kind of .. refreshing :-)

Pic of the day: another frozen tree along the fjord. We have but a few..

-Marianne-

Strand Church

Windy and not very pleasant walk today. Quick and dirty, 30 minutes only. Guess I'll have to give the dog another evening walk too. Today I was lazy...

The pic of the day is the backside of our old church up the hill behind our house. Another angle than most take its picture :-) The church was built in 1874. Quite new compared to our Stavanger Cathedral which was built sometimes between 1100 and 1200.

-Marianne-

Whooper Swans

Valentines Day, Mothers Day and "Fastelaven" (Norwegian tradition) all in one day. We will have friends over for dinner, so today we plan for a Sunday speed walk to be able to have time for everything. Cannot skip walking the dog :-) Here is my loyal walking buddy, Toby:

On our way we meet these Whooper Swans. A total of 15 in our little river, Tauånå. This is quite amazing, since the Whooper Swans require large areas of water to live in when they are still growing, because their body weight cannot be supported by their legs for extended periods of time!

-Marianne-

Deer in the woods

Our Australian friends are more than amazed by the lovely Norwegian winter, having expected the normal rain and wind... Truth to say, we cannot agree more... Another beautiful day :-)

This picture is captured down by the fjord.

Today on my evening walk I met three Deer crossing one of the gardens in front of me just to disappear quickly into the wooden areas. Of course, a couple of seconds too late with my camera ...
 
-Marianne-

Colorful sunset

Tonight we have one of our more colorful sunsets. The view is from our veranda towards the fjord. Couldn't resist capturing it with my camera phone :-)

Retreating winter..?

Februar 2 is from older days said to be the first day of spring in our south western part of Norway. I cannot say there is much resembling spring here at the moment. Ok, we had only 1cm of snow last night. Can we at least hope the winter is thinking of retreating?

Today on my morning walk with our dog I could see the ice in the river melting and the nights are not so cold anymore, about -2 and climbing every night. But the fruit trees are still struggling, knee deep in the snow. I think we'll have to postpone spring for some days yet...

-Marianne-

A walk along the river..

Beautiful winter at Tau along our more or less frozen river.

-Marianne-

Live from the mobile bush..

Text seems to work fine, but no pics and formatting. Strange... More testing will be done...

-Marianne-

Off Course Photos now on blogspot.com!

My first blog proper blog ever! :-) Having been asked to update our photo and travel report website (www.offcoursephotos.com) more regularly, I just decided to start this blog instead, as an addition to our more photo focused website. Easier to update both via pc and my phone and less fuss when we're out travelling. Now we have no excuse for not leaving signs of life!

Our winter holiday is coming up and we will leave for our winter accomodation in the Røldal mountains. Winter came early to Tau this season, Dec 19.. - and the snow still lasts! The amount of show in the mountains is however sparse... Hopefully we will have as much snow as our first year 2005 (pic below). Last year the snow was about to reach the hight of the small window of our hut...No chance so far this year...

Have a nice day! I'll have to explore the blogspot.com phone update abilities further...

-Marianne-