Vangshylla – Patricia McLellan's Blog

2025-01-27

In the Woods after a Storm

I’m finally getting out for walks in the woods again, after a long pause, mostly caused by poor weather. This week there is a pause from storms, both wind and rain. The air is refreshing at about -1 degree centigrade. Getting out of the house in the middle of the day gives me some much needed daylight.

About 10 days ago, in the afternoon of Friday, the 17th of January, our area of Trøndelag in Norway was hit by a storm with very strong winds, of hurricane strength in the gusts. The power went out for us about 4 pm and we didn’t get it back again until noon on Saturday. At its peak, there were about 40 000 homes without power. The main reason the power was out so long was that the wind had blown down an enormous number of trees. One of the contributing factors for so many trees down was that the ground was not frozen and there had been quite a bit of rain in the days before the storm. So when I went for my walk today, I was interested in seeing how much damage had been done in our local area.

The morning after the storm we had noticed several large trees across the road leading to the cabins beside us. Today they had been at least partially removed. There was also a tractor and a man with a power saw working on cutting down other trees that were no longer upright.

The road leading to the cabins beside us. Three large trees had blown over, but have now been cut so they are no longer blocking the road.

Most of the trees that are blown over in the wind are spruce trees as they have very shallow roots. A strong gust of wind, from a slightly different direction than the tree is used to, will often make them fall over, with their roots in the air. The main way to help the trees is to have a mixed variety of trees standing together so that the roots are intertwined and the roots from deciduous trees help hold the conifers in place. Solitary trees will be affected more, as are the trees on the windward side of a grove of trees.

As I reached the crest of the hill that I walked up, I saw the following, a pile of logs and a bigger pile of branches. Note that most of our snow has disappeared now.

The farm Rotvoll is in the background, but I noticed a stack of logs and a lot of branches on the field.

So I started wondering if all those trees had come down in the wind, or were they planned logging? It’s hard to know, but I wonder if it was a combination of both. My walk takes me down the road that goes off to the right in the distance. Locally it is known as the Golden Toll Road, as it is a private road and normally has a locked bar across the road.

The Golden Toll Road is missing the bar across it. The bar was laying safely on the ground. From the stack of branches at the right, I’m guessing that some of this was planned logging.

Signs of where the trees had been taken out. Had these been taken out before the storm? They don’t look like they had blown over. Certainly their removal makes the road more open.

As I continued along the road, it was quite obvious that at least some of the trees were taken from along the road. This is quite a shady area in the summer, so I can imagine that the cabin owners wanted some of the trees taken out, to make it brighter along the road and so that trees were not hanging over the road. Whoever owns the land will also be able to sell the trees for lumber, a common source of extra income for farmers.

Here was an area where quite a few trees had been taken down, but it doesn’t look like they were blown over in the wind. There are heavy tracks on the ground made by some large, probably logging machine, which indicates it may have been done before the storm.

My walk continued from this road that leads to many cabins to a path through the woods. Over the years that I have walked through these woods, there are always changes. Old trees break or fall over in winter storms. New trees sprout. Those who are responsible for keeping the trail usable usually go along the trail in the spring and make sure the fallen trees are cleared away. This trail is part of a longer trail that goes about 20 km from Vangshylla to Straumen (which is 12 km away by road).

Though there were no trees obstructing the car road, once I was on the trail there were still trees blocking my way. I had no problems getting around these ones.

Another tree that had blown over, but it was easy to walk around. The roots were so shallow that there wasn’t much holding that tree upright, if the wind suddenly came from a different direction.

More trees blocking part of the trail, but I go up to the right and don’t have to worry about the trees straight ahead in this picture.

This picture illustrates how shallow the roots can be with these spruce trees which are growing up on a steep, rocky slope.

The view from Bear Cliff, looking across to the island, Ytterøy, and Levanger behind the island.

The goal for my walk was what we call Bear Cliff (in Norwegian Bjørnbrøttet). There is a book in a box where I wrote my name. I was the fourth person to write my name in the book in 2025. It hasn’t really been good weather in most of January for walking in the woods. The first names for 2025 were recorded yesterday which was a Sunday.

As I continued my walk, taking a circular route for as much as I can, I came across one place where there had been damage to human-made things, though thankfully not the cabin itself.

Here there had been damage in the storm, so at least some of those trees on the field had been taken down after the storm. The cabin owner will have some repairs to do this summer. Thankfully the trees and blown down away from the cabin itself and only damaged the stairway. There is still a considerable mess to clean up.

The rest of my walk was quite uneventful. But I don’t need to see the results of a storm every time. Just walking amongst the trees is enough for me. I used an hour on today’s walk and I must try to prioritize doing more such walks. Getting away from roads and people can be very pleasant. I got back home feeling very refreshed and motivated both to write this blog and to do similar walks.

2025-01-08

Winter Weather

Winter at Vangshylla, with extra lights to cheer up the lot. Picture taken on 3 December 2024 at 16:32.

We live in a part of the world where it snows in the winter. It is also dark a large part of the day during November, December, January and February. Today, the 8th of January, sunrise was at 9:52 and sunset at 14:52, so officially light for five hours. However, how bright the day is depends on whether the sky is clear or not. On cloudy days, it can seem dark all day long if one doesn’t get outside and one needs lights on inside to be able to do anything.

Winter at Vangshylla with the sun slightly above the horizon and the clouds. Picture taken 8 January 2025 at 12:04. The tracks in the snow are made by deer.

I’m writing this blog while taking breaks from moving snow. We have a long driveway so it takes many hours to clear the driveway well. We got heavy snow on the 2nd of January and it snowed for several days creating chaos in many places. Among other things our garbage bins were not emptied on the designated day as the garbage trucks were not able to get at many of the garbage bins which had been snowed over.

One day it was blowing the snow, so it got quite packed as well. I’m still working on doing peripheral areas so that when it snows the next time it will be slightly easier. Usually we have one very heavy snowfall during the winter, so I’m hoping we have had it now. The worst that happens is that it turns mild, the snow melts but refreezes as ice at night. That is forecast for about 5 days in the future.

I actually enjoy having something to do outside that challenges my muscles and gives me fresh air and exercise. Now that I’m not working and having to get up at 5 am to clear the driveway to go to work, I find that removing snow by hand shovel very enjoyable. I wait until it’s daylight and quit when it gets dark. We don’t have to take the car out every day, so we plan trips out for shopping or being social with the weather forecast in mind.

Not every winter is filled with as much snow. Sometimes snow comes as early as October and sometimes it comes and goes as some days are milder. We often get a heavy snowfall in March, just when I’m wanting spring to arrive. Usually the ground freezes in November at the latest and then melting snow will often become ice. Ice I don’t like. As we get older, ice, especially under a thin film of snow, can cause even the most cautious walker to slide and injure themselves.

Skarnsund Bridge taken from near our house, 2 January 2016. There has been snow and frost but the day the picture was taken, there was no real amount of snow on the ground.

We have now lived in our house for almost 36 years, moving in on the 1st of March in 1989, a short time before our daughter was born. During all these years, there have been winter storms, hurricanes and heavy rain, but never any major damage to our house or lot.

Terrace at Fjellheim, picture taken on Sunday 5 January 2025 at 9:19. It is promising to be a sunny day and light long before sunrise. The snow has piled up a lot on the terrace but at least it has stopped snowing.

Usually I like to get the driveway cleared first, so that we can get out with the car, so on the 5th of January I was working on that. I found a large branch that had broken off a pine tree. I called Brock to help cut the branch into smaller pieces so it was easier to move. Sawing the branch indicated that the wood was quite dry which is probably why it broke under the weight of the snow.

A broken branch from a pine tree, Sunday 5 January 2025. The picture was taken at 11:19. There was no damage to the fence.

We work for at most 30 minutes at a time and go inside for warm-up breaks regularly. Fingers get cold fastest. The rest of me keeps quite warm with the layers of clothing that I use and I have warm boots. But fingers, even with two layers of gloves, can get quite cold when it is -10 degrees Celsius and the shovel one is holding is also cold. There’s usually no hurry to get the work done, though I want to make as good use of the daylight hours as possible.

Suddenly, Brock came to me and told me something had happened. I hadn’t heard anything as my hearing disability makes me unaware of even some danger sounds. I walked part way up the driveway and saw the damage to the railing.

Damage to the railing on our terrace, 5 January 2025. Picture taken at 13:16.

That changed on Sunday, the 5th of January 2025 when heavy packed snow on the roof of our house slid off and damaged the glass railing we have on our terrace. There were no person injuries, and material damage can be repaired. I’ve been reflecting on this damage since and realize that since we have lived in the house for so long, it is not surprising that something like this happened. An analysis of the situation made me think that the packed, blown snow last Friday was probably the major reason for suddenly getting damage. Usually the snow just slides off the roof, missing the railing and piling up on the terrace. We remove it once or twice during the winter so it doesn’t get too heavy. This time there was too much blown snow on the terrace already, so the snow from the roof had nowhere to go.

As you can see from the picture, there is a lot of snow on the ground, one section of glass has been shattered and seven sections have been pushed over by the weight of the snow. Our first challenge is to remove the broken sections, some of which may be reusable. But replacing the railing will be a job for the summer months. Brock has already started getting things supported so there isn’t more damage. Working in freezing temperatures does not make loosening bolts easy.

Damage to the railing as seen from the terrace. Usually the snow from the roof just fills up this section of terrace and we remove it when we have time.

As you can see from the picture, there is already a fair bit of snow on the terrace, before more came down from the roof. We normally remove at least some of the snow from the terrace. In some places on the terrace, where it is more open and the wind was blowing the snow, there is about 40 cm of snow.

Winter always gives us different challenges. No two winters are alike, but here in Norway there is always winter and many people get surprised by the first snowfall. Weather forecasting is much better now so that we get warnings of heavy snow so everyone can prepare themselves, and perhaps plan to have a day at home instead of going to work, to school or to go shopping. I like the change of seasons, no matter which season is coming next. I look forward to having snow on the ground to brighten up the long dark evenings. We add extra lights along our terrace and inside our living room to make things a bit brighter. Before you know it, winter retreats. The snow always disappears and spring is around the corner with longer, lighter and warmer days. I’m going to enjoy winter while it is here.

2024-05-11

Inderøy Walks 2024

General information

This is the 19th year in a row that Inderøy Walks have been arranged. This is a cooperation among many local organizations including sports clubs, the municipality and many volunteers. Inderøy has a lot of walking trails and only some of them are marked as Inderøy Walks. In 2024, there are 50 posts. 14 of them are suitable for those with reduced abilities to get around. As in previous years, it is possible to park the car and go for longer walks where one can check in to more than one post. (Rough translation from Norwegian of the introduction on the website).

Information printed in our local newspaper, on Friday, the 10th of May, the day before the competition official opens.

In the local newspaper, the municipality has been divided into seven areas, so that there are several walks available in each area. We live in the area called Utøy. Our local newspaper printed a list of the 50 posts. Those in red are accessible for those using a wheelchair or pushing a stroller. Those in blue are walks accessible to an elementary school.

Today, the 11th of May, was the first day of the Inderøy Walks 2024 and the competition is open until the 2nd of November. I don’t really want to compete with others, but I enjoy having the app on my phone and different places to go walking to and explore. For me, it is mostly about getting somewhere interesting, perhaps somewhere I haven’t been to before, and getting a reward for getting there. I never have the goal of trying to get every post, but I do try to get to some from each area of the municipality.

Saturday’s Walk

As it was forecast for rain later in the day, I decided to go as soon as I was up for the day, shortly after 6 am. It was nice walking weather, partly sunny, no wind and about 9 degrees. I chose to go to the two posts that are easiest to get to from home without driving.

General information about the cultural path (*kultursti*) between Vangshylla and Straumen, as well as some specific information about Vangshylla, including an aerial photo from 1953.

The walk I went on is part of the municipal cultural walk from Vangshylla to Straumen which is about 20 km along this path through the woods, though the driving distance is about 12 km. I only went a short part of the whole walk and then returned partly the same way.

We live in an area that has a lot of leisure cabins, mostly used during the summer months. So I often use other paths than if one started at the parking area at Vangshylla. The first part of the walk for me is along a dirt road that leads to one year-round dwelling, one farm and a restricted-access road.

This is called “The Golden Toll Road”, but is really just a private road that only the cabin owners have driving access to. There is no problem walking around the barrier.

Welcome to Vangshyllbakkan road cooperative. The barrier is to always be closed. Parking is only allowed in marked places and is forbidden on the roadway. Vehicles without a visible parking wafer can be towed away at the owner’s expense. Driving with a heavy load or heavy machinery needs to have special permission. (“Vangshyllbakkan” is the name of the road.)

We have lived in our house for over 35 years and during that time I have walked these trails many times and seen many changes. Often after the winter, there can have been damage in the woods, both from loggers and from storms. I had been along part of the trail once before this spring, but not the whole way to Høghalleren.

Once I was away from the cabins, the trail went into the woods with various types of trees, but primarily spruce, birch and rowan, as well as hazel, willow and pine. The trail goes down at this point and one has to walk carefully. It is quite easy to see the trail as it is well used.

As mentioned, this trail is a “cultural” trail and there are a lot of information signs along the way. They have been printed in Norwegian and English. Most of them give historical information about what the area has been used for.

The view from “Rosveet”, looking towards the island of Ytterøy. Don’t get too close to the edge as there is a sharp drop down to the water.

This is called a “gapahuk” in Norwegian and is a very small shelter, usually made from logs. The white sign shows that I have come to post 19, so I checked in. There is also a book in the box on the wall which I wrote my name in.

I got to the first post at Bjørnbrottet (Bear Cliff) about 20 minutes after leaving home, but I wanted to continue on and visit one more post. What surprised me as I continued on was the changes since I had been here last summer.

But first I had to go down a very steep section of the trail. Where the trail seems to end, it actually goes down quite a steep slope.

This was on the information sign at Vangshylla and shows the changes in elevation along the trail. I am walking along the trail from the left and go the the first three peaks before “Forr”. Forr is basically at sea level.

Looking back up the trail I had just come down. It’s a bit narrow.

From this point on, I started noticing quite a few changes. Even in the picture above you can see how there are a lot of branches on the left hand side of the picture. There had been a very large tree that had toppled over in a bad storm during the winter and it had been cut up a bit to clear the pathway. Spruce trees have very shallow roots and are very susceptible to being blown over with their roots in the air. I continued on, crossing a small stream and came out into an area that was much more open than the last time that I had walked here, sometime last summer. All this land will be privately owned, so access to the trail has to be agreed on with the landowners.

When we first went walking here 35 years ago, this was a densely forested area. It was logged after several years, so the forest that was growing here was probably only about 30 years old. Once again it has been logged, though it definitely gave some gorgeous views out over the water.

Loggers have been at work here and the trail is seen going over a very open area. This is a fairly flat area, so not too difficult to log. To the left in the picture, the slope gets very steep and the old trees have been left. The trees would mostly have been quite small, so are perhaps going to be used for either firewood or the central heating system in Straumen.

Back into the old forest and one can see that trees have broken in the wind, or been knocked over by another tree.

This tree had suffered in the winter’s storm.

I reached my second post, no 20, at Høghalleren, about 20 minutes after the first post. I had spent a bit of time taking photos along the way. There is a picnic bench here to take a rest, and the mailbox on the back side of this post has a book in it to write one’s name. The view is very nice from here.

The cliff goes very steeply down here, so I’m very careful to not go too close to the edge. The tide was low when I was here. This view is taken looking southeast, with the island of Ytterøy first and Verdal in the background.

Even though I was walking on my own, I really enjoyed having a walk early in the morning. I used about one hour and twenty minutes for the whole walk, but I stopped quite a bit to take pictures. I took about 45 pictures on the walk and you have seen only some of them. I will be doing this walk several times over the next few months and I need to remember that I enjoy early morning walks. As predicted, it started to rain later in the day, so I was out in the best part of the day.

I plan to go on more of the Inderøy Walks in the coming weeks and hope to be able to share my experiences with my readers.

2024-04-17

Regular Walks

Most weeks I walk once or twice up to a local dairy farm, Åsvang, to buy fresh milk in bottles. And by “up” I mean a 25 minute walk uphill, and a little more than one and a half kilometers. According to Google Maps we live at 32 meters above sea level and the farm is 129 meters above sea level, meaning that there is an altitude difference of 97 meters. It is good exercise.

When one does the same walk many times, it may seem a bit repetitive, but as the seasons change, it is interesting to see what changes have happened since the last walk. Especially in spring, there can be quite a few changes, just in a week. We’ve recently had plenty of rain and the walk today was sunny, so nature is coming to life again after winter.

Where just a few weeks ago, these first yellow flowers were hard to find, they are now coming out in large clumps and quickly spreading along the sunny road banks. All pictures in this blog were taken on 2024.04.16.

View from Åsvang, looking west, 2024.04.16

As one looks over the fields, some of them are just starting to turn green. The snow has disappeared, but it will be a while before the trees have leaves on them. If you look carefully, you can just see the tops of the two towers of Skarnsund Bridge.

I love it when the new growth is starting to be more visible. Even the deer are starting to find enough grass in the fields to eat. There is still a lot of dry grass from the last year, but the new growth will soon be tall enough that one won’t see last year’s growth which becomes fertilizer for the new growth.

Though the fields are still mostly brown with dried grass, some of the fields have been plowed, often in the fall before the winter came. The road bank to the right of the road is just starting to show the promise of green grass. In the distance can be seen an island, Ytterøy, which means the outer island. We live in Inderøy, the inner island, which is actually a peninsula.

Along the road to Vangshylla, 2024.04.16

In the ditch, where there is still plenty of dampness from the heavy rains a few days ago, the leaves of flowering plants are showing that it won’t be long before there will be more flowers to be seen.

In a previous blog I mentioned people cutting down trees for firewood. Here’s an area that has been attacked by such a person. There is a field to the left, but in the center of the picture quite a few trees have been cut down this spring, making the hillside look bare. The small branches are left to rot, which is fine, but it doesn’t look very good.

For many, spring is a problem with pollen. The birch tree is one that can cause quite a bit of problem, both for myself and many others. Already, the trees are putting out their pollen producing catkins, but it will be a month before the leaves come out on birches. There is a sharp difference in color between deciduous trees, like the birch, and the evergreens, either pine or spruce, which you can see in the background of this picture.

Willow trees put out their flowers long before the leaves come out. The pussy willows on this tree are just starting to come out and will soon be shedding their pollen. Checking today’s pollen warning shows “moderate” for willows, or salix.

Trees are always hard to photograph close-up, in my opinion. What I see with my eye, is not always what appears in the photograph. Eyes are really much better devices than cameras in many ways, even older eyes. This year there have been a lot of spruce shoots from the ends of branches lying on the ground as if there has been too little food and animals have been eating the shoots. The new growth has not really started but at the very ends, there are signs of new growth just coming. The spruce trees did not bloom last year, and there are very few cones left for the squirrels to munch on, so I hope the trees bloom this year.

I am always eager to see what is coming up in my garden. Once the sprouts are showing from the bulbs, growth can happen amazingly quickly. Here are both tulips and daffodils coming up and there is also a peony plant that will emerge as well. The tulips don’t do very well anymore as the deer tend to eat them. But the daffodils do well as the deer don’t eat them.

Our house is called “Fjellheim” and we translate that as “Cliff Cottage”, though a more direct translation would be “mountain home”. The above plant is a wild orchid that comes up every year. When we first moved to the house, it was growing in a ditch, as it needs lots of water. I carefully moved it one year so that it didn’t get destroyed by people digging in the ditch and I managed to find a place where it thrives. It comes up early, and already the flower stem is starting to show in the middle. This one will have a dark purple flower.

The lilac bush’s buds are starting to open out in the sunshine. We still have frost at night, but the daytime temperatures can be up to about 10 degrees. This bush gets lots of sunshine and will be one of the first ones on our lot to put out its leaves and flowers.

Crocuses are the first bulbs to bloom and these ones are enjoying the sunshine under the lilac bush. These come up in a bed where we have been putting snow when clearing the driveway in the winter, so there are always a lot of stones in the bed. Eventually the largest of them will be put back on the driveway, though that is a tedious job.

These were some of the delights of nature this week. But the joy of this time of year is how things change quickly. The earliest flowers disappear, the leaves come out on the trees, and new flowering plants emerge. I hope you can get outdoors and enjoy the nature that is around you.

2024-04-08

Spring 2024 walking season has started

I have been quite lazy this winter, doing very little walking outdoors except when going specific places, like the dairy farm or the egg farm. But today, the temperature was finally a bit more comfortable, at 12 degrees centigrade, so my husband and I put on walking trousers, hiking shoes and went for our first walk in the woods.

We have a favorite location that takes us along some gravel roads and a path in the woods. It takes about 20 minutes to get to Bear Cliff (Bjørnbrøttet), where there is a book to write one’s name in and a small shelter to take a short pause. I have written blogs about this walk previously. You might like to contrast today’s walk with the one in 2023 when the weather was quite different.

The view from Bear Cliff taken at 16:31, looking towards the island of Ytterøy with Levanger in the background.

As you can see from the picture, it was cloudy and there had been rain showers earlier in the day. We did not have any rain while we were walking and we were out for about an hour. But shortly after we were home again, there was another short rain shower.

As this was the first time for this walk in 2024, it was interesting to see if there were any changes, either in nature, or to the cabins we walked by. There were a couple of trees that had been blown over, some that had been cut down. There seemed to be more open spaces as if cabin owners wanted more sunshine or a better view. At this time of year I am always looking to see what flowers are out. The two earliest ones here in Inderøy are coltsfoot (which is yellow) and anemone hepatica (which is blue).

Coltsfoot /hestehov) or tussilago farfara. The flowers come out from the rhizome first before any leaves appear. The leaves are very large but disappear during the summer. These flowers like the sunshine and appear first in sheltered, sunny spots and along the roadsides.

The blue anemone, sometimes called liverwort, (hepatica nobilis / blåveis) is a bit hard to see, but they are also very common in Inderøy and one of the signs of spring. They will eventually cover large areas as the days warm up. They are quite small and are often found under trees.

You’ll have to look closely in the photo to see the hepatica / blåveis, but it is in several parts of the photo.

Getting out in the fresh air is important. Getting walking exercise helps keep us in good shape. I was surprised that I was in such good shape as I did not labor up any of the hills. So that is a good sign. I also feel that it is important for our eyes to look far in the distance and not always to be looking at a screen or things close to us, for example, knitting projects.

Looking south-west towards Trondheim, through Norviksund, with Mosvik on the right and Ytterøy on the left. There are rain clouds in the distance but they didn’t get to us until after we were inside again. Looking at the small island on the right, we see that it was relatively low tide.

We live in an area with quite a variation in tides. When this picture was taken (at 16:46), the tide was still going out and low tide was at 18:40 and at 6 cm above the base level. At high tide, later this evening, the water level will be at about 324 cm, so the water level will be more than 3 meters higher than at low tide.

As we came up our own driveway, I looked to see if there was anything flowering yet. I have lots of bulbs, but the ground has been frozen until the last few days. Crocuses are just starting to show some color and only need a few days of sunshine to come out in full bloom.

Not wild flowers, but planted in my garden. Crocuses are the first flowers that bloom in my garden. These need a bit more sunshine before opening out.

I hope you too are able to get out for longer walks out in nature, now that we are in April. Enjoy the nature you have around you.

2022-02-25

February 2022 – Snow Month

February is a winter month where I live and it is expected that there will be snow on the ground all month long. Usually I also expect some sunny weather though the temperatures can be below freezing. This year, we have been getting new snow on a lot of days of February. This is the 25th of the month and so far I have been out moving snow on our driveway 13 of these days, including today. The snowfalls may not be that large each time, but they have been constant and are building up both on the lawn and along the roads.

Because of so much snow, I have not been out walking much, except to walk to a local dairy farm to pick up fresh milk in bottles. This I do once or twice a week depending on how much milk we have used. During today’s walk, I was thinking about the amount of snow that had built up during the month.

When I started my walk today, it was snowing, so some of the pictures are a bit dark. By the time I was on my home, the sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds and sometimes it was out and sometimes not.

We live on a side road so it is not as regularly cleared as I would have liked. However, yesterday a road scraper went by and scraped several layers of ice and snow off the road, leaving it piled up beside the road.

This road was scraped yesterday, though a little new snow came down in the night. On the left there is a guard rail hidden in the snow bank. I found the chunks of ice and snow on the right an imitation of the old-fashioned rock guards on many rural roads in Norway.

The intersection between the road to Vangshylla and Utøyvegen. The road name signs are visible but snow and ice have been piled up around them.

I also follow a farm road which has been cleared intermittently all winter. I wasn’t the first person walking up this hill today.

Temperatures have been slightly above freezing the last couple of days, so snow has been sliding off roofs. With all this snow, the children at the dairy farm have obviously been out enjoying it. This week they even have a week off school.

Walking along Utøyvegen, the guard rail is visible, though the snow is piled up to the top of it. The sun was trying to peek through the clouds.

As I was walking, I was thinking about the deer that live in our neighborhood. We have one deer who comes by at least once a day to eat the sunflower seed hulls lying on the ground under the bird feeder. I have also seen a group of three deer which I presume is a mother with two offspring from last year. The deer have long skinny legs so they do cross the fields of relatively deep snow.

Deer tracks in the snow. The deer cross the road in the same places all the time, winter and summer. It is just easier to see where in the winter.

More deer tracks on the other side of the road.

I was walking home by now and thinking about the deer. The snow is getting quite deep for them and many of the tracks that I saw in the snow had been partly filled in by the new snow during the night. But suddenly, I saw our regular one.

The deer was on the road and she seemed to have caught either sight of me moving, or heard some sort of sound. I stopped walking to see what she would do. She seemed to have come from the left. She looked at me for a minute and then decided to dash off, into the field on the left.

The deer was running, sort of, but the deep snow did not make it easy nor quick. I let her get away before going farther down the road.

It was good to get out and get some fresh air as well as some fresh milk. But I still had an hour’s work to do my share of cleaning snow off the driveway. Have a good day!

2022-02-06

February Walk – Ice

As the walks that I take at this time of year tend to follow the same few trails or roads, I look for different themes for taking my pictures as I walk. Today I noticed ice in different types of locations.

January 2022 was the month of storms in Norway, though we didn’t feel all of them where we live. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute summed up the month of January with very high levels of bad weather warnings (see the article in Norwegian here), about twice as many as a year ago. There was a storm somewhere in Norway on 26 of the 31 days in January, with 82 yellow warnings, 12 orange warnings (more serious) and 2 red, extreme warnings. Why were there so many storms in January in Norway? There was a high pressure area sitting over Great Britain, so they got the sunshine. The storms coming in off the Atlantic Ocean went around Great Britain and came to Norway.

I usually think of January as the month that it warms up a bit and the snow disappears. This year we got that, but we also got several storms that brought more snow, or heavy rain. The last week of January saw more snow. February tends to be, in my opinion, more stable weather, meaning that there are fewer storms and more sunnier weather, though it can be quite cold and very often a lot of ice.

Today the temperature was about +2 degrees Celsius and no wind when I was out walking. The sun shone intermittently, but the day felt bright. But the last few days has given us changeable weather, sometimes snow, sometimes rain, but always the temperature has been about zero degrees, so that the rain does not get rid of much of the snow. That means that we have had perfect conditions for creating ice, especially where one drives or where one walks.

Running water creates ice and this stream was no exception. This is the same stream that a few weeks ago was causing flooding on the field at the top. The stream is fed under the cultivated field through a large pipe. Here the stream tumbles down a ravine, causing ice to form along its path.

In the woods, running water can also cause icicles to form. Here was a long series of icicles.

As I got closer to the icicles, I noticed the rock formations as well. Here there were several layers of rock, with large spaces between them. Above there are farm fields. Some of the water seems to be flowing in the stream I had found a week ago, but most of the water just seemed to drip over the edge of the rocks. Note that there is a lot of moss on the rocks indicating that these rocks are wet all year long.

The sun came out as I was writing my name in the tour book at the lean-to. I checked the map on my telephone and it told me that I was about 80 meters above sea level. I make sure I don’t go near the edge at this time of the year. I do not want to slide down a cliff face.

A week ago, I had seen a large tree stump at the water’s edge at the beach. Was it still there, I wondered? So I walked down to the beach and sure enough, it was stranded near the high water level on the beach. Today the tide was much lower. We can have up to four meters difference between high tide and low tide.

Back to ice and the conditions of the roads. This is a private gravel road that leads to five homes and many cabins. Icy! I was glad that I was wearing cleats under my shoes. I was also very careful where I walked. At the lowest point of this section of road, the stream goes under the road through a large pipe.

Even the municipal road that leads to the quay at Vangshylla was very, very icy, though a bit of sand had been put down to allow cars better traction on the ice. Walking along the edge of the road, it was very icy. I was glad to be walking uphill, not downhill.

As I walked up the road, I again saw icicles forming where water drains off the cliff and freezes as it falls.

The yellow fence at the top of the cliff shows our property. Here, too, ice forms as water is draining away and then freezing.

As it was several days since I had been out for a walk, I dawdled a bit, watching where I was walking and was out for about an hour and a half. It was good to get fresh air and let my eyes focus on things far away, and not just look at a computer screen or my knitting.

I hope you too have had a good walk this weekend.

2022-01-24

January Walk – Weather

When I walk on my own, I often write blogs in my head, but they don’t all make it onto the computer. Today I was thinking about the weather and how I have always been fascinated by it.

When I went out for an hour’s walk today, it wasn’t raining when I left the house, but I knew it could. After several days of rain, I knew the ground would be soggy and wet, so I dressed in rain gear including gumboots. Gumboots mean that I don’t have to worry about the puddles on the paths in the woods.

The weather affects us all, and I often will check the weather forecast on my phone several times in the day, either to decide when to go out for a walk, what type of walk I will get and whether to stay indoors. I also use it to plan activities for later in the week. A heavy snowfall reduces how much I am willing to drive. Rain after freezing temperatures will make roads very slippery and dangerous. A promise of sunshine will improve my humor and get me outside quicker. Cold days are good days to bake and use the oven to add heat to the house. Warm days mean that I cook less and put less heat into the house from cooking. At this time of year, January, I think more about rain, snow and ice, than about it being too warm.

Again we have had quite a bit snow that has melted with the rain. When walking on paths in the woods, this means that the paths often become streams.

The path in the woods today was also serving as a stream. Water runs downhill to about the middle of the picture, from both the foreground and the background. The water drains off from the puddle in the middle of the picture, off to the right and on down the hillside to the fjord.

I tried following the water upstream to see where it was coming from and found a small waterfall.

Wherever the water was coming from, it was definitely going downhill.

There are many times when running water creates a problem, both for the environment and for humans and animals. Running water has considerable force and can damage things. Flooding can be a result when there is more water than the water channel will hold. With the climate changing all over the world, flooding is becoming more of a problem, especially where people have built their homes on a natural flood plain (the area that a river needs to have when there is more than normal amounts of water in it).

One of the effects of running water is to wash away the sand and small pebbles in the ruts of gravel roads. This road leads to three cabins but the rain and melting snow, on a slope, have washed away some of the gravel and sand.

To avoid this kind of erosion on driveways and gravel roads, it is important to lead the water away from the ruts. Here on our own driveway, I have cut into the side of the gravel so that the water can run into the ditch on the left. It seems to be working well this winter.

On my walk today, the streams (as well as the pathways) were full of water.

A local stream as it comes out of the woods and crosses the beach at low tide. My intention had been to cross the stream on the beach, but the water was flowing so quickly and I would have to have put my feet on uncertain ground, that I changed my mind and crossed the stream where it went in a large pipe under the road.

As you can see in this picture, there is at least one channel on the beach where the water is flowing very quickly and I was uncertain as to how deep the water was.

Eventually the sun came out, about the time I came out of the woods and down onto the beach. I was able to push back my hood and enjoy a bit of sunshine. The last bit of my walk is all uphill, so it went slowly as I was enjoying being outside, in the fresh air and the sunshine.

As I was thinking even more about weather, I noticed that while I had been experiencing rain, on the far side of the sound, and at higher levels, there had been snow on the tree tops.

On the far side of Skarnsund, there was a dusting of snow on the trees at the top of the hill. On the open fields of the farm at Duklett, there was still plenty of snow that had not melted, even though at sea level there was very little snow left.

Once home again, I decided to look and see what books we actually have about the weather and I found three (though there could be more that I didn’t find) from different time periods.

I found the subtitle of this book, published in 1960, very interesting – calling meteorology a young science.

This Norwegian book about weather forecasting was published in 1982 and is a translation of a German book published in 1977.

Published in 2005, this appears to be a translation of a book originally published in English in Australia. This book, titled, “The Weather” claims to be a “visual guide to meteorology” and has a lot of good pictures that illustrate the weather phenomenon discussed.

Today, it is easy to look up information about the weather on the internet, so I doubt if I would buy another book about the weather. How we get our weather information, both locally, or internationally, has improved immensely in the last ten years. The weather forecast that I can get on my telephone or computer will show when precipitation is expected, what the temperature mostly likely will be, wind direction and air pressure. The forecast for the next 24 hours is usually reasonably accurate. Bad storms are given a lot of publicity in news media so one can be prepared.

Today I was relatively lucky with the weather. I got out of the house while it wasn’t raining. Most of the rain came while I was in the woods, in the relative shelter of the trees. Once I was out at the beach, the sun came out. I managed to get out in one of the short breaks in the rain. At the moment of writing, it is raining again, almost constantly.

I hope you can get outdoors today too, no matter what the weather.

2022-01-13

January Walk – Flooding

After a day of heavy rain and not getting outside at all, I decided to go for a walk today and see if there was any damage nearby.

This storm is bad enough that it has received a name, “Gyda” and it is affecting a large portion of Norway from the mountain passes in the south to northern Norway. Roads through mountain passes are closed, airlines have cancelled flights, ferries in vulnerable locations have been cancelled, roads are closed due to flooding or landslides and basements have been flooded. In some locations people have been evacuated from their houses as rivers have gone over their banks. At the time of writing this blog, the storm is not over and it is expected to continue to rain at least until tomorrow, but I think the worst is over for us, at least as far as water levels are concerned.

We live on a rocky hillside and though there is a stream not far away, it is on the other side of a small hilltop so even when it floods it does not come our way. We almost always get a mild period in January, when the snow melts. If rain comes at the same time, and the ground is still frozen, the melting snow and the rain water only run across the surface and can not sink into the ground.

We got snow on the 24th of December and we have had several snowfalls since then. There have been nice stable winter temperatures and the snow has piled up.

The accumulated snow on our terrace. This picture was taken on 5 January 2022 at 3 pm, just after sunset.

When I got up on Wednesday, the 12th of January, it had already started to rain and it rained almost constantly all of Wednesday. The temperature eventually rose to about 8 degrees Celsius. With the warm temperatures, as well as the rain it didn’t take long for the snow to disappear. As you can see in the picture above, there was about 20 cm of accumulated snow when the rain started.

We live in an area with a lot of cabins and few residents. I decided on my walk to see what was the status of the area. As I went on my usual walk towards the woods, along a road that goes to some of the cabins, I noticed two cars driving partway along this road and then backing up. Oh, oh. Something must be wrong. As I continue along the road I notice that the water has been much higher and crossed the road, instead of flowing under it.

This car stopped, then backed up and disappeared. You will notice that there is a slight dip in the road at this point. You can see the water pouring across the road. There is an intersection here and there is one road that comes towards me and one that goes off up the hill. In the picture, both roads will be heading off to the right in the picture.

Let’s have a look at what has happened. We live in an agricultural area with farm fields. When the snow melts, or it rains a lot, the water will run to the lowest lying area and continue on downhill until it gets to the fjord. At some point in the past, the farmers owning these fields have put in drainage pipes and the stream has been put underground. This allows the farmer to have more cultivated land. Unfortunately, when the ground is frozen, melting snow water and rain can not go down to the pipes, but instead flow across the field.

Here the water is starting to collect, at the bottom of a ploughed field. Note that where the stream is flowing, the ground has not been ploughed. This will be deliberate. Probably once a year, most likely in January, this flooding will occur.

At this point, the stream is supposed to be underground, but as has happened before, when the ground is frozen, snow melt and rainwater run across the surface. There was quite a flow of water, and from various signs in other places, the water level was already retreating a bit. There isn’t much snow left, so there is just the rain water now.

Looking back the way I have come. There is not normally a stream here, even when it is raining.

Here is where the water running across the field joins the stream as it comes out of a pipe (the pipe is difficult to see but at the left in the picture). The water was flowing quite quickly. The stream heads off to the right, makes a few bends and has quite a few trees along it.

Here, the small stream has more water than it can hold and has flooded its banks. No major problem here as there is plenty of room for the water to spread out.

But the stream is supposed to go under the road here, into a pipe that takes it under the field as well. The pipe did not have the capacity to carry all of the water, so it started flowing across the road. The water flows from right to left in the picture. On my way back, I saw a tractor had crossed the stream, on the road, so it wasn’t that deep, but far too deep for an ordinary car. I went across the field on the left and was able to avoid the stream.

Here the stream has spread out and following its old pathway. In the rainy season, this little section is often very soggy. I’ve never seen such a large pool of flowing water here before. When the children were small, there was sometimes a patch of ice here that they could skate on.

Normally this channel is dry as the water would go through a pipe. But the old stream bed is still there and the stream can use it when necessary.

Here is it quite obvious that water flows were much higher before I came. You can just see the stream on the right. There has been some damage to the road here, but not very much.

The pipe on the left is carrying the water that has come under the field. The water was flowing very quickly and there was also water coming through a pipe, at about the center of the picture, from the stream in the picture above.

I continued on my walk, with the intent of going through the woods. The path was very soggy, but I had gumboots on, so my feet stayed dry. It was raining lightly, but I had rain trousers and jacket on, with a hood pulled up, so it was pleasant to be out in the fresh air. My walk usually takes me up the hill, then around some cabins, then downhill almost to the fjord before climbing uphill again. However, today I did not make the round trip, but ended up going back the way I came. There is a second stream that needs to be crossed twice and I decided not to cross it today.

My turning around point. In the summer, this small stream can be very dry, but today it was full. Usually, it is easy to cross, even when there is water in it, but today the water was flowing so quickly that I decided not to take a chance. If I lost my footing, I would get very wet. In addition, the path that goes down the hill on the other side was also a stream, so the walking there would not be pleasant at all.

I enjoyed my walk, in fact, these pictures were taken on two different walks, one at about 11 am and one at about 2.30 pm. Plus degrees, fresh air (even though it was wet) and something to take pictures of, made both of my walks very pleasant. In addition, I saw that there was no major damage even though car access to the cabin areas was a bit restricted.

2020-12-22

Twilight

If I think of the meaning of the word, twilight, I think of the time when it is getting light, just before sunrise, or the time after sunset when there is still light in the sky.

If you look at what astronomers calculate, there are three definitions of twilight. I’m going to give the times for today, 22 December 2020, and my location at Vangshylla, Norway as well as definitions and where possible a photo.

According to my source at www.timeanddate.com, twilight is the time between day and night when there is light outside, but the sun is below the horizon. The morning twilight is often called dawn and the evening twilight is called dusk.

The astronomical definitions of the three stages of twilight are based on the Sun’s elevation, see the diagram below. Sunrise is when the sun comes over the horizon. For calculation purposes, it is the geometric center of the sun that is used.

If we think of what is happening in the morning, civil twilight starts when the sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon and lasts until sunrise. The actual point in time when the sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon is called civil dawn. Nautical twilight is when the sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon and astronomical twilight is when the sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon. In the morning, astronomical twilight comes first, then nautical twilight, then civil twilight. In the evening, civil twilight comes first, then nautical twilight, then astronomical twilight.

1 Astronomical Twilight

At Vangshylla today, astronomical twilight was between 6:41 – 7:40 and 16:48 – 17:47. This is about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Before 6:41 and after 17:47, the sky is completely dark and celestial bodies that can be seen with the naked eye will be visible (in a cloudless sky). Lights in houses and city streets will be quite visible even at a distance. I have no photos during these times as it is too dark for me to get a picture. When I looked out a window during this period this morning, I could just see the outline of the hill in the direction where the sun would eventually come up.

2 Nautical Twilight

2020.12.22, 07:45 at the beginning of nautical twilight. It is still pretty dark and only artificial lights are visible in the photo. I live out in the country, so there aren’t many lights at this time of day.

At Vangshylla today, nautical twilight was between 7:40 – 8:48 and 15:40 – 16:48. Again, this is approximately an hour for each period. In general, artificial light will be required to do activities outdoors. In times past, when sailors navigated using the stars, most stars would still be visible to the naked eye. I feel that it is still quite dark. Today was a cloudy day, but perhaps on a clear day, there could be a bit of light just coming in the sky.

3 Civil Twilight

At Vangshylla today, civil twilight was between 8:48 – 10:05 and 14:23 – 15:40. This is about an hour and a quarter for each period.

2020.12.22, 9:14, taken looking towards where the sun will rise, during civil twilight. Today it was cloudy all day. If there had been a clear sky, there would have been more light. It still feels dark and lights are needed indoors to function. Outdoors one can do things without additional light.

This is the brightest form of twilight. In the morning, civil twilight begins when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and ends at sunrise. In the evening, civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. During these two periods there may be enough natural sunlight that it is not necessary with artificial light to do things outdoors. Some countries use this definition to make laws regulating the use of headlamps and street lamps and can also be used in rules affecting aviation and hunting.

Sunrise in Straumen, Inderøy at 10:05. Heavy cloud means that the morning is quite dull.

2020.12.22, 14:10, 13 minutes before sunset. The ball of the sun is just going behind the hill in the distance. There is still a lot of cloud, and it was raining where I was taking the pictures, but the sun’s rays shine under the clouds.

2020.12.22, 14:58, 35 minutes after sunset, so civil twilight. There is still a bright glow in the sky in the direction the sun has set. There is still enough light to do things outdoors.

2020.12.22, 15:46, so at the beginning of nautical twilight. There is still enough light to get a picture, though I had to put my cellphone on night mode. There is still a bit of a glow in the direction that the sun set over an hour ago. The lights in houses in the distance are showing up in the picture.

Twilight in the summer

The length of twilight is affected by a location’s latitude, so that places closer to the equator have shorter periods of twilight than those places that are at higher latitudes. During the summer months at higher latitudes, such as northern Norway or northern Canada, there may not be any difference between astronomical twilight after sunset and astronomical twilight before sunrise.

So let’s look at my location. From 2021 April 11 until 2021 September 2, there is no official “night”. There is only twilight. From 2021 April 28 until 2021 May 20, there is no astronomical twilight, only nautical and civil twilight. From 2021 May 21 until 2021 July 22, there is only civil twilight. From 2021 July 23 until 2021 August 14, there is both nautical and civil twilight. From 2021 August 15 there will again be astronomical twilight and from 2021 September 2 there will be night as well.

I like the period between the end of April and the middle of August as it never really gets dark at night. Knowing that there will be lots of light in this period, helps me get through the short, dark days in November, December and January. At the summer solstice, on June 21, we get 20 hours and 53 minutes of daylight and the rest is civil twilight. This is quite a contrast with the winter solstice on December 21 (see the blog I wrote yesterday) when there is only 4 hours and 17 minutes between sunrise and sunset.

My source