Finally a nordic winter

full moon in late afternoon

Finally it looks like we have got a real Nordic winter (on the average). Though sometimes the climate change comes in between and we jump up or down with 20 degrees in some hours. We had some weeks of autumn and then the frost came in. It has been very cold now for a long time. Sometimes the warmth tries to get in for a day or two. But in general we have got winter since half of november. It has been freezing most of these weeks at daytime too. They got even a cold record, both in Sweden (43,6) as in Norway (43,5) last weeks. The record here at our place while we are living here (in the south of Sweden or Western Småland) is -18 in the late night. At the same time it feels even more cold, like -22 depending on wind and shadow. I can tell you that's really cold. Nature is building art, nice frost flowers on the ice or on the trees. You have to cover your face very well when you get out!

When it's that cold for a long time, other problems start. Like to open your car doors 😨. We had it when we came back from a travel. We parked at the station. We only could open one door, so we had to climb a little. We were so happy the car actually started unless the coldness. And the roads were dark and not well maintained. Most important? We made it to reach home save. 

Since Christmas we also have had snow. Yes, you read well: we had a white Christmas, with a lot of snow. In between all disappeared a little while and we had some green days in between but now we have been living in a white world again. At the moment it's only a small layer of snow and mostly frost. And finally the sun came back, after a long time of darkness in November and December. When you go out this time of the year, it feels like taking a sunbath. Of course, it has been very cold too. But after being outside you can feel the fresh energy it gives you.

We have been out many times already, making long walks in the woods (looking for animal traces) or on the lake (enjoying the sun and wondering about the beauty of nature by looking around). Yesterday we made an extra long walk around. We found a lot of traces. Most happy we were because we found a lot of moose traces. It is some time ago we saw a moose live. But it's looking like mama moose is walking around in this neighborhood with a kalf. 

Of course we are feeding the birds too. It's really busy around the place. We see a lot of Blackbirds and Tits and even Woody Woodpecker knows how to get out the seeds. Last week we saw beauty full waxwings at our feeding place. They are seldom seen in the Netherlands (in Sweden more common though). 

Picture unsplash.com/@dmitry_beloglazov

The ice on the lake is very strong now, as long as you stay on the save side where is no stream. The ice is not suited for skating because it's very uneven. The wind has been blowing hard when it started freezing. In the weekend you see an lot of people visiting the lake for grilling, ice fishing or just taking a sunbath. It's very popular. We heard our neighbor is a specialist too... Maybe we can go ice fishing in the weekend? I'm wondering how tick the ice is....