Fossil hunt

Up on the Longyearbreen moraine it's easy to find some 40-60 million years old plant fossils. They are pretty impressive!

He's not anyhow interested in fossils, but he's ready to follow us for anywhere - even though he doesn't understand what's fun with stones.

When the rucksacks were full of stones, it was time to go home.

Harvest

It was fun to have a little garden on my living room. I can't say that the harvest became any special huge, but anyhow, it was nice to eat some handful of own tomatoes or spice food with herbs from own garden. I managed to make some dinners (for one) from own harvest - just added with an egg and so. That's mostly thanks for male pumpkin flowers; I was having plenty of them. They are tasty and beautiful to look at, so no any complains.

I got two small pumpkins (250-400 g) and one which didn't grow properly. Even though harvest might not look that impressive, I just needed to have a harvest fest for them. The pumpkins ended up in the oven with a piece of reindeer my friend shot last autumn. Anyhow, that was at least a good excuse to ask friends for dinner! So, now all reindeer is eaten and garden is harvested. And I'm already waiting for a new season!

Dancing in the clouds

Autumn is sneaking in... We are having pretty often foggy days in autumn time, but that's not actually giving any reason to stay inside. Then you just need to find an area which isn't on fog.

Sometimes it can be actually little bit cool to be walking on clouds. Everything looks somehow mystic.

But also, in autumn there are also those windless days which are so nice. Even it's getting already little bit cooler, it's feeling just ok when there isn't wind.

I guess all the parents are used to stop with children on playing grounds, swings and so on. If you're owning a dog, then you just need to make some trips to places where you can find snow. That's fun!

Autumn in Svea

Drift has started again in the mine after a pause over the summer and Svea is busy again. But our time is starting to be soon over - there is only one week left for us after this week. It will be sad to say "good bye" to Svea.

This week has been pretty cloudy, but even overcast can be beautiful. We had our weekly trip up to Varden, even though clouds were hanging on the mountain sides. But the trip was nice, and up on the Varden we were almost over the clouds. Fog gave a new touch for our little tour.

Time of the midnight sun is over

The sun hasn't set since 19th of April. It went under the horizon first time 22th of August. Then I was in Trondheim - and there it was dark at night time! I haven't actually been missing that... It's not getting yet dark here at nights, that we need to still wait couple of weeks.

One thing we're lacking here in summer time is moon. We get always a new moon over the horizon in summer time, but full moon isn't rising. To see the moon again at the sky gives me feeling of autumn. There isn't any doubt more that the summer is behind.

Trondheim

Trondheim is one of the biggest cities in Norway with its about 174 000 people. It's a beautiful city! Regardless of that we spend our time little bit out of the town. I'm not actually missing towns but really enjoyed my time in a summer cabin.

I needed to leave my dog in Longyearbyen, but I got company of "real" polar dogs. The puddle has grown up in Longyearbyen and was the one of the best mates for my dog. Now he's living in the mainland but the German shepherd is a faithful tour companion.

One of the best thing about living in the mainland is all the berries which can be picked from the forest. I guess my friend got tired of me harvesting rasberries...

Warm winds

Suddenly we got a reminder of summer. In the middle of August we got the warmest day for all summer. Temperature got all the way up to 17 decrees Celcius. It was really strange to feel warm wind on the face. I was just sitting on our veranda and enjoying the real summer. In summertime all the town was feeling so quiet, when almost all the children were on a summer holiday in the mainland. Now most of them were back and it was cosy to listen sounds of the playing kids. Our dog was following them carefully from his cable reel.

Predators around

We were planning to make our weekly walk to Varden. Before we started to walk we decided to drive and have a look if our polar bear were staying on where he used to be. But he was gone. We heard he had disappeared earlier on the morning and haven't been seen since. Mhhh... Trip to Varden isn't that long, so we left anyway. But even the walk is pretty short, we had a signal pistol and weapon with us... just in case...

On the way down we met a smaller predator. He was just curious and very hopeful if we had some food with us. But he didn't get anything from us.