These trees are kind of ordinary around here, but I like them anyway, especially with this sky as backdrop. It was a good sky for photography today.

By the way, larger versions of all pictures except the second are available on request, until either I or my hard disk cease to function. Just in case you want to use them for workspace background (“wallpaper”) on your computer or something. I know I do that sometimes with my pictures.

These flowers grow by the shed. The old couple who lived here before must have planted them, I guess, unless they are even older. They are still hanging on, even though the people who once loved them are gone.

This picture is actually of the hedge, such as it is, that separates this property from one of the neighbors. The flowers there however are basically local wildflowers; perhaps they were planted there or perhaps they just spread there on their own.

This tree is actually on the neighbor’s property, but by the old road along the river. This road is not being maintained anymore, but still exists out of habit. This was supposedly the main road to the house until sometime in the late 1960es. When I was a child, people were still using this road every day, I guess. I wonder if they stopped to look at the trees?

The white “stars” on the ground are wildflowers again. The yellowish green color of the tree comes from the new leaves, which are still folding out, like a butterfly’s wings that have not yet got their final color.

After the sun had set but before the daylight faded, an uncommon calm fell on the river, transforming it into a mirror. Or so I thought, when I took these two pictures. Only after I opened them, did I notice:  The reflection in the water is subtly different. Not distorted or fuzzy, but… different.  As if taken at a slightly different time.

Can you see it here? The trees seem darker, and the cloud formations are different, as if the river showed another time or a parallel world rather than a simple mirror image.

There is a saying that “you can not go into the same river twice”, and this refers subtly to the river of time. Even if you come to the same place and the river looks the same, it is not the same water. And so it is with us all. Form and content do not quite change at the same pace as time passes over us.

I hope you enjoyed the ordinary beauty of this place.  To some of you, this may be as exotic as a desert or jungle is to me. If so, feel free to grab the pictures as long as you don’t sell them.

By popular request (OK, 1 request), a more detailed picture of the sofa. We turned the pillows upside down, and then they had a different pattern. I actually preferred the green pillows, but I care only infinitesimally. I am just using it to sit on, if that.

So far I’ve been sitting near the fire though. This night I think I fired a bit too hard, for there was a vaguely chemical smell, probably from the paint getting hotter than it has been before. Nothing caught fire though and the smell faded eventually.

I was sick all last night (thanks to the soup, no doubt) and slept most of the day, so not much to write about here.  Working on some philosophical stuff again, but no idea whether I will publish it or just keep it for my own use. Iceberg, remember?

Lilacs, or “syrin” as we call them in Norway (probably from the botanical name Syringa).

With June, it is officially summer.  In Norway at least, the official summer months are June, July and August. It is already this hot in June, and the remaining dandelions have turned to fluff.  Despite the heat, I took another long walk.  The second day of Pentecost is a day off in Norway, probably not so much for the sake of the Pentecostals as because it is a nice time of the year to have a day off.  Pentecost is not a big holiday in the post-Christian Scandinavia, and even to the older generation it looms not nearly as large as Easter and Christmas.  Consequently, I not only bought some food but even quietly mowed a bit of the lawn.  I see that as exercise rather than work, actually.  But I would probably have taken the walk even without the excuse of going to the shop nearly half an hour’s walk away.  It was a beautiful day, and wind made the heat just bearable. Of course, my body is still accustomed to the chilly spring.  Hopefully it will adapt before the true summer heat sets in.

I tried to post this with a suitable quote from the Bhagavad-Gita, but it crashed.  Let us see if I can post it without.

Today was the first seriously warm day of summer. I was warm even in just my shirt and trousers. I took a walk and enjoyed the beautiful weather, before I get fed up with the heat.  Luckily there were clouds that occasionally came before the sun, so I did was not too badly baked.

Fruit trees blooming in the garden.

Today was Norway’s national day, Constitution Day.  People dress up in their pretty clothes and go in processions. But I stayed at home. And the trees are dressed up pretty too, although they did not go anywhere.

The house and a slice of the lawn.

Instead of the 1000 words.