Icy...

Some elks have been wandering in the forest behinf our house lately, so we found lots of tracks and excrements when we went hiking today.

There was also tracks from a fox.

Some small breaks is needed on the way up.

While other make sure they gets a ride up the steepest hills :)

But when we came up to the lean-to, there was ice all around it due to all the rain that's been pouring down the last week... So we had to find another place further down in the forest.

Sunless sunrise - Photos taken around 9.

Friday Flickr Favourites

1. DSC04937, 2. Knotty-Naughty Pine, 3. Northman Mittens,
4. January 10th, 5. thrifted, 6. little baby rudolph,
7. empanadas for the freezer, 8. today in shipshewana, 9. Green Mountain Owls,
10. Frozen Strawberrys, 11. Looming Tower of Books, 12. bark heart,
13. Project 365: Day 013, 14. mini knee socks, 15. ; ),
16. Northern Cardinal in Snow, 17. Come lo misuro il dolore... EXPLORE 40#,
18. A Year in Pictures: January 9, 19. winter morning, 20. Pi socks,
21. deer details, 22. Studio corner, 23. shadow love,
24. spoons, 25. Untitled, 26. jolly, 27. birch log candles

Just have to share :)

I just have to share the view I had around 9 this morning :)
The colours were brighter in real life! It was beautiful and the sky on the oposite side had a wonderful blue colour which I didn't manage to catch in any photo... It was magical. Yesterday evening the temperatures started to go down, and a frost fog encased us due to all the water on the lake. It's -10 C today and I really hope it will stay so for a while!

I hate icy roads...

It's been raining non stop since Saturday... So almost all the snow is gone and the roads have been terrible to drive on :( This is our yard. We have to sand it to be able to drive up from the main road. It has stoped raining today and the temperatures have been down to -3 C, so maybe there is some frost ahead. I really hope so!

the days are getting longer agian, and we have a couple of real daylight now :) It's under a month till we see the sun again!!


Kate over at Lazy Kate Creates has started a lace kal. You pick your own yarn & pattern, the main point is to have fun :)
I haven't desided on a pattern yet, but I know I'll knit me a shawl or a scarf. There is so many beautiful pattern to choose from...

Swallowtail Shawl
Shetland Triangle Lace Shawl
Norwegian Woods Scarf or Shawl
Heere Be Dragone Shawl
Tilly's Garden Shawl
Ene's Scarf
Limerick

CashSilk Fern Scarf
Bloomin
Wispy

Some help to make some of my changes in 2010 to happen

Remember my word for 2010? I haven't done much in action yet, but my mind has been working hard on this. And I've found some great things to help me :)



First there is "One small change" from Hip Mountain Mama.

"We want to challenge each of you to make 1 change each month leading up to Earth Day (April 22, 2010). It can be small or it can be huge, but all we ask is that you decide on something you will do to make a positive green impact and follow through with it. If everyone makes 4 changes between January and April, this can have a huge effect."

I had to think a bit over what we should to. We're already saving water, sort out our trash (paper, food waste and so on), turning off lights in rooms that are not in use, line dry the laundry and keeps the heat low in the bedrooms. But I've wanted to try out some greener detergent, washing agents and shampoo. So I'm going to buy Ecover products for the home and Urtekram for the body.

Do you take the challenge to change something for the environment this month?

Then Leah at the Creative every day have a challenge to be creative all day during 2010.

And I'm so gald I found this site! Lots of great idea to make it all happen.

Friday Flickr Favourites

1. garter love, 2. My Reason to Get Up, 3. Untitled,
4. DSC_0753, 5. desperate measures,
6. Circle of Friends Square, 7. Red on white,
8. Dead Simple Lace Socks, 9. i has tailz,
10. 2 - Mittens for Me, 11. Sirdal_Pattern 1,
12. January 5, 13. Woven Scarf, 14. 118-500 Icicles,
15. Snow heart..., 16. VINTERVEJR...,
17. new year + new project, 18. icicle sculpture

Cupcake mittlets and Mystery slippers

I need to wear a pair of fingerless mitts when I drive the car now in the winter ;) So when I came across this pattern on Ravelry, I just had to cast on ;)
Pattern: Cupcake mittlets (free pattern) by Shantha.
Yarn: 50 g Novita Nalle.
Needles: 3,25 mm.

These turned out too small for me. So I'll have to find someone who fit them ;)

Pattern: Mystery slippers (free pattern)
Yarn: 50 G Novita Nalle.
Needles: 4 mm.

Water - never take it for granted!

It seems like the cold weather is going to stay a while... It's been -27 C a couple of days now. The coldest so far...

Living on the country side here in Norway means that a lot of houses have their own water well. Ours is a bit up in the forest behind our house, it is a natural water source that's been in use since hubby's grandparents buildt the house we live in. But with all this cold, we can't take this water for granted anymore. A lot of our neighbours are out of water in their wells, so we try our best to save water in everyways! Here's some of the things we do all the time, but have been even more aware to this winter. And I really, really hope our well don't freeze or runs dry...

Don't flush the toilet every time you use it - as the saying goes: "If it's yellow let it mellow; if it's brown flush it down".

Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth - a running tap uses more water than necessary.

Don't use more water than you need to boil the kettle - if you're only making one or two cups of tea/coffee, you simply don't need to fill the kettle.

Only use the washing machine with a full load - even half-load programmes use more than half the water of a full load.

Take shorter showers. Limit time spent in the shower to soap up, wash down, and rinse off.

When washing dishes by hand, don’t rinse them under a running tap. If you have two sinks, fill the second one with rinsing water. If you have only one sink, stack washed dishes in a dish rack and rinse them with a pan of hot water.

Finally some snow :)

The snow we've been waiting for has finally arrived :)

And Erlend & Eirin tested their ice skates :) Lots of fun.
You can see more pictures in our hiking blog.

Tthe sun is teasing us. But it's still over a month until we see her again...

Finally some snow and ice skating

Finally the snow we've been waiting for arrived!

So we've been outside for hours today - having a great time.

And after some shoveling the lake was ready for ice skating :)

Vinterblomst mittens

My first FO in 2010 :) I'm not sure if I dare tell you when I started these... (Last January...) They have been one of those project who makes me feel bad everytime I saw it in my knit basket. And they really was a fast knit when I just put my mind to it. I even sweated over them last summer ;)

Pattern: Vinterblomst mittens by Heidi Mork.
Yarn: Green Sandnes Garn Mor Aase Baby, brown, pink and dark pink Viking of Norway Baby Ull. I'm not sure, but I think I used just 50 g of each colour.
Needles: 2,0 mm.



There is several beautiful colour combinations, but I got my inspiration from jettshin's pair :)

And since I have a different colour on the flowers - I had a LOT of ends to seam in. I'm ashamed to say that sewing in the ends has taken me months. I actually finished knitting the pair last summer.....

We woke up to snow falling from the sky today :) And it was not so cold either - just -13 C... The kids got a gift card at the local mall for Christmas, so today we've been shopping skates. This year the lake is frosen without snow, so hopefully Erlend & Eirin can test them tomorrow :) Endre got a new pair of Nesnalobba instead of skates. It's a shoe made of wool - keeps small feet warm in cold weather. You can buy them here, not sure if they ship outside Norway though...

Changes

It's -20 C, and it have been so for weeks now... We are just outside to get some air now and then ;) And today we had to go out and send off some fireworks ;)
Endre felt asleep around 9.30 yesterday, and he slept through all the noise from the fireworks too. So we had to save a few so he could see them today!

I'm not one of those who makes a lot of new years resolution, but after reading Mama Craft's post today, I desided to find a word for this year too. My word is change. This year I want to change a lot. Change our life style, the way we eat - get more healty, cut the sugar - you get the idea. I also want to change the way I spend my day - get out and get fresh air each day, spend less time infront of the computer and tv = more time to play with the kids and knitting :) There might be other changes to be made too, some big ones that I don't want to blog about now. Some things aren't for blogging, not yet. Maybe if I can change those things I can blog about them when the year has gone by... Oh, and I've changed the name of the blog :) I've wanted to change the name for a long time, into something in english ;) So I ended up with Cloudberry - I love the way this little plant pops up with white flowers in the summer, changes to red unripe berries and then turns into golden orange cloudberries! And they smell devine and makes a great jam.

I've also desided that I'll join the project 365 this year. Hopefully I'll be able to follow it through ;) I'll make a badge in one of the sidebars.

Happy New Year!!

Godt Nytt År!

It's cold around here noe. The temperature has been between -15 C and
-20 C for weeks now... So there has not been much trips in the forest :( But we get outside to get some fresh air now and then. Short trips so the feet and face dosn't get frostbitten.

There's not much snow here, mostly ice. But we found our sledges and went for the hill one day the temperature wasn't so bad. Now we're just hoping for lots of snow!