Thursday 27 December 2012

white and green Xmas

Just before Xmas we experienced a fierce snowstorm, windforce 18m/sec. Blankets of snow drifted over the fields and spiralled in the courtyard. Vestervang looked like Scott's final camp at the South Pole.
Early evening the wind settled down a bit and I went shopping, our old 4x4 Volkswagen Synchro easily took all the snow dunes on the road, which was great fun!  I first met the snowplough on my way back, and with enough food and firewood to last a week, I was really looking forward to lots of winter fun.
Xmas day we woke to high temperatures and rain, all the snow had melted during the night and everything was green and muddy again.
I saw the hen-harrier ( circus cyaneaus) couple again this morning. They have been here for a week now, so they probably decided there are enough mice in my field to stay a little longer. And for the next few days they won't have to compete with our new cat, - a cat that found us and never left, as he's off to the vet today to get neutered. No more mouse hunting for him this week.
Hen-harriers are winter guests, they nest in the north of Scandinavia and Rusland, only very rarely in Denmark. The male is nearly white with black tips on his wings, and the female brown with a distinguishable white spot above her tail. They love open landscapes and hunt flying low above the fields.
Who knows where they will go when spring arrives... and spring is definitely on its way: the daylight hours are on the increase again.




Monday 17 December 2012

Julenisser

'Julenisser', pixies with a red hat bringing in the Xmas presents are the most commercialized figures in Scandinavian folklore. Whether you like them or not, this time of the year you'll run into them everywhere: in shopwindows, on napkins, wrapping paper, greeting cards, or in your daily newspaper. No Danish Christmas without them, but where did they come from?
Certainly not from the North Pole, with Father Christmas. Father Christmas and the Xmas pixies first struck a deal around the end of the 19th century, when Father Christmas himself came to Denmark from Germany via Xmas postcards and Xmas books.
The believe in a little guy living in your house or stable is much older and probably started already in Roman times. The Romans worshipped small housegods which had to be looked after well.
In 981 the Olav Trygvesson Saga in Iceland tells us of an old man that always gets help from the small people living near his house. These small people preferably lived in a big stone.
In Scotland they lived in your house and people went to no extend attracting a 'bogle' if their house lacked one.
Similar stories are known from all over northern Europe.
By the 16th century the pixies in Sweden and Finnmarken had moved into the stables, taking care of the farm animals and they would even go out stealing from other farms, if their own farm did not have food enough for their animals. And who did not grow up with Astrid Lindgrens story about Tomte, the friendly little pixie looking after all the animals on the farm, even sharing his own porridge with a hungry fox.
This porridge is an essentiel element in all those stories: you should never forget to put out a bowl of porridge for your pixie, and on Christmas eve this should be porridge cooked with milk, and with a big lump of butter. If you forget, the pixie will not remain on friendly terms and might even move out.
Rice pudding is still the traditional Danish dessert at Christmas.
And now of course you ask me if we at Vestervang, Bøjdencottage, have such a pixie as well.
Well, it is not that I have seen one, but there maybe something to it. So, yes, I will put out a bowl with rice pudding on Christmas eve.

Danish Rice Pudding   serves 4
2,5 dl water
190 gr pudding rice
1 liter full cream milk
half a teaspoon of salt

Bring the water to the boil and add the rice. Cook for 2 minutes, then add the milk. Bring to the boil again and simmer over a low heat for 35-40 minutes.
Serve with sugar, cinnamon and a big lump of butter
You can add one almond, the person that finds the almond on his plate, gets an extra present.



Sunday 16 December 2012

a cold bath

All the snow melted during the night and it is a rather grey day, so we'll probably spend most of it near the fire with a hot mug of tea and homemade apple pie.
A large number of fieldfares ( turdus pilaris) came in this morning and they are now taking a bath in the puddles on my neighbour's field. That must be cold, but they seem to enjoy it very much.
Fieldfares look a bit like a thrush, but they have a beautiful grey head and back. We usually see them this time of the year, foraging on the last berries in our hedgerows.
One more week until the Xmas holidays, so we put up the Xmas tree.  The neighbouring farm grows thousands of them and it was very hard to make a choice among all those trees laying in their courtyard. And we have been  decorating the diningroom for the festive season. The snow is expected back next weekend, so who knows, we'll have a white Xmas after all!
I better start mending my skis then.