Busy birders

 

It was a very busy week for the birdwatchers, two rare birds had been spotted in the Bøjden Nor reserve next to our B&B.

One was an American plover ( pluvialis d. dominica), it was in a larger group of golden plover, and the other one was a dotterel ( charadrius morinellus).

Yesterday they were both in the field next to us, and it was funny to watch all the birdwatchers,  standing along the gravel road down the beach with their telescopes and camera's pointed in our direction. Both birds spend the summer on the tundra, so they were on their way up north and rested here for a few days before going on.

Spring has come to Bøjden, there are loads of birds in the reserve now and this week the cows returned as well.

Winter

It's nearly spring, so I quickly add two winter pictures. We did not have much snow this winter but we managed to take some pictures:

And 2 more, just to show how big Kakusha has grown. The boots are the same.........

Animal updates

A busy year went by, so it is time for an animal update.
My daughter Pernille got a new horse: Ruf Lil Star, an American Quarterhorse. Until then she was riding Lightning, a mustang born in Denmark, but as he kept bucking her off, we decided to buy her a safer horse. Star is very sweet and gentle and moves beautifully. Pernille is now in the team training for the Youth World Cup in western riding, so we do a lot of driving around to training weekends and clinics. Soon the competition season will start too. All very exciting!

This was Lightning. He went back to the people who bred him.

And in came Star, bred by Annette Midtgaard and trained by Ionna Mc Cabe. Here at a competition at Ionna Mc Cabes.

Pixie


Pernille's very first pony Pixie died too, she was old and very ill, but we still miss her everyday, she was such a funny little thing. Pernille was not even 2 years old when we got her, and rode her to school when we still lived in Holland.
In October we sadly had to say goodbye to Arwen, our border colly, nearly 13 years old and fit until last summer, playing around with Kakusha and with every guest willing to throw her some sticks...
And then all of a sudden she fell very ill, refused to eat, and after some gruelling weeks we put her to sleep...she is dearly missed, not only by us, or by Kakusha who fell into a real depression afterwards, but by many of our guests. Some guests sent us pictures, some sent stories or fond memories, for which we were very grateful.

Arwen

House within a house

There are many birds nesting around our house, or in our barn. But two little house martins were very clever: After the first swallows had left this nest early last summer, they rebuilt it, which saved them a lot of time and work. I wonder who will live there next spring.....if it is the swallows, they will have to destroy the upper part again as they need the half open nest and can't use the tiny little hole at the top.

Today is the shortest day of the year, so from tomorrow, we'll slowly be getting nearer next summer!
The summer of 2015 has brought us many guests, from many different countries, each with their own different stories. Some guests have become regulars and it is so nice to see them again.
This summer we were very lucky to get some helpers, also from very different countries. They came from Belgium, Spain, Scotland, Holland and China. Without them we could not have managed all the work that has to be done in the summer, so thank you so much: Thaana, Evelien, Manu, Lucy, Celia, Ireen and Yaya, you were our 'star' workers!
For everyone who stayed here during the summer, it will be hard to realize how short a day at Bøjden Cottage is right now:   not even 7 hours! That sure is a difference to all the long hours we needed to get the daily work done in summer!

6 hours and 55 minutes
Sun up: 8.50 am
Sun down: 15.45 pm
Dagens længde er tiltaget med 0 timer og 0 minutter.
21. December 2015, Denmark.

But although the sun was late this morning, it was a beautiful sunrise:

picture: Søren Greve Pedersen

Our new star

Meet Kakusha, our new puppy. Kaskusha means 'star' in the Ucmalmicwts language.  This is the language of the interior Salish people of British Columbia, Canada. We  have some very good friends there, and as Kakusha is an American Indian dog, they gave her this name. Which fits her fine, as she is our little new 'star' and a real little princess. She has more 'stars' in her family tree, as her great grand parents starred as the dogs in 'Dances with Wolves' with Kevin Costner.
We got her home Boxing Day and Arwen, our Border Collie has taken good care of her ever since. They are playing all day and having big fun.
There are not that many American Indian dogs in Europe. It is a very old breed, already described thousands of years ago by the First Nation peoples.  Lewis and Clark wrote a lot about them when they travelled across the American continent. And if you want more information about these dogs, the website of Old Hawk Kennels/American Indian dogs, can give you a lot of information.

Vikings

Most of our guests arrive at our cottage by car, some on bicycles, sometimes we pick up somebody in town who arrived by bus ( and train from Copenhagen), but one evening this summer some 30 people arrived in a  Vikingship... men, women and children. They brought their own tents and it was a beautiful romantic evening with campfires and singing, children bathing. It was very special. And thanks to the supermarket in Horne, which delivered food and other necessary supplies down the beach, they could also stock up.
They came from the south of Jutland, they said, and had built the ship themselves. One of them had once, long time ago bought a self-built Viking ship from a group of boy scouts. The boy scouts never made it to Jutland, they sank for the coast of Lyø. The new owners of the ship gathered friends and relatives, formed the Kalvø Vikingeskibslag, and built a new ship: the Imme Sejr. It took them 2 years to build it, and now they were sailing it during their holidays.
The remains of Viking ships have been found several places in Scandinavia, even here on Funen, where a ship burial was found south of Kerteminde near the village of Ladby. Based on the information found in this grave, the museum is now building a replica which will be ready for sailing next summer.
In October we took visiting friends to see the nearly finished ship which is a very impressive piece of craftsmanship.
The Imme Sejr  is also built like the ship found in Ladby.
For more pictures of the Imme Sejr: www.toenderskibsslag.dk
and for the Ladby Museum: www.vikingemuseet.dk

Monday July 7th ,  Ykkja's foal was born!
He is very quick and naughty and has the same colour as his father Hnokki fra Fellskoti. Hnokki has been World Champion Tølt 3 times, so that is very promising.
As it belongs to my brother in law, it will move to Holland somewhere in the future, but until then we will enjoy him.

Summer!
The weather has been great for many weeks now, so it is very busy at our B&B.
The Danish school holidays started last friday and there is no time left for writing blogs. So, just a few pictures:

 These beautiful pictures of the midsummer sunset were taken by Søren Pedersen, one of our neighbours. The sun goes down halfway the Helnæs peninsula, that is as far as it get's, and will from now on go down more and more back to the left.

Some days there is just time enough for me to take Shanty out with the sulky and some guests.
The picture was taken by the Lund family from Norway.


For those who are able to watch the Dutch television: On July 25th the Tour de France is near Bergerac and the program 'Avondetappe' by Mart Smeets will be broadcasted from the home of our designer Joris van Grinsven,  the Chateau de Clérans.  NOS July 25th, 22.10 hrs.

'Frog' rescue
Since a few days, baby natterjack toads are trying to get through our house. As soon as someone opens a door, the toads come in, walk through the house and want to get out at the other side. They are on their way down to the freshwater lagoon in the bird reserve next to us.
So apparently our house is in their way, but the house was built in 1853, so they should know by now how to get around it.
We pick them up and put them in our small bird pond, so they can freshen up a bit before going on.
Natterjack toads are protected and in connection with the EU Life+ project. five new breeding water-holes have been dugout in the former agricultural land, for the benefit of this rare toad. The little natterjack toad can be distinguished from other toads by the lemon yellow stripe along its back. Natterjacks are noisy neighbours, their sound is like an electric drill and we can hear them on warm summer evenings, mostly in May.
I have a native Canadian friend who lives on Vancouver Island. She told me that in her culture, the frog is the messenger, or announcer. With so many toads coming in every day, I wonder what the message is.......

YELLOW

Danmark is getting yellow! The rapeseed is in full bloom now, everything between us and the village of Bøjden is bright yellow. So beautiful......

Rapeseed is grown for its oil, so sometime later this summer it will be harvested and the oil will be extracted.

First reds

In summer we experience the most fantastic sunsets right on our doorstep, colouring the sky in all sorts of reds when the sun dives into the sea.
It is March now, but the weather is extremely nice this year and last night we could enjoy the first of all those 'reds'.
The sun is up at 06.42 in the morning and sets at 18.17. Daylight time is increasing quickly and soon we will have our long light evenings again.
Soon our guests will be able to sit outside enjoying these
sunsets while sipping a glass of wine and listening to the nightingales.
So much to look forward to.

Skylarks

It is mid-February and life at Bøjden Cottage has become more quiet. After a lovely summer and a long autumn with many guests, we finally got time to do a bit of gardening, some indoor paintwork or just a tour with the horses.
We only had a few weeks of winter weather, but my daughter could skate at the freshwater lake in the bird reserve and we had a bit of snow.
Right now, the sun comes out every day and daylight time increases quickly. The garden is littered with snowdrops and yellow eranthis, and since yesterday, the skylarks are back. Where they go in the winter, I don't know, but right now you can hear them everywhere and today I saw some couples bickering with each other about their territory.
And showing off: flying higher and higher and higher, until you can hardly see them no more.
Spring is definetely on it's way.
If you are interested in what birds, and what number of birds you can spot in the area from day to day, go to:  www.fugle-faaborg.dk

Travelling nuts

We got a walnut tree. Well nothing special, so many farms have a walnut tree here. But ours has a special history. It travelled a long way.
A good friend from Holland brought this little tree with him when he visited us last september.
But.... it is not Dutch.
Our friend comes from Kashmir, and when he travelled to Europe, many years ago, his old aunt thought he needed something special for his journey. The best thing she could think of, were nuts, from their own walnut grove. She took some old cloth, sewed a bag, and put in some nuts.
Our friend was not all too happy to carry this bag along, but thought this was so sweet, so he brought the bag with him to Holland. Some nuts were eaten, and some ended up in his Dutch garden.
One of these nuts grew into a big walnut tree, and gave a lot of nuts.

It is from one of these nuts, our little tree grew. A grandchild of of Kashmiri walnut tree from Kulgam.

Our designer
Our designer, Joris van Grinsven, is Dutch, like we are, but he lives in the Perigord in France, where he is working under the name of 'Seigneurs de Clérans'. With his team, he is working on projects designing and/or decorating private homes, hotels, restaurants and businesses throughout Europa. For furnishings and accessories he works exclusively with the 'Pigeon d'Or" collection.
Joris studied at the Academy of Arts in Tilburg, the Netherlands, and worked as a sculptor, teacher and manager of several institutes of education. From 1995 he works as an interior designer/decorator with projects in Holland, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Danmark and France.
In France f.e. the famous Golf Hotel Les Merles and the Chartreuse le Cariol, our B&B colleague.
Joris is also our life long friend and the godfather of our children, we met many years ago through our mutual hobby at that time: riding and breeding Icelandic horses.
While buying our Danish farm, I already hoped he would do the design, and he did. He travelled all the way to Danmark with his team, and created this beautiful place. For us, and for our guests of course.
You can find more of his projects at: www.seigneursdeclerans.com

 Joris in his house and in his garden in France. ( photos: Michael Paul)

Spring
Spring finally came to Danmark, as did the swallows. They are busy rebuilding last year's nests.
With the birds and all the lovely spring flowers, the guests came as well, and our B&B is very busy right now.

May 4th we celebrated the renewed Bøjden Nor bird reserve, more than a hundred people showed up to see the changes. The weather was splendid and our kitchen provided them with some 600 sandwiches and cakes, and due to sponsor gifts, we could also serve ecological beer.
During this picknick, a local farmer brought out the hereford cows that will graze in the reserve this summer, with some delay though, as his trailer got a flat tire on its way into the reserve.

And last week we had a special guest, not in the B&B, but in the water down the beach at Horne Næs.

I had heard the rumour that it was there, and while walking in the woods with some of our guests, to show them the lovely spring flowers, we saw it: a seal, sunbathing on a rock near the shore.
So lovely. The guests were thrilled, one of them had never seen a seal before.
And you can imagine how they felt when they ended their day at our B&B with a sunset like this:

March, 24
Minus 4, and winter has been back for a week. On the 18th we experienced a severe snowstorm and all trafic was paralyzed. No ferry, and enormous heaps of snow blocked our road. No schoolbus, so my daughter had to stay in town overnight.
My driveway was totally gone and once the wind was down -a few days later- my neighbour  Søren had to come down with his tractor to clear it.
So now we can come down to the farm again. But although I love snow, it should not be here now, it should have been spring weather!
The first peewits are back, but they are looking rather miserable, and I do hope the swallows will stay away for another while, they would freeze to dead right now.

Chasing the waves
At least that is something you can do endlessly here.... and that is what our dog started doing when we moved up here.
We lived near a forest before, far from the sea, so the sea was rather new to her when we came to Denmark.
She is a border collie and in Holland she used to chase our sheep - often in the wrong direction-, or the cockerel and if I went out with the horses, she would always come along, trotting happily behind the sulky, the waggon or the riding horses. When we were out with the waggon, she used to sleep under it on overnight tours.

She still comes along with the horses, and every night she will bring them in from the field. That safes me a lot of walking up and down the hill and she knows what horse we need when I call its name. There is only one risky moment: if the horses are all the way down by the beach and if there are a lot of waves, she might be tempted to leave the horses to me and go on chasing the waves......

Signs of spring

Although the nights are still cold, we have had some lovely sunny days this week and we can see the signs of spring everywhere: small yellow eranthis, snowdrops, and bulbs peeping out of every flowerbed.
Geese are coming in now and the scene in the bird reserve changed from two sea-eagles on the ice, feasting on a coot last week, to a large flock of golden plover noisily stocking up for their journey up North.
Friday I saw the first two sky-larks above my field.
And although I have seen both the male and the female hen-harrier every day last week, I did not see them this weekend, so maybe they have left now. To Sweden? Or across the Baltic. How nice it would be to know.