'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: