Tim – Page 46 – In the Woods

Hæreid Iron Age Burial Site

5.26.15.8761 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

Hæreid Iron Age Burial Site, also in Eidfjord, is the largest collection of ancient burial sites in western Norway, with 350 Iron Age and Viking graves dating from 400 – 1000 AD., located on the Hæreid plateau in Eidfjord. This is where we spent the morning of our last day in Norway, after our enchanting overnight at the top of Vøringfossen falls.

5.26.15.8766 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

It’s been about six months since I posted the last set of pictures from our trip to Norway. Too much going on! Right now I am in North Carolina visiting Katherine and her parents while our bathroom is being renovated back home. Katie seems to be going by Katherine these days. Poor little thing came home from daycare Friday with a fat lip and Saturday morning she woke up with a runny nose and a fever. But we’re managing to have a little fun between bouts of understandable fussiness.

5.26.15.8768 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

Friday Larisa and I went into Raleigh to attend a Bernie Sanders rally. Sadly, we were among the 1,000 people who did not get into the 2,300 seat venue, after waiting in line for 2 hours. But it was exciting seeing all the support there is for Sanders here. And Larisa definitely “felt the Bern” (one of Bernie’s campaign slogans) by getting a sunburn.

5.26.15.8776 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

The energy at the Hæreid burial site felt ancient, peaceful and earthy. The graves were large mounds of rocks with meadow, moss and trees growing all around them. Grazing sheep kept the grass trimmed, and the majestic mountains surrounded the plateau where the burial ground is situated.

5.26.15.8777 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8789 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8796 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8804 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8809 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8816 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8822 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8834 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8836 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8839 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8841 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8844 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

It’s entirely possible one of my unknown and very distant ancestors lies buried here. I left with that same feeling of connection and continuity I get when I visit the graves of my known ancestors in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Thanks to Ancestry, I have traced my Norwegian ancestors back a few generations, the earliest known so far is my 6th-great-grandmother, Kristin Hendriksdatter, who was born in 1710 in Hovland in Vestfold. So far I’ve found ancestors who were born or who died in four counties, Telemark, Vest-Agder, Aust-Agder and Vestfold, of southern Norway. All located by the sea.

5.26.15.8849 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

5.26.15.8850 — 5.26.15 ~ Eidfjord, Hordaland, Norway

At Hæreid we can follow traces of human activity all the way back to the Iron Age, i.e. to between 1,000 and 2,500 years ago. The oldest traces are mainly in the form of graves situated on a terrace and divided into two burial grounds: Sjohaug at the northern end and Hæreidsmoen in the south. The whole terrace contains almost 400 preserved graves. Hæreidsmoen, with around 350 graves, is the largest Iron Age burial ground in West Norway. We know from old descriptions of the area that the burial ground extended further north than it does today. The entire terrace was probably covered in graves at some point. Some of the finds are from the Early Iron Age (500 BC – 575 AD), but most can be dated to the Late Iron Age (575-1050 AD). Some of the objects are from the Viking Age (800-1050 AD): weapons, implements and jewellery. Nowhere else in Hardanger can boast so many finds from the Iron Age as this particular site.

Although visiting Norway was the highlight of our trip to Europe for me, we did also go to Venice and several places in Germany. I will try to share those pictures as well, as time allows. 🙂

just like grandpa

3.1.16.katie.sleeping — 3.1.16 ~ Katie sleeping

Larisa & Dima are so thoughtful, sending the four of us grandparents pictures of the little one almost every day. While I treasure them all, this one is especially sweet to me because Katie is sleeping in the same position her Grandpa Tim often does. She looks just like him in this one, how he used to look before he grew a beard. With this picture came a message from Larisa:

This morning she brought me over to the framed picture of you four and pointed excitedly. So come visit soon. 🙂

Counting the days…

was it the batter?

"Farm at Montfoucault 2" by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) French Impressionist & Neo-Impressionist Painter — “Farm at Montfoucault 2” by Camille Pissarro

Still waiting for some snow here in southeastern Connecticut. Still wondering what on earth gave me a very bad case of food poisoning. And wondering if I will be well enough to fly to North Carolina on Sunday as planned…

Waiting for test results to see what mowed me down… I’m guessing, by process of elimination, that it was the pumpkin muffin batter I licked off the spoon or the easy-over eggs I had at the restaurant. Of course I’ve been doing research online.

A post written by a 27-year-old woman proudly asserted that she had been licking the spoon when baking all her life and had never got food poisoning in spite of her mother’s dire warnings. Well, I have, too, for 58 years, and, a word to the wise, I will never ever do it again!!!

Tim and I ate all the same things in the days leading up to my illness, except for licking the batter spoon and except for having scrambled eggs when I had mine over-easy. I will never order over-easy eggs again. Tim did not get sick!

In fact, he’s been taking very good care of me. Laundry, dishes, meals for himself, taking me to the emergency room and then to the gastroenterologist. This is day four and I’m doing much better, still resting and sleeping a lot. The doctor wasn’t sure if I’d be well enough by Sunday to make the much-anticipated trip south to see Katie and her folks. Keeping my fingers crossed!

content with silence

12.10.15.1682 — looks a little wintery
12.10.15 ~ Sparkle Lake Conservation Area

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
~ Ansel Adams
(Meditation on Both Sides of the Camera: A Spiritual Journey in Photography)

Life has felt pretty blurry, quiet and strange lately, what with the shingles odyssey for Tim and the unusually warm weather for this time of year. It was a welcome change to get outside and take a walk with Janet, camera in hand, to enjoy a pleasant, spring-like day in December. We found plenty of natural beauty exploring the woods behind my condo complex. Even so, I’m yearning for the first snowfall…

12.10.15.1692 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

12.10.15.1699 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

12.10.15.1705 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

12.10.15.1715 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

12.10.15.1721 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

At home I have two woodpeckers who frequent my suet feeder. I’ve learned their call now because they always squeak before they start eating. So while on this walk I recognized a woodpecker call in the wild for the first time and started looking around to locate it. Found him in the reeds!

12.10.15.1765 — a symbol of determination and heightened levels of awareness

12.10.15.1775 — 12.10.15 ~ Groton, Connecticut

And now the weekend begins. Content with silence for the time being, I hope it will be a relatively quiet one, with time for continued healing. Wishing you a great weekend, too!

shingles

It started as a toothache. Several days later canker sores started popping up in his mouth. Then a strange sensation in the skin on his left cheek. And finally a lesion. But even then the doctors weren’t sure. Saturday (November 7) they put him on an antibiotic for cellulitis. But more lesions broke out over the weekend, spreading to the upper lip, all across his cheeks, up to his eye, over to his ear, along part of his nose. The pain was excruciating. On Monday the doctors diagnosed shingles and put him on an antiviral and a narcotic pain reliever.

It kept getting worse. We were worried about his eye so the doctor sent us to an eye doctor on Tuesday. The eye was okay. Pretty sure Wednesday was the worst day, at least to look at him. Then Wednesday afternoon the virus attack seemed to turn a corner – it stopped getting worse. The antiviral and antibiotic seemed to be gaining the upper hand. He suggested I put his picture on my blog. Seriously? Yes. But I cannot bring myself to do it.

11.10.15 ~ Chapel Hill, North Carolina — 11.10.15 ~ Katie likes to peek behind the shower curtain every morning. Her pediatrician says it’s all right for her to come visit Grandpa for Thanksgiving, as long as she doesn’t touch the lesions.

How about a picture of Katie instead?

(I had no problem grossing out our kids, though, sending them daily mug shots of their long-suffering father…)

Since Wednesday the swelling has been going down very slowly. Yesterday he stopped taking the narcotic and seems to be managing the lingering pain with ibuprofen and aspirin. But he still has horrible crusted lesions all over one side of his face, and pronounced fatigue. We’re wondering what kind of scarring he might be left with.

I hope this will be it for Tim this year. He’s had more than his share of trouble. Four bouts of diverticulitis, physical therapy for muscle pain in his legs, cataract surgery in both eyes. I don’t know how we ever managed to squeeze in a trip to Europe and a trip to Cape Cod between all that!

Race Point

10.10.15.0729 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

One evening on our Cape Cod trip we went to Race Point Beach in Provincetown to see the sunset. It felt so good to be outside in the salty air, walking on the sand.

10.10.15.0731 — Tim at Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0743 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0744 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

10.10.15.0761 — after sunset at Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

I will never forget this trip to Cape Cod with my dearly loved husband of 40+ years. Until 2008 we used to come here all the time – summer vacations and weekend getaways. Sadly, Tim’s grandparents’ house in Provincetown was sold that year and my grandparents’ house in Dennis Port was sold in 2009. Our last trip, to bury my father’s ashes in October 2013, was all too brief.

10.10.15.0789 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

We did, however, go to Provincetown in May 2009 to celebrate our anniversary and stayed at a bed and breakfast called The Black Pearl. It’s no longer there, we discovered, the house now owned by someone else. We took a long walk on Beech Forest Trail. Six long years since that visit. The town and the seashore have changed. So have we. But we still found healing there, and peace. I think it will always be a place where we will free to be ourselves in times of transition. It will always feel like home.

10.10.15.0791 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give

gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,

and so, no doubt, can you, and you.

~ Mary Oliver
(A Thousand Mornings)

10.10.15.0803 — Race Point Beach ~ 10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

first transatlantic wireless communication

10.11.15.0849 — Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

One of our favorite stops on Cape Cod is Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, part of Cape Cod National Seashore. The last time we were here was in May of 2009 and we were a little startled by how much of the sand scarp had eroded away since then. We knew the Cape had been hit hard by severe storms the past few winters but somehow we still weren’t prepared for how much of the bluff was now missing.

10.11.15.0850 — Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

The Marconi Area obtained its name from the famous Italian inventor, Marconi. From a site here, Marconi successfully completed the first transatlantic wireless communication between the U.S. and England in 1903.

Here, the outer beach is famous for its then steep, forty-foot sand cliff (or scarp) located behind it. Swimmers and beach walkers feel a sense of solitude here because the scarp and ocean provide an unbroken, pristine natural scene in all directions.

The uplands above the beach slope gradually westward, and provide a graceful vista of both the bay and sea horizons of this portion of the Cape. A platform above the Marconi station site enhances this view, and offers vistas southward to Eastham, and northward to Truro.

The Marconi operation at this location was initiated by the young inventor in 1901. However, in December of that year, due to a number of setbacks, he had to use temporary facilities on St. John’s, Newfoundland to prove his theory – wireless could cross the Atlantic! Meanwhile, a new station was built in Nova Scotia while repairs were being made to the Wellfleet station, and the first two-way, transatlantic wireless message was made at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, on December 17, 1902. Not long after, the Wellfleet Station was ready, and on January 18, 1903, Marconi staged another world’s first (and a bit of a media event) by successfully transmitting messages between the president of the United States and the king of England. With rapid advances in technology, the station became outdated in a matter of a few years, and was replaced by a newer station in Chatham, Massachusetts.

~ Cape Cod National Seashore website

10.11.15.0854 — looking out over the Atlantic Ocean ~ Marconi Beach
10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

All of these pictures were taken from the top of the scarp. When I was a very little girl, my father and I were standing somewhere near here when he explained to me that if we sailed east all the way across this ocean from here we would end up in Spain. I remember being very impressed. 🙂 I think of that conversation every time I come here.

10.11.15.0858 — peering over the scarp, but not standing too close ~ Marconi Beach
10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

10.11.15.0862 — looking down (40′ or 12m) at the beach
at a spot where we were allowed to stand a bit closer
Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

Notice some metal debris, part of the viewing platform now missing, in the picture above. And below, notice the asphalt walkway, abruptly ending at the new edge of the scarp.

10.11.15.0863 — abandoned path ~ Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

10.11.15.0864 — part of a missing structure ~ Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

10.11.15.0869 — looking north towards Truro ~ Marconi Beach ~ 10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

10.11.15.0877 — new railings along the scarp over the ever changing Marconi Beach
10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

It seems no matter how solidly we humans think we may build, no matter how strong the foundation, nature will eventually reclaim what we leave behind. Everything is flowing. Nothing is permanent. Somehow we know this and yet, when the ocean delivers this message so dramatically and suddenly in our own observing lifetimes, it comes as a sharp reminder, not always easy to receive.

10.11.15.0880 — perhaps this sign might need an update? ~ Marconi Beach
10.11.15 ~ Wellfleet, Massachusetts

a mysterious place

10.10.15.0646 — Province Lands
10.10.15 ~ Provincetown, Massachusetts

This is another of those strangely potent places. Everyone I know who has spent any time on the dune agrees that there’s, well, something there, though outwardly it is neither more nor less than an enormous arc of sand cutting across the sky.
~ Michael Cunningham
(Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown)

Almost every time we go to Provincetown we go on one of Art’s Dune Tours to see the Province Lands sand dunes of Cape Cod National Seashore. In the past part of the tour took us down on the beach but we couldn’t do that this time due to severe beach erosion caused by storms the past couple of winters. So we had to be satisfied with exploring the dunes themselves. Unfortunately we weren’t able to book a sunset tour – those have been our favorites over the years.

If I die tomorrow, Provincetown is where I’d want my ashes scattered. Who knows why we fall in love, with places or people, with objects or ideas? Thirty centuries of literature haven’t begun to solve the mystery; nor have they in any way slaked our interest in it. Provincetown is a mysterious place, and those of us who love it tend to do so with a peculiar, inscrutable intensity.
~ Michael Cunningham
(Land’s End: A Walk in Provincetown)

10.10.15.0670 — Pilgrim Monument, in the distance, is 252 feet high

10.10.15.0673 — a little tourist from Switzerland

10.10.15.0674 — words left on a shingle in the dune

Our guide kept showing us where the sands have been shifting in recent years, impressing on us the endless flow of nature. How strange that while present there, time seems to stand still, if only for a moment.

10.10.15.0682 — afternoon sun over the dune

another weed by the wall

10.10.15.0701 — autumn 2015 ~ Center Street, Provincetown, Massachusetts

There is a place where an artist lives in a house surrounded by a garden full of sculptures and a stone wall embedded with crystals and other treasures. In all the years I’ve been going to Provincetown I had never known it was there because I had never been down that particular street. But in 2008 our niece showed it to us.

When I started blogging I remember being especially excited to match a picture I took there with an Emerson quote and posted this: a weed by the wall

Seven years later, on our recent trip to the Cape, I decided to go see the stone wall again. This time there was no weed growing by the first crystal, but there was another weed growing by a different crystal.

shy weeds by a wall
retracing steps with pithy
moments of delight
~ Barbara Rodgers
(By the Sea)