Camouflage not required.

How is the hunting of a black cat affected when the whole world is covered by white snow? See the video below for the answer:

Kwagga lost her prey for a only few minutes. There are more footage of the hunt which I can upload for those morbidly curious. The outcome is however predictable and there is now a partly frozen half eaten rodent body in the snow somewhere.

R&C

Some snow in November

We had some snow early in November and the change from summer to winter seems very sudden. It almost feels like these two photos were taken within one week.

Hope the winter stay this nice.

R&C

Electronic cat door and extensions.

A while ago  my dad I installed an electronic cat door in the basement (available from this company: Petsafe). The door is programmable and reads the chips implanted in our cats' necks. This means that only our cats can enter through the door. For a while we had another cat enter our house (when we kept a window open), who devoured all our cats' food and also had several fights with them. This problem is now solved.

Cat door installed into window (outside).

Exit trough the window.

A second big advantage of this door is that we can program it to keep our cats inside. We prefer to have them in when it is dark and the door lock at sunset (note: they can always enter but at night not exit). We have set the door to open only after we have left for work in the morning. The reason being: our cats like to walk with us when we are outside. We take the bus to Uppsala and the bus stop is 300 meters away, across a bridge and very busy road. The cats normally do not cross the bridge (not that we know off) and are separated from the busy road by a river - unless they are able to follow us.

Our active cats.

The one problem with the door is that it is made from a reasonably thin piece of plastic and when closed it is not airtight. In Sweden, the temperature can be quite low and openings like this tend to make the house cold. To insulate the door a bit I decided to build a box around the outside of the door on the platform from where the cats enter. This "entrance hall" will reduce the loss of temperature a lot since, it not only serves as a second insulating area but will disrupt the airflow that creates a draft into the house.

Parts used for building the entrance hall. Should provide these plans to IKEA to sell as an item :) 

Adding some decorative elements.

Small double pane window.

Construction of the box.

Note the graffiti on the inside.

Plastic flap on the outside. Similar one on the inside (quite flexible and easy for the cats to enter/exit)

Insulation material used during installation.

There is enough space inside to add another layer of insulating material if it is needed. The box is made to be removed in the summer.

Box installed on platform.

Although this is not something I can put in my ETSY shop I do mention that I make custom items. A cat door and entrance hall combination may be a bit strange as an item to sell but it is made from wood and did enjoy making and installing it - thus if you need one do not hesitate to contact me for a quote ;)

Hope everyone keeps warm this winter (or cool in summer if you are reading this in the southern hemisphere).


R&C

Our house...

This is a short blog to show the inside of our new house in Fors, Tierp. As our previous blog outlined (see here), we had quite a busy December moving in to our new home and setting up everything. Things are getting there, slowly but surely, and the inside of our house are at least in a presentable state now :)  -- thus the three videos below. Since we are in the midst of a quite serious "downsift" of snow, I could not take the camera outside for an outside overview. But hopefully we can cover this part in the summer.

Some notes to the videos:
- Three videos; the upstairs living area, outside views from upstairs, and the downstairs basement
- Narrated in Afrikaans, sorry to the Afrikaans impaired (term stolen from my skoonsib (sister-in-law) Cindy :)
- Note pointed out by Ronnie to me, for the "extreme northern hemisphere impaired", you can actually see the sunrise and sunset from just one window in the winter at these latitudes (thus the comment on the window in the first video is correct). The sun just pops up over the tree lined horizon, make a weak attempt at a loop and pops down again, all framed in one window facing south.

Enjoy! :)

Inside, top floor living area


Outside views from living area


Downstairs basement and home to Donkie and Kwagga



(By the way: We now have quite a bit more room compared to our small apartment in Uppsala - open invitation to all family and friends in SA! Free lodging near the wonderful town, Tierp, in Sweden :)

C&R

Lego adventures: Ice fishing

Finally we have some nice weather to feature the following Lego Minifigure:

Ice Fisherman

More Lego fun may follow...

R&C

Holidays and the winter that never was

This is a short blog about our holidays which, sadly, has come to an end. Ronnie and I had a very nice two week holiday over Christmas, which we spend mostly indoors doing as little as possible. Actually that is not entirely true since we did a lot of fun things on which I will elaborate on a bit more below (more complete blogs on some of these may follow).

Thus far this winter the weather was very disappointing. We only had one good snow storm but since the temperatures stayed above 0, the snow quickly melted. What was left was a rainy, wet winter with temperatures oscillating between 1 and 5 deg C and clouds that never cleared. Perfect weather for cozy indoor fun. The first part of the vacation we spent time on preparing for Christmas and enjoying the Christmas spirit. The second part were spent mostly playing with our presents. New Year was (unlike most previous New Years) snow free. We went up to the castle to watch the fireworks. Every New Year people congregate on various spots in town and shoot their own fireworks. We did not take any ourselves, but watched the usual mayhem of slightly unstable hands lighting up fireworks, with the occasional accidental explosion on the ground between crowds of yelling people. The castle is a very nice place to watch these goings on with a nice panorama over town with fireworks everywhere and the church bells ringing in the New Year.

Christmas tree and presents

Christmas food

Fusion South African Swedish Christmas food

New Year at the castle

So a bit more about what kept us busy during these two weeks of deserved laziness ….

As Christmas presents to ourselves we bought two sets of Lego modular buildings, the “Grand Emporium” and the “Fire Brigade”. Quite a few hours were spent assembling these giant 3d puzzles. But the end result was very nice actually.

Lego modular buildings:  "Grand Emporium" and "Fire Station"

The second present to ourselves was the “Wii U Fit” software and balance board. Using the Wii game console and the TV in combination with the balance board, the Wii Fit offers a wide range of routines to help you exercise and monitor your own fitness and weight. This is the perfect way to keep yourself moving even though it is cold and rainy outside. The routines are combined with fun games and there are nice graphs that tracks your progress.

To balance out the exercises on the Wii Fit with the appropriate amount of laziness, we laid in front of the television for hours, watching many different series. We finished the “Game of Thrones” series, which is highly recommended and also watched various anime series. At the moment we are continually watching the “Hunter x Hunter” anime and watch them as they become available each week. We finished the first series of “Attack on Titan” which is a really nice series so far. During the holidays we also watched the whole “Death Note” series. All three of these animes are highly recommended to watch. They have very strong storylines, multifaceted characters and gripping intrigues. Especially recommended is “Death Note”, a series that sweeps you up in the plot and keeps you captivated until the end.

As the vacation draws to an end (we are starting work again tomorrow), we are looking forward to an eventful 2014 and eagerly anticipate the actual start of winter (seemingly from next weekend on).

Wishing everybody a prosperous 2014!

C&R

A sad day for first snow

Finally the snow of winter 2013/2014 arrived. The wonderful whiteness arrived on the back of storm "Sven" that swept over Sweden. Out of the 4 winters we've experienced so far in Sweden the snow this year arrived earlier than two of the years and later than two. The mood of many lifted considerably when the winter darkness of November was replaced by the bright snow. All this was happiness with a tear though, since today is a sad day for many South Africans (and other people worldwide) with the passing of a great man...

C&R

Estland

We recently hopped across the Baltic Sea to visit Talinn, the capital of Estonia (Estland in Afrikaans and Swedish). Talinn, although it also has a very modern and busy side, it still retains the original walled-in medieval town. This medieval old town was declared a world heritage site. Talinn was not bombed during the second world war and therefore much of the old town is untouched and the original medieval city wall is still mostly complete (something that is actually very rare in Europe). So this was indeed a very nice trip into the past.

We started off by taking the ferry from Stockholm (on which now seems to become my annual birthday boat trip, see previous post on the Helsinki trip). The ferry boat to Estland is a bit smaller than the one to Helsinki, but it was still a very nice experience. In Talinn we stayed in a hotel within the old town, which was an excellent choice. It is an old renovated merchant house in the heart of the old town, a short walk from the central plain. We spend quite a lot of time browsing the small shops, visiting historical sites, wall bastions, museums, churches, and of course restaurants. We visited two very nice restaurants in the old town that had a complete medieval enactment, with medieval decor; medieval attired staff and medieval food. This was really fun, and it felt if though you were swept back a few hundred years into a cozy jolly tavern. The old town was an exceptional experience and we had great fun, however, for a change of scenery to a more rural setting, we went on a short tram ride to the outskirts of the (modern) city to visit the open air museum. Much like Skansen in Stockholm (see previous post), this open-air museum also houses historical relocated houses from various rural areas in Estland. The winter was still in full swing outside of the hustle and bustle of the city and the various historical farms, schools and mills were fairytale pretty. We really enjoyed the trip to these two interesting locations in Estland where time seem to have stood still.  A visit to both these places is highly recommended!

Below are some pictures of the highlights. 

Baltic ferry to Estland

Settling-in in our cabin

Not quite spring yet - plowing through ice fields

Approaching Talinn through the ice fields

Main gate to the old town

Exploring all the small streets

View from the top of the old city wall

Viru Gates facing modern Talinn

Typical old town cobble stone street

In the first of the nice medieval restaurants (Olde Hansa)

Honey beer at Olde Hansa

Proper medieval food at Olde Hansa (Sausages of Bear, Wild Boar and Elk, sauerkraut, root vegetables, caramelized onion and forest berries)

Winter not quite over just outside of the city walls

Two the many wall-towers guarding the city that still remain today (Wikipedia - walls of Talinn)

Climbing to the top of Toompea (Upper Town) with the Russian Orthodox Cathedral built during the days of the Russian Empire

View of the old town and the bay area from Toompea hill

City wall and tower from outside

Climbing up in one of the towers (Epping Tower)

Trying out some (very heavy) armor in Epping Tower tower armory

Ronnie managing to put on even more of the heavy armor 

Having a beer and nice food in the second Medieval restaurant (Estlander)

On top of the Fat Margaret Tower which also house the Maritime Museum

The effect of having to pose for too many photos

Gluttoning-out at a chocolatiere

Archery in a truly Medieval setting

Pikk Hermann aka Lange Hermann aka Tall Hermann with the Estonian flag on top- Tower of the Toompea Castle situated next to the Estonian Parliament building. The flag displayed on Pikk Herman is a symbol of the government in force. The flag is raised every morning while the national anthem is playing. A museum features the recordings of the momentous event when the Estonian flag replaced the Russian flag on Pikk Hermann

Estonian open air museum - Farm cottage

Winter still in full swing here

Sleigh ride

Enjoying the nice rural settings

Back on the ferry on our way home

A nice final dinner on the ferry

Sunset over the Baltic sea

C&R