Roots In Sweden

"Birds Singing in the Barn"



Edhegård,  Eden, Sweden

This view of the barn entry doors shows the snow that has broken up and slid off the roof as we are beginning to have a day or two that is above zero.  We know that there is still a while until Spring is actually here, but there is a feeling in the air that it's on it's way.  And for now, that will have to do.

Dean Street, West Chester, Pennsylvania

Surprisingly, sometimes I catch a whiff as I come out the door of the storstuga (main house) that smells exactly like West Chester, the beautiful town on the East Coast of the U.S. where I lived on Dean Street until I was twelve years old.



Temple Boulevard, Logan, Utah

Logan, Utah, where I raised my children, is poles apart climactically from our dairy farm in the village of Eden, but there have also been times when I have walked across the snow towards the vävstuga (weaving house) and felt the same hint of  warmth in the wind that I felt  in the air in the Intermountain West at this time of year.

These memories are dear to me, 

but I can never remember anything that has affected me as much as the arrival of the birds on the farm this Spring.  Maybe it's because we have had a challenging winter with the broken bones.  Or maybe it's because we have worked so hard to get some of the projects done that there has not been much of a lull.  I'm not sure.

The hay barn that was packed to the brim is starting to go down fast and at this time of year there is a big change in the natural light in there...it streams through the slats and floods over the remaining fodder.

But the greatest change is in the sound.

Where there is normally silence in the dimness during the winter, all of a sudden you hear  just the faintest little flapping noises high up in the rafters.

You know the birds have come and are in there,

but it takes another few days until you hear them

singing!

It is so wonderful.

This year it happened on March 12th for the first time, a little over a week ago and almost a month later than usual.

Since then I have tried and tried with the telephoto lens to see if I could get a picture of ANY feathered creature,

but the only member of the farm family I could find up there was this rascal.

 Undaunted,  I flashed outside to see if I could cheer up my heart with some other signs of the hoped-for change in seasons, and this time I succeeded.  The ice in front of the old machine hall where we park the car was melting.  There was a circle of exposed grass around the planter by the threshing barn,

and look closely... even a drip from the downspout into a small pool of water in the snow.

Hooray!

To add to this great feeling, when I walked by the Advent tree in the yard,  all the lights that are still on it were twinkling.. the reflections of the newly directed rays of the sun.  And finally, there was a patch of grass on the driveway by the vävstuga.

A significant spirit-lifter on this beautiful farm that I love.

This morning, nine days later,  I decided to try one more time before I send this post off into cyberspace.

Gustav had come in from the barn to tell me there was a small group of  rådjur (raw-yure) out in the field.  These animals, which I have never seen in the four years I have been here, are somewhere between an antelope and a deer and proportionately small even at full-growth.

They were beautiful so I snuck up as close as I could to get a better picture before they ran away.

I was on a roll...

Coming back toward the house, I heard some chirping and spotted this little Fluff-o on the left under the eaves of the main house by the porch door, and  one of his relatives on the edge of the roof at the right, tweeting away as he sat in the snow.

  

My luck was still holding as I approached the barn doors and this Puff-ball was warbling it up from his perch above the window.  That gave me even more hope so I hurried through the ladugårdsporten (law-gords-por-tunn) and made my way past the resting cows and into the hay barn.

And there it was!

Yes, the picture is blurry and it's dark. 

You have to really look hard to see the 'world's cutest songster'

sitting on top of a board almost dead center in the middle of this picture.

But he was there, 

and he was singing his heart out!

Spring is definitely coming. 

 How do I know?

There are birds singing in the barn!