The First Snow

This is what I saw Wednesday morning
Oct 29th 2008 when I looked down on
the street.
The neighbor had driven off to work,
leaving his parking spot free of snow.
A few cars and bicycles had driven down
the street.

The first snow this year in Moss.
Not very much.
Till the end of the day it had become history,
at least where I live.

The first snow.
As children we would wake up in the
morning, the ground covered with much
more snow than you see here on my photo.
Our familiar surroundings were covered
with a white blanket.
But the strongest memory is of that
special quietness that comes with the first
snow.
As if the world stands still to look at the white
wonder.

On Wednesday morning I felt that quietness
again.

Snow in Norway is part of the deal of living
here, but I like the fact that Moss does not have
that much snow in the winter. :-)

Trying to run away from your debt in 1887

Imagine that you were born in a Norwegian
mountain village around 150 years ago.

A few years after you were born,
a small local bank started to operate in that villlage.

In your midtwenties, you took a loan from that
bank, and friends and family had to cosign your loan.

But paying back the loan was not as easy as you
thought, and now - either desperate or totally
ignoring what will happen to your friends and
family members who cosigned the loan, you
look for a solution to your problem.

This is the same time that many Norwegians
emigrate to America.
Leaving your village, and the loan, is tempting.
Your life in America may even be a big
improvement compared to living in your little
Norwegian village.

But what about the loan?
Taking responsibility for his actions was
not what this particular man did when he travelled
to Oslo, then Kristiania, to go to America.

One of the co-signers, hearing about the man
running away, wrote a letter to the bank:

I allow myself to inform the bank that NN fled
our village last night in order, as far as I was told,
to go to America. He has travelled down the valley
and will probably leave on the Tingvalla line the
coming Friday. He is probably travelling with XX and
his family.
He was dressed so-and- so, age 27, black hair,
pale complexion.
As I will have to pay 52 kroner for a loan he has
taken in the bank, if he runs away, I beg you to
take any necessary action to make him pay before
he leaves the country.

The bank added a note to the police chief in Oslo:

It is not so much for the amount of money,
but for the example for others, that it is important
that this person pays what he owes.

The police reported back to the bank that
the would-be-emigrant had decided to go back
to his village.

What happened after that?
We don't know.

Based on a story in an old book documenting the first
75 years of a small local inland bank.

The Weekend Storm

I took this photo of a restaurant boat in the
Moss Canal in March 2007.
Unfortunately I have never seen it in use,
but friends told me it was great when it was
working as a restaurant.
As you may see from this photo, it did not
look its best, but I had hoped to one day
photograph the transformation of a slightly
rusty duckling into a white swan.

Instead, this last weekend, during a fairly
heavy storm, something went wrong and
the boat now looks like this:

So now we will wait and see what happens.

The local newspaper Moss Avis put a video
on their website. I don't know how long it will
be there, but you could try clicking on this

http://moss-avis.no/section/VIDEO/&id=549

Summertime. Wintertime. Daylight Saving Time.

A week ago Norway changed to Wintertime.

Using the EU system.

• I decided to check into Daylight Saving Time on the internet.

When I was a girl, there was great excitement

when we started Summertime in Norway.

The whole concept of changing the time on all

the clocks at home, seemed very strange.

• It was of course an added difficulty to remember what to do with the clock. Forward one hour or backward? Still some problems with that!

• OK, remember: Spring forward. Fall back.

It turns out that Benjamin Franklin had

already in 1784 proposed using Summertime

and Wintertime, but it stayed an idea only.

• Then in the First World War Germany, France and Britain started to use Summertime and Wintertime. More hours for active warfare? Some other countries also tried it at the time, including Norway in 1916.

Between the two world wars, the system was

abandoned, but reintroduced during the Second

World War in several countries,

including Norway.

• Then Norway took a break till it was used again between 1959 to 1965.There seems to have been a lot of discussion around this and in 1965 the Norwegian Parliament decided to stop it.

In 1980 it was reintroduced once more in Norway.

Following the EU system means that on the last Sunday

in March at two o'clock in the middle of the night

the clock is put one hour forward.

On the last Sunday in October in the middle of the night,

at three o'clock, the clock is put one hour

backward.

• Source, in Norwegian: http://www.timeanddate.com/norsk/omsommertid.html

• For the big picture, in English: http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/g.html
• About Franklin's essay: http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin.html

Just autumn

Norgesglass

When I talked to my mother about her
tyttebærsyltetøy, she warmly recommended
preserving the jam in a glass jar called
Norgesglass.

Norgesglass were, according to the
Norwegian Wikipedia, produced in Norway
from 1908 to 1978, in a staggering number
of around 75 million jars.
Even dividing that number by the presentday
population of Norway gives you around
15 - 16 jars per person!

Despite the fact that Norge (Norway) is clearly
written on each jar, the invention actually
came from Yorkshire where John Kilner & Co
Glass Company invented and produced
such jars from 1842 to 1937.

But other countries and producers copied
the idea, and as already mentioned, it was
produced in Norway for seventy years.
For the last twenty years (1958-1978)
it was produced at Moss Glassverk,
a glass factory that has now become
a residential area of Moss.

There are at least six different sizes of
Norgesglass.

You can still find Norgesglass at the local
fleamarkets and at charity sales.

In general , the number of Norwegians
picking berries and mushrooms,
and preserving meat etc.
has gone down drastically, in particular
after the fridge and the freezer became a
common household appliance.

The glass jars can last for a long time,
if they don't break, but there is usually
one part you to buy new, namely
the rubber rings.

A Lesson from my Mother: Tyttebærsyltetøy

Source of this photo: http://www.bioresurs.uu.se/myller/fjall/lingon2.htm

Tyttebær in Norwegian.
Lingon in Swedish.
The following names in English : Cowberry, foxberry, lingberry, lingenberry, lingonberry, mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea).

As children playing in the forest, the blueberry was what we picked to eat while playing.
The taste of "tyttebær" was not a favorite. It is quite sour, as I remember it.
But my mother picked a lot of tyttebær to make tyttebærsyltetøy or Lingonsylt as she called it.

Blueberry jam, still my favorite, was for pancakes and sandwiches and cakes.

Tytteærsyltetøy was for eating with meat!
I remember eating meatballs and reindeer meat with tyttebærsyltetøy.



I don't eat meat , but in September my mother gave me some homemade tyttebærsyltetøy, and by now I have eaten half of it!

Her recipe for making it, is one she read many years ago in a Swedish magazine called ICA Kuriren. She insists that this Swedish recipe is more gentle with the berries and that after two weeks you get natural jelly on top of the jam.

Here comes the recipe.

2 1/2 kg of tyttebær = 5 liter of tyttebær
1 liter of water

Cook this for 10 minutes. Be careful - it easily cooks over.

Take the casserole to the side and mix in 2 kg of sugar till the sugar is completely dissolved.
No more cooking.

Pour the jam into clean, preferably warm jars and close tightly at once.


Tip from my mother: To keep your jam in an airtight Norgesglass with rubber rings is the best way to preserve your jam.

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur

Just read a newspaper article about an Icelandic
filmmaker named Baltasar Kormakur.

So now I should make an effort to see one of
his movies.

101 Reykjavík (2000)
The Sea (Icelandic. Hafið) (2002)
A Little Trip to Heaven (2005)
Jar City (Icelandic. Mýrin) (2006)
White Night Wedding (Icelandic. Brúðguminn, 2008)

Here is one article from 2001 after the release of "101 Reykjavik"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/may/25/culture.features2

Here is a review of White Night Wedding
http://www.nordicfilmandtvfund.com/index.php?sid=59&ptid=3

Finding Your Biological Mother on Facebook

In 1990 in Bogota, Columbia a seventeen
year old girl had just given birth.
She made the decision to give up
her newborn daughter for adoption.

A Swedish couple adopted little Angelica
and brought her to Sweden,
two months old.

According to the law in Colombia,
Angelica, like other adopted children, can,
at the age of 18, get information
about their biological parents.
The biological parent cannot get help to locate
the child they gave up for adoption.

So, in principle, Angelica could have
traveled to Colombia next year to find out
where her mother lives, and if she was still
alive.
The exact name of the biological mother
was always known to Angelica from
her adoption file.

But now Angelica will probably go to Bogota
before her eighteenth birthday, because she
has already found her mother!
Through the internet.
Through Facebook.
She just clicked in her mother's name on
Facebook, and voila!

She now corresponds with her biological
mother through the internet.
It turns out she has two younger brothers
and a younger sister, a maternal grandmother
and a maternal grandfather in Colombia.

What will happen when they actually meet?

How will the adoptive parents help their
daughter cope with this situation?

Source:
http://sydsvenskan.se/lund/article377994/Mamman-fanns-pa-Facebook.html

Autumn near Amfi

What a blessing that old trees



were protected



when old houses were pulled down
and new houses were built.

Another Prayer

Help me, O God, to find still moments,
quiet spaces within to refresh my soul;
cease my questions, my inner debates,
and let me meditate on Your goodness.

Help me, O God, to nurture my courage,
recalling moments of strength.
Let me remember days of fortitude
and the certainty of Your regard.
Help me, O God, to turn to the light,
to feel the warmth of Your touch,
my own face and fingers outstretched alive,
alive in Your sight.

Lend us the wit, O God, to speak
the lean and simple word;
give us the strength to speak
the found word,
the meant word;
grant us the humility to speak
the friendly word,
the answering word.
And make us sensitive, God,
sensitive to the sounds of the words
which others speak
----sensitive to the sound of their words ----
and to the silences between.

PS Thank you,Jerry!

Gudes gate, Moss

I love walking up this old street leading to the public library, to the local museum and to the cinema.
Lately the iron posts and the concrete seats were added, a bonus for us pedestrians.

Lesson from my Grandfather: Repair your own Shoes

What is this?
I wouldn't have seen it in the secondhand shop if my mother hadn't exclaimed: "Your Norwegian grandfather had one like that under the kitchen stove!"
"What did he do with it?" I asked.

My mother then explained that he used this for repairing the family's shoes - and he was not a shoemaker by trade!
I do not intend to repair my own shoes , but I do want to know more about how you use this piece of iron, even though I didn't buy it.

Prinsens gate, Moss

When I came to Moss two years ago, I remember this little side street as a building site.



Now it looks like this.
I don't know which prince was the reason for naming this Prinsens gate (The Prince's street), but it does look much nicer this way than it did a few years ago.
Moss also has Kongens gate (the King's street) and Dronningens gate (The Queen's street).

Present owner, past owner

Having both Norwegian and Swedish roots, I sometimes enjoy seeing how these two mix.

Here f.ex., after coming to Moss two years ago, I found out the mills downtown had been bought by a Swedish firm.



The firm was earlier called Moss Aktiemøller.
And now the Swedes had taken over!
But looking up on the tower a stubborn artistic window still showed off some local patriotism -
MA, if you look closely.

Joke: A successful divorce

Lady A:
I heard you got divorced.
Lady B:
Yes, that is true.
Lady A:
So how was the divorce?
Lady B:
Well, first we had some really ugly fights,
but then we let the lawyers take care of
everything.
Lady A:
And how did that work out?
Lady B:
Great.
His lawyer got our summer house by the sea
and my lawyer got our villa.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park: Sinnataggen

Among all the sculptures in the Vigeland Park,
this fairly small sculpture called Sinnataggen
in Norwegian (the angry one, perhaps,
in translation?) is the first sculpture I remember
as a child of four or five.

I was quite convinced for several years that my
younger brother had been the model!

The Vigeland Sculpture Park: Inner Gates, around the Monolite

Young women.
Men.
A few simple lines translated into iron.

I have loved these gates since I was a little girl.

Photographs: My daughter-in-law and/or my son

Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo: One of the Main Entrance Gates

Photographs: My daughter-in-law and/or my son

A Clear Moment

Today, in front of the bathroom sink,

everything within a distance of one meter

was perfectly clear.

I enjoyed seeing the shapes and the colors.

I enjoyed seeing the details.



If everything will be like this,

then I am very lucky.

A Lesson from my Swedish Grandmother: Only Men Can Drive

Source:
http://www.orebro.se/images/18.37c0d5e810d685ee730800025206/Bild2.jpeg

My Swedish greatgrandfather had a T Ford,
probably similiar to the one on the photo above.
My Swedish grandfather had a small Volkswagen
when I grew up.
There were also horses on their farm,
used for agricultural work.
I remember horses and tractors.

My Swedish grandmother did not drive.
One of my aunts drove the tractor - "like a man".

My mother got a driving licence when she
married my father and settled in Norway.
She still uses it.

Once visiting her parents in Sweden,
she offered to drive my grandmother somewhere.

But my grandmother waited for my uncle to come
"because only men can drive".

I don't drive.
My theory now is that it has enabled me to avoid
being the driver in my life.
I have to a certain extent been the passenger.

Perhaps like my Swedish grandmother?

Four season, two seasons

When I grew up in Norway, there were four
very distinct seasons.
Summer, autumn, winter,spring.
As a child I don't think it crossed my mind
what it would be to live in a different climate.

Imagine my surprise when in my second country
these four seasons were not to be found.
At least not as I was used to.

Snow could be seen on some of the highest mountains.
Snow on rare occassions fell on bigger parts of the
country.
But mostly winter there meant rain now and then,
and cooler temperatures.
Like a bad Norwegian summer.

So the rainy season became my symbolic winter.

Autumn was tricky.
No autumn colors. No winds and colder rains.
No shorter days, at least not very noticeable.

But then two things helped me.
After a year I found one tree in a park that
actually changed colors in September.
Autumn!
A few years later I learnt about a tall flower
that blooms in nature in September, October
"announcing that soon the first winter rain will fall".
Autumn!

But in general I calmed down and realized that
in my new country there were two main seasons:
When it rains.
When it doesn't rain.

Back in Norway after all these years,
I relive the four seasons.
Just now it is a Norwegian autumn.
An impressive range of colors.

But I also miss those wild tall flowers in a country
without autumn colors.
Wild flowers that will soon announce
the first winter rain.

Quote I want to believe in

"There are no tough times,
hard knocks,
or challenges
that aren't laden with
emeralds,
rubies,
and diamonds
for those who see them through."

Mike Dooley

Amazing - a Swedish village in the Ukraine

In the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter
(Oct 3rd 2008) I read an interesting
article about a little Swedish village in
Southern Ukraine.

Swedish?
Yes, even called Gammalsvenskby
(=Old Swedish village).

How old? Founded more than 220 years
ago.

But let us first go back to the north and
back in time.

One tradition tells that a group of
of Finnish-Swedish farmers had settled
on the Estonian coast between
1250 to 1400.

Another tradition tells that Swedes had
come as soldiers to the island Dagø off
the Estonian coast in 1681, to protect
Sweden's eastern front.

In 1781 Catharine II exiled around 1200
of these Swedes from Dagø to an area
named Novorossiia, an area taken from
the Turks, in what today is in the
south of Ukraine.

During the eight month long march
covering 2000 km, half of them died.
The survivors reached the river Dnejpr
in Southern Ukraine in May 1782.

Here they started a settlement they
first called Svenskbyn and then
Gammalsvenskbyn.

But life was hard and on January 1st
1784 only 135 of those deported from
Dagø were still alive in
Gammalsvenskbyn.

The Swedes kept their language, their
traditions and their Lutheran religion
in Gammalsvenskbyn till 1929.

Following the difficult times in the Ukraine
after the Communist Revolution, Stalin's
rule and a terrible famine in the 1920's,
the villagers decided to move, as a group,
to the country their ancestors had left
several hundred years earlier.

In 1929 the Swedish Red Cross helped
the 900 villagers to go by boat down
the Dnejpr and then by train to Trelleborg
in Sweden.
Many settled on the island Gotland,
to the east of southern Sweden.
Some emigrated to Canada.

Some decided to leave Sweden and
go back to Gammelsvenskbyen in 1931.

There 18 of them were arrested during
the years 1937-1938 and disappeared,
for ever.

The church the community had built
back in 1885, was closed in 1929.
In 1989 the church was reopened,
this time as an orthodox church,
with an added cupola.

In October 2008, the King and Queen of
Sweden visited Gammelsvenskbyen
and attended a service in the church.
Today the official name of this place
is Zmijevka.


There is still a group of women
who speak the oldfashioned Swedish
this group has kept alive.

The King told the reporter he was
surprised their "old Swedish" wasn't more
different - he could easily understand
what they said.

Arvid Norberg, who was born in
Gammalsvenskbyen and came to Sweden
in 1929, has made a website, in Swedish.
Worth checking out, if you read Swedish.
In one part he describes what you can see
if you go there these days.
http://www.gammalsvenskby.se/RundtrippiGsby.htm

There is also a text in English worth reading
http://www.gammalsvenskby.se/ENGLISH1.htm

For me, this brought me back to the
research I did some years ago for a student
who was a decendant of the Germans who
settled in this area around the same time.
Fascinating!

What really happened?

One of my Norwegian ancestors was
named Borger or Børger Bjerkenes.
He was probably born around 1550.

From 1593 to 1625 he was mentioned as
living on a farm called Søndre Bjerkenes
in Høland. Høland is north east of Moss,
closer to the Swedish border.

According to one source, he was the owner
of the biggest farm in Høland in his time,
a property that consisted of several smaller
farms.

He had at least six children:
1. Mogens Bjerkenes, born 1573, continued
the family farm, died around 1663
2. Reier Bjerkenes (my ancestor), probably
died in 1661
3. Berte Børgersdatter, born around 1583,
married to Tarvald Jonsen Vestby,
died after 1666
4. NN Børgersdatter, married to Erik Nes
5. Karen Børgersdatter. married to Brynild
Hjellebøl
6. Christofer Bjerkenes, died around 1660

So Borger / Børger himself seems to
have been fairly wealthy, the owner of
his own farm.
He had a family with children who got
married and who outlived him.

So what really happened on
Midsummer 1622?
At that time Borger / Børger must have
been in his seventies.
Despite his age, he seems to have gone
to Filefjell with another elderly Norwegian
and with a man from Skåne (Southern
Sweden), who lived in Fet in Norway
at the time.
Borger/ Børger "rode on a sheep" (??)
and brought with him six or seven pounds
of pork and butter.
Then the three, according to the
Swede's testimony, had sat
down on a table for a meal with the
devil himself!

In August 1624, two years later,
the man from Skåne, an outsider,
was persecuted for "diabolism".
I don't know for sure, but I would
imagine he was executed.

Borger / Børger Bjerkenes and the
other old man were also accused of
diabolism.
Borger / Børger managed to appeal
his case to a higher court, but seems
to have died while imprisoned,
waiting for the legal proceedings to
continue.
His family had to pay 70 riksdaler
to receive his dead body so that they
could bury him in the cemetery.

The other old man seems to have
been able to prove his innocence
and continued to live for another
twenty years!!
So Borger / Børger Bjerkenes may
perhaps have been proven innocent too,
if he had lived long enough.

But what did really lie behind this
accusation? I don't know.

Did he have enemies who wanted him
down because of his wealth, because of
the many farms he owned?

Was the priest and the church out to get
him because he was not coming enough
to the church on Sundays?

Was a Midsummer meal at Filefjell a
remnant of pre-Christian Norse
rituals?

Did he die in prison because he was old,
or was his life shortened because of the
difficult conditions in the local prison?

In any case, it seems that his wealth and
probably also the fact that he was a man,
helped him appeal his case to a higher court.

Borger / Børger Bjerkenes -
I will remember you.

Being protected from the rain

Two nights in a row,
late at night, I have heard
the rain throwing itself
at my windows.

Autumn rain.

I opened the curtains and looked out.
The rain came sideways.
There were yellow leaves
on the wet asphalt.

Autumn rain.

In bed I listened to the rain,
till I fell asleep.

Last night I had just read about some
of my Norwegian ancestors.
Imagine their lives in such weather!

Day temperatures outside are now around
ten degrees Celsius.
For the moment I keep the inside
temperature at nineteen degrees
with the help of one radiator,
though I know I soon will have to add
the second radiator and perhaps
raise the temperature to
around twenty-two degrees.

With 19 degrees inside
and looking at the windy rain outside,
I felt grateful for being protected
by a cosy house
where I can sleep
in a clean warm bed.

A farm in Western Norway

These photos were taken by my
daughter-in-law or/and by my son in August
when they travelled to Flåm and the Sognefjord.

I just loved the photos because they reminded me
of my childhood up in the Norwegian mountains.

Lesson from my mother: Finding mushrooms in the forest

Our ancestors were Hunterers and Gatherers.
My mother must clearly be a decendant of
the Gatherers.
It is quite fascinating to see how she feels
personally responsible for finding the
mushrooms in the forest and then bring
them home, clean them, sometimes dry them,
cook them.

She of course knows which ones are poisionous,
which ones are considered not so tasty, and
which ones are delicious.
Even a non-gatherer like me know one of
the mushrooms she loves to pick.
Kantarell, in Norwegian.
Chantarelle, in English.
I love to eat chantarelle!


Photos: My daughter-in-law and/or son this August.