Magical midsummers eve

A typical swedish midsummer is celebrated with friends and family, eating herring and dancing around a maypole, plus for some, lots of booze.

Instead of joining all the fuzz, we fled to the cottage and had am amazing weekend all by ourselves. 

It was the first midsummer at the cottage so slightly different flowers met  us.

After breakfast at midsummer eve we took a long walk up to a mountain nearby.  First stop was at the natural spring were we get our water to the cottage. See the hose in the corner? Natural springs like this are often holy places. I wonder if the vikings held ceremonies here. It's special because of the almost round shape.

Further by on the path we passed a fen. I had to go to it to see if I could find any cloudberry plants around it (for later picking). I found them and also cranberries in bloom (pic below), lots of them.

There were also so many orchids in bloom, that was amazing to see.

Something that makes the wet land so beautiful this time of year is the fen cotton. 

It looks like snowballs hovering over the ground. 

I saw the largest footprint of a moose, this one had been in a hurry because the two "spurs" at the back are usually not visible in a footprint on flat ground and next footprint was 1,5 meters away.

Hunting season begins in october so the moose was running for something else. This is a slaughter place for the hunters, I estimated the height to 4 meters.

After entering the end of the road we started to walk upwards. I passed a large stone that had broken pieces and tried to balance some of them.

This is the stunning view after some walking, and we had a good way left.

The vegetation was a bit sadly very thick at the top. The other side of the mountain has a 400 meter high steep. You can see some blue spots between the trees, that is small lakes. 

By the steep is a small metal box were visitors can write a note about their visits. Johan saw lots of relatives from the summer cottages. The first notes were from 1960.

 

Of course we left a note and started to walk down hill. When I passed these blocks I had to take a picture of that place, there must be trolls living there.

After a quick lunch, we walked to the lake for some bathing and washing ourselves.

The day ended with a dinner for two on the porch. After that we both were exhausted and went to bed as early as 9 pm, yeah, ha ha, right, like old people. It is weird but one get so tired when we stay there. I have no problem sleeping for 12 hours.

Midsummers day rained away and the mosquitos made it a hell being outdoors. It was the warm humid air that woke them. This was the view from the table were I sat writing letters, playing cards and on my android tablet.