An Abundance of Raspberries!

We are so blessed to have an abundance of raspberry bushes in our yard, right beneath our apple tree and beside our veggie garden. I've never seen so many berries before, but Sweden seems to be ripe with them everywhere - you can also find these super delicious, super sweet and tiny little strawberries known as 'smultron' - they're honestly so tiny that my girls think they're faerie strawberries.

 Tiny little wild strawberries in our backyard.

 One of the raspberry bushes beneath the apple tree. We have about 20 bushes.

This is just one big mixing bowl full of raspberries, we've collected at least 6 Litres of raspberries, many which are eaten fresh, but the remainder have been made into jam or frozen.

One of our many jars of homemade raspberry jam - the first we've ever made. We also made some Queens Jam which includes wild blueberries.

 Some of our beautiful flowers. It's so nice being able to take a few and display them in vases inside - and a lot cheaper than buying them from a store.

 Our root vegetable garden with potatoes, beetroot, & parsnips.

Our first blackberries. 

We also have a mulberry tree that we planted behind the house, next to our canoe.

Some of our tomatoes - definitely nothing like the glut of tomatoes that I had in Australia, it's a very different climate here, but at least we'll hopefully have a few. I think we'll set up a greenhouse for next years crop.

These photos remind me of how far I've come - I started out with one tomato plant in a pot about 4 years ago, though I must give credit to my wonderful husband who does most of the gardening work :) one day, I'll dig through my photo collection and find the photos of my awesome aussie garden that he built for me during our long-distance relationship - I even raised chickens, before my move to Sweden. They were so cute and I can't wait until we have them again.

The Most Awesome Job Ever

Part of my motivation to move to Sweden (other than the opportunity to live in the same country as my husband, of course) was that I was offered an awesom job at a game development studio in Stockholm. My favourite thing about the job is definitely the company culture - I'm surrounded by very talented people and the company looks after us so well, you'd have a hard time believing we were at a job - free massages, buffet breakfasts, game rooms with pool and tennis tables.. there are so many perks, I don't know where to start!

It has been a great experience so far and it's absolutely stunning and I wanted to share some of the beautiful views that I pass by on my way to work.

 One of the beautiful architecture examples in a semi-circular park that I pass on the way to work.

 The view beside my office (taken on a lunch time walk).

The same view, but up on a higher ledge further back. The road that I work on is like the edge of a cliff.

The Haunted Apple-Tree House

There's this house that I pass by on my way to work and it has an apple tree orchard in the front yard. When I first arrived here in Winter, I thought it looked kinda like a haunted house with all the gnarley trees, so I thought I'd take a photo and compare it to what it looks like in summer.

 Just after winter, when the snow had melted.

 In spring, when the apple trees started to flower.

Haunted house? What house?

 It amazes me how much a landscape can change based on the weather. I still miss Queensland a lot, but I do like always having something to look forward to and a view that changes every few months.

Changing Seasons

During my 2 year long-distance relationship with my husband, we had numerous holidays traveling back and forth between Sweden and Australia.

I thought I'd share a few of the photos that I've captured during this time that show how seasonal my new life is. Before, life used to comprise of 2 seasons - hot vs cold (or wet vs dry). I never had to worry about seasonal planting in my Aussie garden, because there was always something that would grow. Now, it's as though everything bursts into life in the first weeks of spring.

These photos are all of the park near where I'm living. I love walking through here on the way to the shops, train or work.

 Winter is beautiful.

 The snow starts to melt.

It's a little wet and muddy after the snow.

 

 The grass starts to grow.

 The first flowers start to bloom.

The grass and leaves become more lush.

And there's a few beautiful flower photos that line the path - the same path that is shown up the top in the first winter photo, along the left side of the path where you can only see hedge.

As I write, the summer is ending and the days are getting colder and quite wet. I've been told by some Swedish colleagues that this winter will be a cold one, because we had the warmest summer seen in a few years. I love the snow, but I've never lived in 6 months of darkness.. so we'll see how it goes :)