Work-trip, Day Two
The Sunday was just beeeaaaauuuuttttiiiiffffuuul! 🙂 I think we most definitely got a small taste of “indian summer”, which was nice just before the winter hits the fan.
My main project of the day was tending to some trees we’d planted 15 years ago or so. These were trees that had been planted densely in Finnur’s grandparents’ garden way back when, and over the course of 2-3 years, they’d grown very tall (2-3 m) but remained very skinny. Being Icelandic we felt the need to ‘plant’ the trees out in the ‘wild’ so we did.
I remember asking my grandmother for advice and I will say that as a result those trees got pampered! Not only did they get gigantic holes to live in, but there was nice fertilizer, lots of water, inverted grass, and last but not least, wooden support beams with tire-tubes to keep the trees upright through the winter.
And then 15 years passed.
Today, these trees are pretty darn big, well as big as I think that kind of tree will get.
The trees in question are the ones on the right. No, they're not as tall as the crazy trees on the left, but then again, I don't think they grow to be all that tall.
So this is what happens when you leave a bunch of trees for 15 years. They grow! Unfortunately, the wooden supports and tire-tubes don't grow with them. As a result, most of the trees now have a 'strangulation' mark where the tire-tube was (but had fallen off), or bark damage after growing and banging up against one of the wooden support beams. My project of the day was to remove all the support structures since the trees no longer need them, and they're probably doing more harm than good.
The only hitch in my grand plan: BEES!! Yes, I was less than thrilled to discover that in the balmy weather, the bees, from what must be a near-by beehive, had decided this would be a great day for a "fly to all the trees and smell the tire-tubes"-outing. It was really uncanny - the bees would literally fly between the trees, all checking out the tire-tubes (it seemed). The spiders also seemed to like the tubes, but thankfully I had really massive gloves on so they didn't faze me so much. But the bees did. Darn bees! In the end I removed most of the support structures. I drew the line at trees that were waist-deep in undergrowth, or were obviously a part of the great-bee-highway. I figured I could always come back later in winter when there will be no undergrowth, and certainly No Flies!
On my way back to the summer-house, I was met by Anna who'd borrowed a berry-picking-instrument. And thus we went berry-picking.
Mmm... wild blueberries!
The view towards Laugarvatn.
Soooo goooooood!! 🙂
This is mostly a 'Hrefna-was-there' image. 🙂
During the drive back to town we got hit by massive downpours, in between blue skies. As a reward we saw at least four rainbows on the way, and most of them were double. Finnur got this image as we were driving past Thingvallavatn.
On a final note: An image taken by Bjarki. He's gotten pretty good at aiming and taking pictures with the big camera, but he's just so small still! It sure is an interesting view of the world though! 🙂
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