Sunday, May 31, 2015

Nรธrre Skov/Als Denmark - 05/30/2015

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This weekend it was way too windy to go for a one and a half day sailing trip.

We stayed in Sonderborg and spend a beautiful day at the stone beach of Nรธrre Skov at the Northeast of Als.

This beach is like paradise to a stone lover like me :-)) And even more, there were lots of fossils to be picked up by us :-))

The next day at home I unpacked the treasuries I found ;-)


Always awesome again and again......

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I know we already have a whole collection of pictures showing all different kinds of rainbows.....
But still, it always makes us happy again to see one.....This one appeared two days ago in Sonderborg at the harbor...


Dyvig Bay - 05/25/2015 - Rocna rocks :-))

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The plan was to go from Kalvรธ/Denmark to Mjelsvig/Als Denmark.....but when arriving in the Dyvig Bay we saw some boats anchoring there....
Immediately the children wished that we try our new Rocna anchor as well ;-)
Said and done.....
It was unbelievable....Wolfgang let the anchor drop, it grabbed and there we were....we gave 2500 rpm backwards and there was not the slightest movement :-)
We had a very pleasant stay there, driving to either sides of the bayby dinghy, visiting the harbor master and his little shop for ice-cream and peacefully slept until next morning :-)

Kalvรธ/Denmark - 05/24/2015

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The other Saturday we went to Kalvรธ/Denmark, a little half-island in the Genner Bay we like a lot.

The wind came from the front the whole time and we had to to tack the whole time, but it was nice sailing anyway and we enjoyed the fresh air, the sunlight, the sea and being in nature again :-) Actually under other circumstances we would have liked to go further, but we all were exhausted by tacking and Kalvรธ is clearly one favorite anyway....

The whole island is a nature reserve with beautiful nature all around.
The harbor is rather small but lively, since they have an active sailing club there. The facilities are very decent :-)

We had a nice ride around the Genner Bay with the Dinghy later that evening...we disembarked at the other side of the bay and made a short walk into the woods there. Wonderful forest we clearly will have to come back some time and take a hike here.


Thursday, May 21, 2015

Children's Crafts: Little builder

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We tidied up all the different storage spaces on Madita and found a box with little teakwood plugs, you usually use to close no longer needed drill holes in the wood of the ship.
The children had fun with them a whole long evening :-)


Barn Swallow :-)

Posted on 5/21/2015by with No comments
A few weeks ago we saw a documentary about deserts...
After realizing what kind of a journey across the Sahara these little birds undergo every year, we even more appreciate their acrobatic flights and singing in the harbors....

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Langballigau/Germany - 05/152015

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Heavy winds were predicted for the weekend. Before going back to Sonderborg, we only could stay in a harbor at the Flensburg fjord, to be back before the storm started.
Langballigau is a very nice lively harbor, with lots of local sailors and fishermen, a very nice restaurant "Anna und Mee(h)r" (which unfortunately was closed this weekend and nice beaches to both sides of the harbor.
We like the so called dog's beach, since Hugo is allowed to run without leash, which he for sure enjoys a lot :-)
Again at this beach a lot of fossils and driftwood could be found----
and Friedrich found something he is very fond of: clay...well another moment since being a mom, that I was very happy to have a decent washing machine at home ;-)


Avernakรธ/Denmark - 05/14/2015

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After the wind calmed down, we set sails and visited the very beautiful island Avernakรธ.
We have been here last year in spring as well and liked it a lot.
In the afternoon I took a very long walk at the beach with Hugo for collecting fossils, since last year I was very lucky at this spot. And indeed there were some echinite (sea urchin) and thunderbolts waiting for me :-)
The village Averynakรธ By is of certain beauty, especially the old houses, trees and gardens.


Aeroskรถbing/Aerรธ Denmark - 05/12-13/2015

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Since stormy weather was predicted for Wednesday, we had to take a harbor day. We decided for Aeroskรถbing, because we knew what we would get: A lovely town, and very decent playground, a nice beach for long walks, a well sorted supermarket and comfortable showers.....
We had very much time for long walks in all directions :-)

Lyรธ/Denmark - 05/11/2015

Posted on 5/20/2015by with No comments
We love the little island Lyรธ close to Farborg. It is calm and pure nature and the light is very special there.
This time  we arrived later that afternoon, therefore we only took an evening walk along the beach....

Dyvig/Als Denmark - 05/10/2015

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Last week the children had one week May-break at school and we took the chance to make a little trip in the South Funen Archipelago.
Since it was still rather cold, we made short crossings from one small harbor to the next.
We started visiting Dyvig/Als. We have been there several times before and each time, we took a good walk. This time we even discovered a new way through the fields with many, many wild flowers weaving a spring carpet :-)

Friday, May 8, 2015

Children's Art: Salt and Watercolor

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I couldn't resist to get some "real" liquid watercolors....and I am very happy with them :-)
We tried them out for the first time this afternoon and of course it had to be the the real exciting stuff once I found on Meri Cherry's site :-)

 We poured white glue lines on paper with many crossing lines. The glue was then covered with normal kitchen salt. The excess had to be tiped away, of course back in the bowl for reuse ;-)

 With our beloved Pasteur pipettes (always reminds me of former times, when I used to work in a research laboratory ;-)) we carefully let some liquid watercolor drop on the salt lines....
The result was most beautiful: Not only the color flowing along the lines, but how the colors blend into each other. And on top of it, the colors became really vibrant :-) A technique we definitely love :-)

Columbine (Aquilegia)

Posted on 5/08/2015by with No comments

Columbine (Aquilegia) is native to the Northern Hemisphere and belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. The genus consists of 60-70 species.

 First Aquilegia species appeared about 6 million years ago. The plant spread only once to North America when in the Pliocene 5-3 million years ago Beringa built an open land bridge between Asia and North America.

Columbine shows a lot of different blossom colors and forms.
The one shown in the picture is the first one this year opening in our garden. Will update, when the others show up :-)

Children's Art: Color sorting

Posted on 5/08/2015by with No comments
After we did the paint mixing and hue sorting on Monday, Friedrich decided it is about time to bring his colored pencils in a proper order as well :-)
I wish it would be always that easy to make them understand how nice it is to tidy up everything in their rooms ;-)



Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Black Ladybug

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This black ladybug is only native to Europe and lives on very dry heathland (and our garden apparently ;-))  and is a category II, very endangered species.


Children's Art: Color mixing

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Yesterday in my little children painting group we tried out color mixing. I thought it a good idea for every child to know the basic principles of colors, how they belong to each other and react with each other.

 We used acrylic paint this time. First every child received the three primary colors on a palette.

 I asked them to try mixing any possible secondary colors. After a few shades of grey-brown showed up, that kids pretty soon figured out, how it works all by themselves :-)

Children's Art: Playing with liquid watercolors

Posted on 5/05/2015by with No comments
In the internet I found a lot of projects using liquid water colors.
I guess these are not that common in Germany and actually it is kind of difficult to find affordable ones here. But since I wanted to try them out, I decided for an easy first step, making them by myself diluting cheap watercolor paste....

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Children's crafts: We dyed some T-shirts

Posted on 5/02/2015by with No comments
For a couple of years I had some batik colors waiting in the drawer for their time to be used....the time came last week....
I recalled that I once dyed a T-shirt when I was at school in handicrafts lesson and I wanted to show that to the children.

Each child received one white T-shirt. They laid it flat on the table and twisted it from the middle. When all was wound up to one small package we fixed it by spanning some rubber banding across it.


We built a hygrometer :-)

Posted on 5/02/2015by with No comments
Friedrich wanted a hygrometer....to tell the truth he wanted one for his violin case like his teacher has.....the next best thing is to have one in the garden.....

I found a construction plan in the internet and we gave it a try...

First we put some cardboard in contact paper to make it water resistent.
Next step was to push a fixing pin through one end of a straw. We used the pin to fix the straw at the cardboard. That will be our cursor.
On the back end of this cursor we glues one of Magdalena's hair, she washed with soap before.
The other end of the hair was glued to a pin that was about 15 cm beneath the first pin.

The idea is: If it is raining and humidity is high, that hair will get longer by taking up some water and the pull on the cursor will be relaxed and it will show downwards.
If it is dry and sunny outside, the hair will shorten, since it will lose water and the cursor will be pulled upwards....

So far we had only rainy days... the prove that all this works has to wait for the sun ;-)



Friday, May 1, 2015

Friedrich's new project

Posted on 5/01/2015by with No comments
Friedrich and I spent some time in garden yesterday.
I asked him for a change not to fill the sandbox till the upper edge with water like he did all the other days and he soon came up with a new project: He dug out all the tree saplings he could find in our garden and put them into plant pots to open his own tree nursery.
After he captured all the saplings in our garden, he went over to our very friendly neighbor asking for saplings from her garden....

Now he has a very nice collection of several linden trees, some beech trees, one or two maples, a mahonia and one horse chestnut :-)


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