at the lake & in the woods

i love the shades of pink in late summer evenings' light at the cottage. this evening here, the lake was surprisingly calm.














on my last visit at the cottage, this mallard brought her ducklings to visit us.







she stood on the rock whilst the young ones fooled around in the long grass.







after a while mama mallard called the ducklings who dutyfully followed her.







but yesterday evening, as i was going to take some more pics of the pink moments, the mallards had come back for the night.







didn't have my tripod along...sadly mama mallard seems to have lost a duckling.







they didn't seem to mind me getting quite close (3 meters)







not sure if it's only due to the fact that i've started looking at clouds...but sometimes there are strange formations.







from the water to the woods, or, actually, a small swampy pond up on a hill not too far from the cottage.







swampy areas have cloudberries, tiny one here. i guess i'm supposed to say they are delicious, but have yet to learn to like them. it's not that the taste is somehow off or outright bad, there is a sort of tartness to it that i just don't enjoy. but don't let me stop you from trying if you ever get a chance.







i do like this place, but...in the winter there usually is just way too much snow, in the summer you won't believe the amount of bugs, and autumn just might be even worse for bugs because the moose flies. little over a week ago when i went there (semi-hiking with mom) it had just rained (fresh, cool air), there was a slight wind (no mosquitoes) and most importantly, no moose flies yet!







eew! i just don't like moose flies! but these lingonberries are looking good, few more weeks and they'll be ripe to be picked







wild raspberries are abundant! hmm, little did i know, these are not just wild raspberries, but arctic raspberries...







mom's been picking them like crazy, there are still places you can pick a handful after handful, and have a handy snack along a hike.







and blueberries, there's plenty of them, too. whether you choose to call these wild blueberries or bilberries, to me, they are the true blueberries.







another tasty snack...







this, however, is not a blueberry, but a northern bilberry. who knew berries could be so confusing!?







though, there is nothing confusing about these, wild strawberries

chanterelle pasta

a long overdue post...the wireless internet connection at the shack got whacked by a thunder storm and until the repair guy came, no one knew how bad it actually was. a lightning had done serious damage in a socket, serious like in burned...luckily the house wasn't burned down. certain someone wasn't a happy camper when the net was down...

anyways. right now, i'm at the cottage. it's getting close to autumn, yeah, yeah, someplaces it's summer until sept 23, but in our neck of the woods summer is on the loosing side. i like autumn so i'm good. at the cottage i usually take a walk with mom, at this time of year mom spends hours on end foraging in the woods...you know, blueberries (the wild kind), raspberries (again, the wild kind) and chanterelles, and whatelse.

if you don't pay attention you'll miss the fungus, 'cause you'll think it's just some fallen birch leaves, 'cause they hide pretty well.






i don't mind telling that i walked pass this one, mom didn't.







pretty nice...







got all this and we weren't even looking that hard. little cleaning is needed before these make it into the pan.







this batch is from last week, rinsed well before putting on the pan with one minced onion and some butter (it's ok to use oil, too)







cooked some whole wheat linguine, any long thin pasta will do.







cooked the chanterelles and onion on medium heat until the juices started to evaporate...







...then added the cooked pasta, crushed black pepper and salt, and some cream that i had laying around (cream is totally optional, but so good...) delish lunch in the time it takes to boil your pasta...