video: midsummer bonfire

Best watched in full-screen mode. Enjoy 🙂

midsummer weekend

EDIT: Wow, there’s something to coming home to near 3.5k views and 40 Emails in the course of a few hours since I last checked! Welcome everyone who has found my blog via StumbleUpon and Freshly Pressed today! Hope you are enjoying yourselves here 🙂
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EDIT2: You guys are amazing! I’m at nearly 180 emails today 🙂 Btw the action is over here: My Scotland Post
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Our solstice weekend was spent near the Danish border in the north of Germany. My dad and his girlfriend celebrated their joint 60th birthdays with a big garden party, complete with a midsummer bonfire and singing.




We left late on thursday for the long drive north, spent friday at a beach at the Baltic Sea and saturday at the party before heading back south for a near 9 hour drive on sunday.
Deeply inhaling the salty sea air mixed with wood smoke from a crackling fire outside has recharged my batteries as only sea and fire can do. I needed it so much not only mentally but physically as well. I needed the step back, asking myself what the hell was I thinking overworking myself like I did in the last few weeks. Being a highly sensitive person overexerting myself is dangerously easy and I’m known to come home crying from exhaustion on a hard day. Unfortunately I’m too far from the sea to have its healing powers readily available! Having said this, I’m taking it easy this week, taking my time catching up on blogs and comments, sorting through the photos from last weekend and playing with the video sequences and of course, not working so long and hard. Have a good week!

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saint martin’s day bonfire

There is typically an Easter bonfire at the barn, but as the past spring was unusally dry it was too dangerous to light it. The pile of wood lay waiting in the fields through the then following unusually rainy summer into fall.

The bonfire was finally held on Saint Martin’s Day (November 11) instead on a beautiful, cold night with a clear sky and a huge full moon.


Isn’t it funny how, in our world full of technology, we are still fascinated by fire and drawn to it. Dangerous on the one hand and warm and comforting on the other.

A moment to pause and wonder and draw a deep breath. I have always loved the smell of wood smoke, it’s the best smell in the world for me, right next to freshly ground coffee.

Amidst all the running errands and getting things organized, we have tried to quiet down a bit and squeeze a nap or two into these busy days. I’m trying to catch up with comments and emails but it’ll be a while, sorry to keep y’all waiting. But sometimes, all I really need is to stand around a big fire for an hour or two.

easter bonfire

Happy Easter to all of you! I hope you are all having a good time with your families! My boyfriend and I are all alone this year, our parents are off holidaying.
We went to the Easter bonfire at the barn yesterday evening. Last year I missed it because I was in Canada and the year before it was rainy and cold so I didn’t go but this year it was nice and the fire burned really well.


It was so hot and windy that you couldn’t actually get very near, pretty toasty.
Doesn’t this look magical?


After the fire came the party…at the barn there’s always a party attached, cowboys take any reason to party 😉 Even after the rodeos when they’ve been riding all day and must be dead on their feet (I know I would be) they’ll still party until 6 in the morning. Unforgotten remains the rodeo party two years ago, when we had a counter the length of the arena and at one point (after quite a few whiskeys) everyone started dancing and stripping on the counters and splashing themselves with whiskey and water…oh I have those pics but I won’t share them here, sorry 😉
Wasn’t quite as wild yesterday though there was lots of dancing…one reason I love the barn parties is the great music. I’m not into most music played at clubs right now but I’ll dance to this any time!