Archive for August, 2009
I need cheap boots
Time for a rant.
I bought a pair of wellingtons in May, the expensive sort with good ankle support so I could use the wellies instead of hiking boots on my excursions (which often take me to bogs and other wet places). Very early on I noticed that there’s a hole in the tip of the right boot, I have no idea if it was there already when I bought them because if it’s something I did, then I’ve managed to kick something really hard because a splinter had burrowed itself all the way through the thick rubber of the toe part. I applied some superglue to it to seal the hole.
This one hole I could live with, it was easy enough to patch. But today as I was walking on a bog, I noticed that my ankles were getting wet. I had a closer look and found that all the four seams around the ankle were more or less broken! It’s the part of the boot which gets bent the most when you walk and especially when you bend down (which I have to do, being a flower photographer).
Total crap. Photographer or not, I haven’t subjected these boots to anything they shouldn’t be designed for. Bending your ankles is a fairly normal activity, I would say!
For now on, I will buy cheap rubber boots. If one summer is all they’re going to last, they will still match this expensive pair that failed on me after two months of use. The price tag is obviously no guarantee for quality anyway! Which is true for a lot of things these days, unfortunately. Manufacturers cut corners any way they can, relying on the stupidity of the consumers. And I’m one of them, duh on me.
Oh well. Let’s see if duct tape can seal the holes enough so I could at least use the wellies the rest of the season. Cheap boots next year.
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Edit 2009-08-30: I took the broken boots to Ljusdals Motor and they replaced them, no questions asked – absolutely no issue about the missing receipt either! Excellent service, let’s just hope that the new boots hold a bit better.
5 commentsMarvellous ghosts
Very exciting day – looking for the ghost orchids (Epipogium aphyllum)! I really had been looking forward to seeing it, because these mysterious small pale orchids have become my favourites. Last year was spectacular for them so we didn’t dare to hope it would be equally good this year, but I think it turned out to be pretty close anyway. Last year we found a few groups with many orchids, this year the concentrations were much smaller but there were individuals scattered over a larger area, it was such a treat to be walking around the place and spot the flowers among the mosses and ferns. We checked out four ghost orchid locations in total, and found them in each – which wasn’t guaranteed at all, considering their nature. They can disappear for many years from a location and then suddenly pop up again when the conditions are right.
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I have been itching to go back to the Svartån location we visited last week, so I did that tonight. The volume of water had gone down considerably, just as predicted. Now it was possible to follow the creek on the cliffs surrounding the water, instead of making detours in the forest. I followed the creek up to where it finally levelled off, the next time I think I will follow it downstream. 
This visit confirmed the feeling I got the last time, the place is full of opportunities and even after 2.5 hours I had still only just scratched the surface. It’s not just the waterfalls but everything around them as well. You can use a wideangle to cram in as much as possible or you can concentrate on a single detail, and come back some other time and do it all over again because it will have changed. Marvellous!
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SVT Gävledala hade ett inslag om Hamra NP i måndags. De hade filmat vid Svartån, men jag kan inte avgöra om de filmat precis här eller hittat mer klipphällar annanstans längs Svartån… i så fall, var var det?
4 commentsWeather – July 2009
As far as warm and sunny summer weather goes, then July wasn’t it. We got rain, then it rained a bit more, and when it stopped raining it started again. Ok it wasn’t entirely that bad, but it sure wasn’t good either. But don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining! By some freak accident I had managed to book myself on holiday during those brief periods of warm weather, and it was too much for me. I can handle warm weather when I’m at home, but when I’m in the mountains and doing a lot of hiking and photographing, warm weather is the last thing I need. So I just got sick of it and haven’t missed it since.
Four days of observations missing – those warm and sunny days when I was on holiday.
Temperature (High): 23°C
Temperature (Low): 10°C
Temperature (Average): 16°C
Barometer (High): 1020 mbar
Barometer (Low): 995 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1005 mbar
Total of sunny days: 0
Rain: 168 mm
Days with rain: 20
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January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
