looking delicious but isn't

Some fungi you can eat, but it isn't really recommended to do so.

For a simple reason: because they don't taste half as good as they look like.
Of which kind this one here is an example.

veronica

Something more positive, for a change: some beautiful Veronica.

From the archives obviously.

cross-species experience

No, not really - but rather change of species name. As I only discovered recently the bay bolete changed its name: recently known as Xerocumus badius, it is now referred to as Boletus badius.

And don't ask me about the when and the why. Probably she married some nice Boletus guy, how am I supposed to know?!

may you slither well into the new year

The German idiom just goes "Guten Rutsch!" and involves some slithering while having good vibrations. It is not indicated what on you're supposed to slither, nor is there any mentioning of the New Year, or Luck at that - but it is still clear that all this is intended with it. So it is kind of a shorthand wish.

Much smoother than "Happy New Year", don't you think?

christmas

Santa Claus is a foreigner to Austrian culture (very invasive species, environmentalists seem to have already lost the battle against him becoming native here): instead we have the Christkind which this year brought at least some snow, but also took most of it away already before Christmas.

The snowman wasn't a present from Christkind though, it was my nieces and nephews who built him (last year they made a snowwoman for whatever reason).

As you can see, the poor guy already had suffered quite from warm weather and rain:

Later on even his proud head:

fell off, but he was able to re-morph into a new (if smaller) snowman:

After that the snowman quickly resolved into nothing. I thought I'd spare you a photo of that, there's no need for showing such atrocities around Christmas time, is there?

wackelstein

Mühlviertel without granite boulders wouldn't be Mühlviertel. There are myths told around and about them (all of which of course are complete and utter nonsense), and they are considered being synonyms for Mühlviertel mentality: firm, reliable, balanced and fair, but also stubborn and quite cold at times, especially in winter.

Here's your boulder, decide for yourself:

(I am absolutely sure you're enjoying very much that I am posting my plants, and fungi, and the odd animal, on my flickr photostream now. So I shall continue doing so: only the occasional part of wildlife here on the blog while flickr will host my "boring" pictures, as I keep hearing you telling me. Which is quite unfair in my opinion, plants really are spectacular - but very well, "Perlen vor die Säue" as we say here. ;-)

apple

Somehow I've missed most of the apple flowering season. In Vienna.

Not so in Mühlviertel where apples just began to open their buds on 25th of april.

schnittblumen

It is a sin to choose the same colour for background and foreground, and it is rather difficult to use complementary colours. Especially if the background is artificial and has a pattern in it not looking quite natural.

So here those two problematic photos which I made only to teach one of my nephews the art of photography:

But then when I later took a closer look at them I found both those photos quite nice, and worth showing here on this blog; they weren't meant to be shown here, you know.

(Oh, and don't ask me for the exact Latin name for those flowers; they're only Schnittblumen after all.)

carnival

Carnival - that's Fasching here in Austria.

Carnival, that means fancy dress balls, and carnival parades, and of course the famous Vienna Opera Ball.

And for those of you who think that carnival in Austria were the same as in Germany, or even Switzerland, rest assured that this is nonsense. Even Bavarians celebrate Carnival different than neighbouring Upper Austrians.

Anyway, what you can see here is a guy called Memphis, the only Rastafarian in Fasching 1990, in Mühlviertel:

And in case you wonder where I've been, to keep you updated: I was due for surgery (- my knee, see older posts, meniscus & cruciate ligament -) a week ago but my appointment was cancelled due to 'lack of capacity'. If I'm lucky next friday I won't be sent home again; and if they keep me you might not see any activity on this blog for yet another couple of weeks. I am a little bit frustrated about my surgery being delayed [no, that's not true at all: I am very frustrated to be honest], but overall it isn't that bad - it's not as if my case were very urgent.

It is a shame that I'm just not in the mood of going out taking photos because we had quite some snowfall in the last weeks - each time only little, and it never accumulated to more than about five centimetres here in Vienna, but in Wienerwald trees are white. I should have droven out there with my car today, but again I was too lazy. So it seems that you may not get any more winter shots from me here on this blog, not this winter anyway.

my sister's plants

My little sister didn't care at all about plants until a couple of years ago.

I don't know what happened; what she told me was (I think) that she tried once to plant a seed of some fruit she ate, and the seed grew, and she is addicted to plants since. Or something like that.

She's even buying exotic fruit to being able to get their seed which she will put into earth and water and grow. Well, some didn't grow like the roasted peanuts she tried (I told her she shouldn't use roasted ones; but it seems to be all but impossible to buy non-roasted peanuts in Austria - or more precisely, you would have to buy a whole shipload at the bourse, and that's way above her budget).

This plant here now, called Amaryllis but nowadays differentiated from them as a separate species (Ritterstern - Hippeastrum), is one of them.

tiger

Recently this Garfield cat somehow got lost (or probably was abandoned) and found its way to the house of my parents who, of course, took him in.

That cat, most surprisingly, is a real marvel and a gentlemen even, compared to the comic strip Garfield - well behaved and nice. If the previous owners see this - please contact me. (Although I can assure you that my parents would not like to part with it.)

snow everywhere

I was skiing last week, the first time this year. This is Hochficht peak:

You can't see the snow because of the fog. Pity, that. But you can't do much about the weather.

Here in Austria there is plenty of snow - everywhere in higher lying regions. But no snow in Vienna unfortunately - we only had a very few snow showers so far. Hopefully there will be some this weekend.

nasty weather

Weather insists on staying as bad as it has been for the last couple of days.

So plenty of time for me to browse my archives; which did remind me that I hardly haven't bothered you this year with mushrooms (yet). So here now is one: Tylopileus felleus; extremely bitter, but nevertheless one of the most 'mushroomy' looking ones. (Many a mushroom seeker has been tempted to try and eat it ... and a very few ever have succeded in eating more than a spoonful.)

This one however doesn't look quite so fresh any more; it's what these look like when they are really old.

bark beetle

The year 2008 was an extremely good one for the bark beetle, and therefore a very bad one for nature.

It was also a very bad year for forest owners which however, to quite some degree, is their own fault: for decades now they converted natural forests into spruce monocultures even if the habitat isn't very good for spruce - they tend to catch bark beetle more easily if they are planted in lower lying regions. And of course in monocultures the beetle can spread much more easily.

One region hit very hard is the Bohemian Forest (Böhmerwald) in Mühlviertel; great areas have been widely destroyed by the beetle. This also endangers many rare species of the Bohemian Forest like the common ground pine (Lycopodium clavatum subspecies clavatum - Gewöhnlicher Kolben-Bärlapp):

This one however is growing in a region hardly affected at all of the bark beetle plague.

frog

A niece of mine, last time when I was in Mühlviertel, did catch a frog when we went for a walk; she was very exited and happy about it - but then she is only nine, this probably will change when she becomes older. Here's the frog:

And sorry for not giving genus and species here; with animals it is rather easy, for me they are just frogs whereas with plants I want to find out about that stuff ... this probably isn't even a frog, maybe it's a simple toad - but I really couldn't care less. I like this one, therefore I'm showing it here, right?

muehlviertel

The sky of Mühlviertel always will remind me of the children of my brothers and sisters living there, of which there are a lot (both brothers and sisters as well as nephews and nieces, of course).

Many great shots from these kids never will be postet here however; this is not a family blog. So for you I've only got the sky of Mühlviertel.

splash!

the pillory

In Mühlviertel where I grew up there still do exist customs long forgotten elsewhere, such as putting people who have done wrong in the pillory instead of feeding them and giving them lodging for quite some time in prison. I've already fogotton what these two had done, but surely they did deserve their punishment - they really are two evil ones, as everyone can see:

[Well, if you look closely you may come to think that these two are actors, basically. ]

euro 2008: quarter finals

This picture was taken in (one of the two) the shortest night(s) of this year, the night from 21st to 22nd of june. For me it was one of my 'longest' nights indeed, unfortunately in a location where there was no pulbic viewing possible - the Netherlands played Russia that day.

The day before, that is on friday, Turkey won in a dramatic match against Croatia in the final penalty shoot-out: and again Turkey scored in the last minute as they did in the group phase - this time the equalizer in overtime which secured them the penalty shoot-out. The match wasn't too good however (the best of this day was the place where I watched it, in the Hanappi stadium - the home-stadium of SK Rapid Vienna and to fans as holy as Old Trafford to - well, on a different scale, I admit ...); overall the Croats had more of the game which of course isn't much of a consolation for them. So the first semi final will be Germany against Turkey.

Unfortunately I couldn't watch yesterday's match between the Netherlands and Russia; it seemed to have been a really great one - anyway at least the turtle was very impressed - which went to overtime where finally the Russians prevailed. Although it may sound strange to change sides so quickly (and I concede that it really is strange) I now declare that I am on the side of Russia from now on. They have a great though young team, their greatest fault is that they are inexperienced which was the reason why I thought they'd have no chance against Holland. Well, they prooved me wrong.

The Russians will now play in the semis the winner of the fourth quarter final match: today's game of Spain against Italy. And as usual Italy tried to catenaccio its way through to the semis (hoping for a lucky goal), with Spain doing slightly more for the game: but not even Spain was anywhere near the fast, offensive one-touch short-pass game which especially the Dutch and the Russians played. So tacticts dominated (even if on a high level), and almost inevitably a rather boring match was the result, and a goalless draw after 120 minutes. Spain had a great chance to score in the last minute and prevent the penalty shoot-out, but they didn't make it count and subsequently I thought they'd lose the penalty shoot-out ... BUT: they didn't! Spain won, and finally we have a championship where Italy's catenaccio finally does not succeed.

So Spain versus Russia it is in the second semi final, and the Spanish team will have much more room against Russia than they did against Italy: the outcome of this match is completely open; while the other one, Germany versus Turkey, looks like it will be going one-way for Germany - but one never knows, the Turks seem to be specialists for last-minute goals.

Mühlviertel

While pear and cherry trees were flowering in Vienna already in late march and april they only just start now in Mühlviertel at about 650/700 metres above sea level (and higher), and apple trees still might need another week to open their buds. The landscape up there really isn't nearly as green as it is in and around Vienna, or even in lower lying regions of Mühlviertel itself. [Please note that the photos shows cherry and a damson tree flowers - for aesthethic reasons, it's as simple as that.]

So concerning pear and cherry flowers nature is more than a month back in the region where I grew up, concerning dandelions only about two or three weeks. This is quite a lot and does not happen every year; however, this year there were several snow showers in april, and while in lower lying regions the snow melted rapidly it needed a few days more at about 650/700 metres above sea level: this seems to be what made all the difference.

Strangely therefore we have an 'early' year in Vienna but a rather late one (not extremely so) in the lands of my childhood.