Closer to being a "real" forester...

Its hard to believe really that its been a bit more than a month since I transitioned to my studies in Sweden. The good news is that I recently started initial work on my thesis and arranging with the school about my visa to go back to Denmark from January and it seems that it is going to work out pretty well!

Some interesting new insights I have stumbled on in recent weeks;
- Its surely a sign that I am adapting when I freely choose to buy rugbrød (rye bread) even though there are many non-rye bread options in Sweden. Sure its the 'girly' kind, i.e. with sunflower seeds, but still...
- Dreaming about thinning and silviculture of Norway Spruce is NOT relaxing!
- Swedish teen age boys dress terrible, and are just as annoying as teen agers everywhere else in the world
- Some how I can even manage to get lost in a small town like Lomma
- Preparing fresh chestnuts is just NOT worth the time and effort required

One troubling thing is that the state of Maine has not sent to me the overseas voting ballot I requested so I am not sure if I will be able to vote. I know some of you reading this are probably leaning toward McCain, but I hope you will change your mind before election day. While I think McCain is generally a respectable person, I don't want him to be president - partly because of his age, partly because he isn't very different from Bush with regard to issues that concern me (the military, the economy, energy) and partly because of Sarah Palin.

I have watched the Palin interviews and her debate with Biden and I think she would cause me just as much embarrasment as an ex-patriot living abroad as Bush. I have more foreign policy experience than her! The idea of her being fit for the job because she can see Russia from Alaska and is wired "not to blink" is absurd. Its clear she was chosen to get women's votes with Hillary out of the running. I hope women don't fall for that because there is no replacing one woman for another. Even the National Organization of Women has endorsed Obama - to make a clear statment. If McCain wanted a competent woman, why not Olympia Snowe? We in Maine all know that she has been great in the Senate; a moderate with concern for the environment and a capacity to work with both parties. But then her pro-choice non-overtly-religious manner probably took her out of the running. The idea of Palin being a heart beat away from a quite aged president is truly scary to me. And her folksy winking, smirking is all too reminiscent of George Bush. Ok - sorry enough politics. I will stop now.

Other news? Last week (Sept 29 - Oct 2) I was away on a field trip for class in the northern part of Southern Sweden - a few hours drive away. I still feel a bit like an idiot during these excursion excercises but I think I have figured out how to use a relascope (to estimate the basal area of a plot of trees) but haven't worked how to use the height estimating tool, or the fancy word I use for it "the height do-hicky".

One high moment at the excursion for me was on the last day (when all I wanted to do was get home!). The professors gave an impromptu quiz about the previous days work and articles for the upcoming exam. They asked true or false questions and each of us had to move to the true side of the area we were standing in or the false side. Somehow I won in the group of 30+ students - pretty much all of whom have much more "real" forestry experience than me. How about that? I thought it was hysterical actually. AND I got a prize - The Matador Mix of gummy candies and licorice (they love it here). Here is a photo of the victorious moment ;-)
















Here I am on my post-win candy sugar high ;-)

















Sooo, maybe I am not so far off from being a "real" forester. Maybe I am not faking it all the time as it seems like have learned quite a bit so far. This is a greatly improved feeling with regard to how I fit in this program.

After the quiz the last stop before heading back home was to go "see a big pile of wood". Doesn't sound so exciting does it? Well this was no ordinary pile. In 2005 there was a severe wind storm that hit Sweden and knocked down a tremendous number of trees. Here is a photo of just a bit of what fell....













And if that doesn't look like a lot, thing about this. We are only seeing a small portion in the photo. The piles are 2.3 kilometers long and there are about 5-6 piles on each side of the road area you see in the photo. The massiveness of this volume was brought in by 200+ trucks per day bringing in the fallen trees. It even became a tourist attraction for a while. Initially there were 1 million cubic meters of wood sitting here, now its about 850,000 cubic meters. What remains is under a constant water sprinkling system from spring through fall to ensure the logs don't dry out. Crazy! And this isn't the only big pile in Sweden - but I think its the biggest.

This photo of me gives you a bit more sense of the scale...