SUPER RUBY TUESDAY

On Tuesdays you can post any photo you like (it must be one of your own) that contains the color RED.


I might post a NEW Ruby Tuesday some Tuesdays.


Your photo can contain lots of RED

or a little bit of RED
Originated by MaryT, check hers for today.
While your are there, register one for yourself
if you have a red picture laying around to post.


4 years ago;
In our red hammock, sitting on a scotch red checkered plaid, with a red pillow, surrounded by red flowers RUBY is sitting, in her red top, licking a red ice-cicle.
Blue Serina watching, red sandals though.

River deep and mountain high

This summer has flown by like "a watch in the morning".
Bitter and sweet, high and low.
I would like to share some highlights.
Here; hubby Gunnar on the ferry on our way to Stavanger.
Lots of fjords in Norway and lots of ferries in traffic.
Three 300meter deep tunnels to drive through under the water to get to
Stavanger. Only two hours drive though. Jim's son lived and worked here for a couple of years. His father did not dare to take the trip, though.
Perhaps he should finish his Scandinavian tour sometimes. They'll be welcome.

Train from Stavanger to the utmost south, Kristiansand.
Here passing the station Moi, where my brother has been living for 25 years.
Gunnar watching closely while the scenery keep changing.
Keeping his tension well under control. He's out in a mission.Gunnar is standing at the top of the hill leading down to beach paradise.
I slipped out of my sandals.
The sand was so soft and deep I sunk down to over my ankles.
On the way home, we decided that is was time to call it a day, and stopped at our favorite beach on earth, Ogna.
Mathilda is waltzing with a cellphone in her right hand, already soaked by salt water up to the waist.
Luckily I had handed my phone over to Gunnar before I was overwelled.
Terry, you should have been there, you would have loved it as much as I do. We just bought tooth brush,2, and toothpaste. I washed my clothes and hung them out to dry.
It went like a dream.
Sundown of my longings.
Mission completed. M Gunnar Parker behind the stick of his new, old Sopwith Camel.
Cruising through the landscape of my Mom's. Jaeren.
The Discovery is lead to old hunting fields. Like the old graveyard by the sea.
The stone has the inscription from psalm 121. If you doubleclick, Lil Pilgrim Pal, you can read it in Norwegian.
Terry once asked what roll stones (or rolling stones) was.
They were brought to land's end by the ice some 10000 years ago. In the horizon huge stone age graves close by the beach.
Manitoba by the sea?
In and outdoor art exhibition at the old vicarage.
Main artist, Ellinor Floor was raised in a Pentecost Church. She says that's why she loves hats. The one in the foreground would fit nicely on a Texan lady, or?
They are not really meant for wearing,-I hope.
I just had to snap a picture from the guestbook; Canadian visitors.
Goodbye, Old Vickarage. We'll be back, that's for sure.
Turid and Liv have been out on an eleven days Pilgrimage, walking 250 kilometers a day, also using walking sticks.
Thats how Turid woke up one morning realizing she had developed a biceps of steel.

The three of us went for a hike out to the lighthouse in the nearest village. Local artists were having in exhibition.
There's old Hrafvafloke eith his ravens, before setting outt for Iceland from this very spot.
Indoor art is fine, open air meeting with the Creator even better.

Attending a concert in a small village 1 hour ride from here.
2000 watched Sinead O'Connor performing in a circus tent.
We were amazed. The critics of the local paper not.
I don't wonder that they could not take the heavy stuff from the old Testament. Theology is the name of her latest album. Performed in The Royal Oerahouse in London, Wien Staats Oper in Vienna and also in a faroff corner of little Norway.
The audience were alll enthusiastic.

Here she is, caught on my cellphone, pure art and spirit.
I'm taking the liberty of adding her own version of De Profundis.

Out Of The Depths

Out of the depths I cry to you oh lord
don't let my cries for mercy be ignored
If you keep account of sins oh who would stand?
But you have forgiveness in your hands

And I've heard religion say you're to be feared
But I don't buy into everything I hear
And it seems to me you're hostage to those rules
That were made by religion and not by you

And I'm wondering will u ever get yourself free
Is it bad to think you might like help from me?
Is there anything my little heart can do
To help religion share us with you?

For oh you're like a ghost in your own home
Nobody hears you crying all alone
Oh you are the one true really voiceless one
They have their backs turned to you for worship of gold and stone

And to see you prisoner oh makes me weep
Nobody hears you screaming in the streets
And it's sad but true how the old saying goes
If God lived on earth people would break his windows

I long for you as watchmen long for the end of night

Memories from a walk in the forest close by our home.
My summer girl has been admitted to the most prestigious college for journalists, and she now quite doesn't know what to choose.

Flowers and herbs from my garden (thyme and sage, smelling like...summer.)
Yesterday the rain was pouring from an endless gray sy.
I put on my new scoop, a robe made of the fabric "Liberty of London" , cotton and laces. To avoid icing down I had to add my garden gnome jacket. As an honor to the sun above I wore my straw hat while tending my Indian Cress.
Rainy Summer's day feet .

Stones are gaining color when wet.My angle is looing a bit under the weather.I spraypainted the plastic chairs providing shelter under the wide Swedeapletree.
A bad year for the roses.
Gunnar hammocking. Life is not bad at all.

LOVE STORIES, JULY 13th.

My Mom insisted on going over the moors to see the small waterfall in which we used to bathe. Not even a small path to help her on her way.

Celebrating Mom's 83rd birthday, sitting in the sun outdoor the hut. Karibu is the name of a hut on the path leading to Kilimanjaro. It means something like; "Welcome, come nearer,"according to my aunt who was a missionary in Kenya. For once I tried to imitate Mr. Jim, showing off my shrimp sandwich before I ate it.
The oven belonging to my uncle Leif, was transported on an iron bed by him and my Dad forty years ago. I was there, cheerily remembering how heavy their burden seemed to be in the sunny summer's day. They were laughing and joking, drinking water from the brook. Not one word of complaining or self pity.
The hut diary. One's simply got to leave a message there. Five generations of Ljungs have faithfully done so.
Dad's only sister Ellly married a Pentecost pastor shortly after her Mom died. Here they are on their Nord-stoel honeymoon.
Picture still hanging in the hut.
Right; the riddle of the Zink. My grandDad told that a prisoner had a similar lock on his door. He could regain his freedom by picking the rings from the bow. My brother and my dad used to compete how fast they could do it. I don't remember who held the world record. I probably can find it in the diary from the sixties.
My dad made a mark on the door post for every visit from about -37. An old razor, skiwax and a whetstone on the tiny shelf.
Artistic uncle Kaare made a bugle horn from a goat the same year as the hut was built. I never got the hang of making it sound, most Ljungmen do.
The year was 1961. Uncle Leif, my Dad, cousin Grete, bro Kel and I were up to scrape and paint the little hut. It took awhile before we had finished. I still remember running downhills in the dark. Mu uncle holding my one hand, my Dad the other. The path then was so narrow and stony, we had to run in a line. I still think that was my best record ever for the stretch Hut-parking place. Feeling so safe, smelling the odeurs of the night from moss, blooming heather and blueberries .
This was the longest trip my Besten made towards the hut after my Grandmom in heaven died. He brought the family up to the parking lot in his Dodge 7-passenger sedan with a full-bodied Ram staggering the front. Cousin Grete, myself, cousin Bjoern, bro Kel are standing on a stone in the river. Besten supportingly behind with his second wife Gerda, who the grandchildren held mighty dear.
Summer of -45. Dad celebrating the freedom, playing toreador with the farm's goat.

1929 the Ljung family as always closely knit together. Uncles Rolf and Kaare behind. GrandMom, aunt Elly, Besten, and in front sitting; my Dad, by his side uncle Leif. One by one they joined the Pentecost Church, and now they're alll celebrating in Heaven my uncle's arrival this very summer.

My Grandmom in Heaven, my Dad and little dog Prince in front of the new hut, the summer of -34.
My Grandmom at the age of 15. Back then a governess of a Swedish Duchess' children. "Jenny must not scream like crazy in the kitchen," the duchess talked down her nose. "I'm not screaming. I'm singing about Jesus," Grandmom replied and continued her singing. My Granddad was a Dragoon with the Swedish Stormtroops. He came to serve at the Norwegian Court Stables in 1907, just two years after Nowrway and Sweden were peacefully separated.

LOVE STORIES
The love story of my Dad's family is ten square meters.
The hut my Granddad built to help save the deteriorating health of my Grandmom in Heaven. The year was 1933. Depression all over the western world followed the crack on the New York stock exchange in 1929. My "Besten" (means the Best) had heavy loans on his house, a new established bus company and a taxi as well. His wife was seriously down with an asthma, worsened by the heavy pollution from smoke by the Canadian steel plant.
The doctor ordered fresh air for Grandmom. Besten bought an old shed and paid his second oldest son Kaare to bring the materials 400 meters up in the mountains and set up a summer hut for my Grandmom there.
At that time money were so tight, that my Granddad would roll the petrol barrels from the quay to the bus garages himself, just to save a quarter of a cent.
He loved his wife though, and somehow managed to make it through, both with the building of the hut, a maid to cook downtown, thus saving his business and his home.
The summer of-34 the hut was ready. My Grandmom, Jenny Othilie, was too weak to walk, and had to ride barebacked on a horse.
My dad and his youngest brother, Leif were to stay with her a fortnight each and then make a switch through their summer vacations.
Their eldest brother, Rolf, had already done his time in the army, serving as a Royal guardsman at the king's castle in Oslo. Now second brother Kaare was about to enter the same duty as an elite soldier.
Sister Elly, sixteen, had finished as best student at her school, but was needed at home and not allowed further education. She would faithfully follow her mother at Sunday meetings at the Pentecostal Church, and help out home, teasing and grooming her younger brothers.
Besten would come up to the little hut in the mountains from time to time with food supplies and jokes and laughter. He even made a little poem about my father as he admired him training for track and field competitions entirely on his own;

"When Arne's coming to the hut here up/
he'll be doing pole leaps and high jumps/
and time he's fixing self/
and time he's fixing well."

So he wrote in the hut diary. We're still writing in newer copies of the hut diary, and the green wood stand for high jump always is ready for use for the fifth generation.
My Grandmom did not get to use the hut for more than this last summer. She died in what was called "lung fire" in February -35.
Neither did my Granddad want visit his hut anymore.
His children would use the hut for spare time events. Making ski jump competition and having major sleepover parties.Once seven boys were assembled in that little hut, and if they had not much money, they sure knew how to make fun anyway.
Above all the hut was a place to draw away from the crowd.
Talk about their "Mom in Heaven", feel her presence.
All the five children in turn brought their loved ones to the little hut.
My parents did even spend their fortnight honeymoon there, 60 years ago.
We are fifteen cousins who have all brought our husbands and wives to be up there.
Every season the mountain has a special beauty, bathing, fishing, picking blue berries, climbing the peaks, cross country skiing, fetching water in the brook, showers under the waterfall in the river, the freshwater lakes, the moors.
Sheep use to grass there all summer, their bells sounding from the hillside nearby.
The flag will be hoisted to tell the wanderers that people are present.
Not many years ago, in the childhood of the cell phones, I got a call.
Someone was playing harmonica; "You are my sunshine." My uncle Leif spoke,"guess where I'm calling from.I'm sitting on the roof of the little hut.
The second of July this year my Mom had one single wish. To celebrate her birthday at the little hut.
She is not longer able to walk to half hour path we used to follow, after the stroke she had this winter. The farmers have however built a wood road, and she managed to get hold of a key allowing us to drive this single day. She still knows how to get her will done, my Mom.
For five hours we sat outside in one of those rare, Norwegian sunshine days, eating cream cake and sandwiches.
"My best birthday ever", my Mom said. "I felt Arne around me all the time."
The little, red hut, made of love still is binding young and old, the living and the dead together.