Fussingø Forest, a mild November Day and a Norwegian Forest Cat.....

The last Days of Autumn. ....

Fussingø, the day before the leaves were all blown away by the storm.

Will we get a record-hot November again in 2015? The temperature yesterday was 16 degrees Celsius and some sleeping butterflies woke up and fluttered around..

Some people still wear short jeans - and on the jogging trip in the evening even summer shorts!
The air is warm both day and night.

The average temperature for a November day is 7 degrees Celsius.

Yellow/Green Beauty

Autumn, especially in poetry, has often been associated with melancholia - the summer has gone and winter is near. Skies are grey and the evenings are dark, but these present warm lovely autumn days of 2015 are not a breeding ground for melancholia, but maybe I should be at the forefront. You'll never know how things look next week!  So here's a little poem about autum from a master.

When a sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long
Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

 “Chanson d’Automne” by Paul Verlaine, from Poèmes saturniens (1866). Translated by Arthur Symons in Poems (First Collected Edition, 1902)

Some of the forest at Fussingø were laid out as untouched forest since 1992. The section is no longer used for timber or fuel. The trees live as long as they can. The dead trees are important habitats for mammals, birds, insects and other little animals. The forest will gradually turn into a kind of jungle with fallen and dead trees and a variation of trees growing up.

Cyclists in the forest

Lady with dog

old oaks by the road.

The path down to the forest.

The Fussingø district was inhabited since Stone Age. The first safe proof of human settlements is from the bondestenalder which begins 4200 BC. From this period are found many flint axes.  

the buzzard high up in the blue.

A hen in the road, the hens at Fussingø live a dangerous life. The whole flock was up in the traffic road a short minute before I took the photo, but they are very.very fast to get away from the traffic. They disappeared down in the garden below in the flash of a light.  

Fussingø slot in the background.

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See Link:

http://www.fussingoeslot.dk/ 

Fussingø slot is today used for alternate exhibitions of art and arts and crafts. In other buildings are Nature School and Skov- og Naturstyrelsen. Fussingø is owned by the Danish State.

The German family  Skeel von Plessen owned the estate until the end of WWII, where the estate was confiscated by the Danish State as some kind of war compensation.

Fussingø slot is only open during the year in connection to various arrangements etc. The park is
open to the public all year.

Fussingø skov

Stævningsskoven . The coppice forest on the other side of the brook.

The coppice forest (Stævningsskoven)  is the earliest known form of forestry in Denmark It can be traced back to Stone Age in Denmark and further back in other parts of Europe.

The coppice forest began in connection to the peasants' need for fence, fuel, grazing for the livestock, poles, posts etc. The landlords had the right to use the upper section of the forest, while the peasants had to settle for what they could find in the low forest. The coppice forest was a smart solution for the peasants, since this type of forest developed an upper forest, if it was coppiced regularly - and in this way they could keep on their right to use the forest.

When new materials arrived in the 1800s like stone, bricks, stone dikes, earth banks and fences like wire and fossil fuel, the importance of the coppice forest disappeared and the coppice forests were mainly allowed to stay as they were.

an old fragile bridge

the old boat is still there

Well, here comes the ruler of the water mill!

Dear Cat, I see from the facts below that you are adapted to a very cold climate. Don't you feel it is too hot here? Maybe you should have a little hair cut? Oh no, that would be a shame. You are so beautiful, and you know it. Maybe you have adapted to the mild climate too. I hope you have, but you have really got a big beautiful and hot fur coat! Do you like ice cream? 

Last time I met this cat it was so aristocratic that it was not interested in talking to me. Let's see how the pretty cat behaves today.....

Facts: The Norwegian forest cat is a breed of domestic cat native to Northern Europe. This natural breed is adapted to a very cold climate with top coat of glossy long water-shedding hairs, and a wooly undercoat for insulation. It is a big, strong cat, similar to the American Maine Coon  breed, with long legs, a bushy tail and a sturdy body. The breed is very good at climbing, since they have strong claws. 

Hello, are you social or aristocratic today, dear cat?

What a cuddly cat!

Wauw, you've actually got autumn colours. So beautiful.

Bye, bye....I'll go find my good landlady. She's got some food for me. and maybe some ice cream !

Emeraldgreen ferns

See you next year at Fussingø............

The Mill Pond

Long-tailed tit - the afternoon light was fading!!

Nature's beautiful decay. 

Text and photo November 2015: grethe bachmann :

The Norwegian Forest Cat by the Old Watermill

Deep into the forest lies an old watermill, it is not a run down, but a very well maintained building. Someone lives here, but they are usually not showing up when people are passing by. They probably want peace and quiet like we do when we seek out into those quiet desolate places.

I had been here by the old watermill at Fussingø many times in each season through the years but on a day
in June this year one of the inhabitants of the house was sitting outside the door -  a magnificent cat with a thick furry coat. The cat was looking through me with golden eyes like I was not existing -  looking across the yard down to the lake in a calm and dignified posture. I took a few shots, and the cat did not react in any way. What a proud, independent soul!

This was the Norwegian Forest cat, which is now a very popular breeding cat. Many myths and legends are attached to this pretty cat-creature.

The Danish born priest Peter Clausson Friis lived in Norway for many years; together with his priest work he was very occupied by nature - and he described the animals he met in the Norwegian nature. In 1559 he began writing about the lynx. He divided the lynx into three categories: wolf-lynx, fox-lynx and cat-lynx. It was later discovered that all three belonged to the same species, but what he called the cat-lynx might have been the Norwegian Forest cat. It is very likely since there are many similarities between the forest cat and  the Norwegian lynx. The most apparent is that they are both high-legged big cats with a big fur collar and hair upon the tip of the ears, the socalled tufse - and they both like water. The stories about swimming forest cats catching fish in lakes and rivers are numerous. The forest cat used exactly the same method as the Norwegian lynx. These similarities between the lynx and the forest cat have once and again caused that people have taken a great interest in the forest cat.

There are many cats in the Norwegian country settlements, but in the oral handovers and fairy tales the big longhaired cat is always mentioned. Because of its size and the lynx-like characteristica many people thought that it was a mix of dog and cat - or more commonly that this cat was a half lynx.

In the Norwegian fairy tales of Asbjørnsen and Moe the forest cat appears several times. It is called a *Huldrekat - and is described as a forest cat with a thick bushy tail. The fairy tales and the legends are not the only proofs of the big natural presence of the forest cat. In 1912 the Norwegian author Gabriel Scott wrote a very popular children's book called Sølvfax (Silver Fax).The main person is a forest cat called Sølvfax.

*Huldre is a forest spirit ( see wikipedia).

"Huldra's Nymphs" by Bernard Evans Ward (1909)

The Norwegian forest cat is adapted to survive Norway's cold weather. Its ancestors may include black and white shorthair cats, brought to Norway from Great Britain sometime after 1000 AD by the Vikings, and longhaired cats brought to Norway by crusaders. These cats could have reproduced with farm and feral stock and might have eventually evolved into the modern-day Norwegian Forest cat. The Siberian and the Turkish Angora longhaired cats from Russia and Turkey respectively, are also possible ancestors of the breed. Norse legends refer to the skogkatt as "a mountain dwelling fairy cat with an ability to climb sheer rock faces that other cats could not manage".

Many people believe that the ancestors of the Norwegian Forest cat served as mousers on Viking ships. The Norwegian Vikings had the forest cat as a domestic cat, and in their expeditions around the world they brought the forest cat with them on their ships. This should be the cause of the large numbers of half-wild longhaired cats in Normandy.

The forest cats lived in the Norwegian forests for many centuries, but were later prized for their hunting skills and were used on Norwegian farms. Norwegian Forest cats would continue acting as mousers on Norwegian farms until they were discovered in the early twentieth century by cat enthusiasts.


The Norwegian Forest cat is now a popular breeding cat in many countries. The cat has a quiet voice but can develop a loud voice if kept in a house wit a dog. They are friendly and intelligent and are good with people. They have a lot of energy and can be very demanding of attention. Those cats that live primarily outdoors become swift and effective hunters, but the breed can also adapt to indoor life. The cats usually live to be 14 to 16 years old. As they are heavy-boned and tall they require more food than most other domestic breeds. Males are considerably heavier and larger boned than females. There have been kidney and heart diseased reported in the breed. The breed has also been known to suffer from hip dysplasia which is a rare partially hereditary disease of the hip joint. The breed along with several other cat breeds can be poisoned by things that are considered safe to humans.

But no matter, I had a lovely meeting with a beautiful forest cat in the midst of the forest. I hope I'll see it again the next time I'll go there. 


source: Skovkattens historie, Dansk Skovkattering; wikipedia: den Norske Skovkat, den Europæiske Skovkat.  
photo Fussingø June 2013: grethe bachmann; 
photocopy "Huldra's Nymphs", wikipedia.