Diane in Norway: 2015

I went for a walk today in another part of our neighborhood that I also love - Asker museum.
Heading over there, I was loving the view! You can see our yellow house in the bottom right of the photo:

The museum used to be a farm, which was owned by the parents of a man called Otto Valstad. He and his wife, Tilla, were very artistic. Otto painted and wrote and collected art, and Tilla wrote and taught school. They never had children of their own, so donated their property and art to Asker community. Otto died in 1950. I took lots of photos today!

There are so many inviting paths and areas of this beautiful outdoor museum!

Otto collected lots of historical buildings from around Norway, before it was fashionable to preserve old things - he was really ahead of his time!

I had such a good walk today - I love walking in my neighborhood! There is so much history around me, and the American in me appreciates that very much! Viking mounds and historical sites are amazing to me! Plus I love all the flowers that are showing up now that it's spring here!

Just on the other side of my street, the woods beckon, with a darling path heading in, covered in little white flowers (called hvitveis in Norwegian).

Our woods are just covered in them right now!

I don't know what these yellow ones are, and had never noticed them before:

I used to walk Bella here, RIP - mixed emotions, to say the least!

When you come out of the woods up here, the views open up - love this bit where you can see across to the church steeple and all the fields that are right in the center of our town. Really feel I live in the countryside, even though we're not that far from Oslo.

Here's the monument to Vogelius, the man who planted all the ash trees in an alley in Asker - the stunted trees are the symbol of our town. I think they stunt them so that they don't grow too big and topple over. Most of the trees are in poor heath, so they have been trying to plant replacements here and there, to take over from these old trees that were planted in the 1800's.

There's a burial mound right next to the monument, very ancient!

The trees are so old and interesting!

I think it's interesting that this area has been settled by people for such a long time. Iron age burial mounds! Here's some photos from "Prinsehaugen" - called the prince's hill because Prince Carl Johan visited:

The views from the top of the mound are amazing!

Our church

There are more burial mounds around the church, or I guess you should say that they built the church where it was already considered holy ground!

You can see quite far from up here in Asker, the city and the fjord are in view whichever way you look!

The flora is lovely at this time of year! My favorites are violets!

What an amazing forsynthia bush! The one in our yard is just a twig compared to this!

And here is my enemy - the birch! Achoooooooooooo

I love this plateau - always dreamed of building a house here, but it would look silly in the middle of these fields....

Don't ask me why this is here, but it's kind of funny!

In the woods across the street, you can still see the foundation of an ancient farmhouse if you know where to look!

Our Leikarvollen, it's called, this open area in the middle of the woods. Given to the community by our own local hero, Otto Valstad! Still in use today by the people of Asker, for picnics, school outings, etc - we're so lucky to have this space!