Winter to Spring - more photos of Lake Orešje

Back in January I wrote a post about the lake by our house. I walk there often and like to take pictures, not that an iPhone is the best camera, but it captures a small part of the ever changing landscape.
I thought I would continue until I have a whole year of lake pictures. So here are some of the pictures I have taken since January.

Winter at the Lake - water never really froze

Lake Orešje March - water is high & finding heart rocks

Colossians 1

...Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of his dear Son, 
in whom we have redemption through His blood, 
even the forgiveness of sins:

 He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, 
the firstborn over all creation. 
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. 
All things were created through Him and for Him. 
And He is before all things, 
and in Him all things consist...

Spring at the Lake

 Wild life @ Lake Orešje    CC02052014

Click to see Jan post, oresje-lake-wetland-or-pond

We have been lived here for almost eight months now! Keep us in your prayer as we move forward with the building. Asking God to continue to open doors and the hearts of the Croatian people. That we would all, as the Apostle Paul said in Colossians chapter 4...

'Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, 

that God would open unto us a door of utterance, 

to speak the mystery of Christ ... 

Walking in wisdom toward them that are without, 

redeeming the time. 

Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, 

that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man' 

God speed,

Christine

A Cave, Špilja Vetervina

On a beautiful spring morning, we packed water, crackers & cheese and took a hike.  We live near quite a few foothills (planine ili podnožja?) with lots of marked hiking trails. Tom had seen a trail sign with a picture of a cave so that is where we headed. 

Hiking trail to (špilja = cave)

We have come along way,
Now when we hike we bring water (and sometimes snacks) with us. This was never the case when our boys were young, especially when we lived in VT   We would just jump in the car, drive somewhere, park and hike!  When I think back on the trails and places we hiked with them, never very prepared and way before cell phones; It really is amazing they made it and probably another reason why we only had boys . . . God knew!

 Ok, back on Špilja, the sign says 2 km (about 1.2 miles) doable. HOWEVER it didn't say anything about how steep the trail was . . .
hummm, could be age and life style?
Na, I'm sticking with the steep trail story because it was steep and most of the hikers we saw looked like they needed water too!

So we hiked up to the cave, on a steep trail, on a lovely day, only to find ...

THE CAVE was behind locked bars! What we didn't know is that you can't get in the cave without a tour guide, it's only open on weekends and even then not until 10:00am. So here we were, I'm taking pictures through the bars, a guide heard us talking, asked where we were from and offered an early tour in English ... 
We had a "private English tour". 
(We also didn't have the entrance fee, he let us bring it back later ... now that is trust!) 

Cave entrance - Only guided tours, the red lined area is the 1st 380 meters. The total length of the explored part of the cave is over 7000 m, the length of the main channel is 2,622 m

It was an amazing cave!  We got to walk through the first 380 meters (about 1/4 mile), then turn around and walk back.  This was the second weekend of the season and because we were the 1st tour in, some of the lights were not working, (damp?) making for a dark kinda spooky experience! The temperature was colder than outside, we were told it stays about 10°C/50°F year round. Before you go in they give you a helmet to wear, good thing, because some of the passage is very low and I hit my head a number of times! And yes there were bats sleeping over head and a few, waking up from their long winter nap, flying around!

Bats hanging from the cave ceiling - Fourteen species of bats hibernate in the whole cave.

Bones, fossils, a well, bear jaw...

*Cave ornaments

Underground water on karst locations is “hard” because of the dissolved limestone. By extracting the dissolved limestone through evaporation, and other processes, “cave ornaments” - dripstones form. Dripstones differ from each other by their form and origin. In Veternica cave we find stalagmites, stalactites, curtains, helictites, spaghetti (numerous thin stalactites which represent the beginning stage of stalactites) and many others. Average growth rate is 1 to 2 mm annually.

*Paleontology

Paleontologist Mirko Malez performed extensive paleontological research in Quaternary sedi entrance area of ​​the cave. Found 94 animal genera and species, as well as traces of the cave man Mousterian culture. The most numerous are found bones of cave bear that was prey Paleolithic hunter.

Besides cave bear findings there are numerous residual findings of other animals which lived in these parts at that time: cave lions, wolves, various deer, rhinoceroses, rodents, and many other animals.

Veternica Cave; Our private tour, our walk in some places - real dark to walk other very low!

The cave itself has a some interesting history (of course!). One of the unique 'rooms' is a concert hall, our tour guide told us up to 200 people would gather in there for concerts (hippies?).  It is this open area with a stage craved out, they did destroy the “cave ornaments”, (when the parks took over control in the 1970's they put a stop to them.) 

Along the trail

At the top of the Mt. there is a mountain house, Glavica, which has a restaurant, after we left the cave we continued up the trail to the top 

(took a coffee & strudel break there:) 

Yet another thing we didn't know . . . You can drive and park up there, although very limited spaces, then walk down the trail to the cave entrance in about 5 minutes! 

So glad we hiked UP and got to explore the cave, well worth the 30kn (like 5 bucks!),  So very glad there was an English speaking guide willing to take us in early, (not knowing IF we would come back with the fee . . . Of course we did :-)  

Yep, glad we had water... of course we will always take water, because not all trails lead to Mountain tops with restaurants.

And yes, the next day my calves did ache!!

And now we do know! CC

 *some info from and more can be found at:

http://www.ppmedvednica.hr/Medvednica_en/Medvednica_ponuda_Veternica_en.htm

Veternica cave is located in the southwest part of Medvednica, above the village Gornji Stenjevec. Its distance from the center of Zagreb is less than 9 km.

The part of Veternica adapted for tourists shows geomorphologic phenomena rarely seen in typical tourist-adapted caves: oval erosion forms made by water vortexes (which tell us about a former water stream), sand dunes left after the last underground stream which used to spring from Veternica, an extinct cave bear's ( Ursus speleus ) lower jaw, fossil mud, the Well of wishes in the Concert hall, the fossil of a shell from the genus Pecten , the sea urchin Clypeaster on the ceiling, the stone waterfall (a beautiful dripstone formation) etc.

Veternica is the fourth longest cave in Croatia in length, and the longest in northern Croatia . It is an important archeological and paleontological site,  

12 reasons i love Winter

Sometimes I find myself having to apologies because I love winter. There are a great many things that make winter wonderful! 

1st snow, many animal prints, me following in Tom's step (my boot makes pretty flower prints in the snow:)

It’s not just a New England thing, even here people don’t like winter and complain about the snow & cold, longing for summer.

I’m a winter person. 
Actually I like all four seasons and I’m thankful I still live in a place that has all four. You will not hear me complain about winter. (Okay full disclosure here,  there are those days in March when it gets windy & slushy & raw & dirty ... )

A dozen reasons to embrace winter: if you can’t love it, at lease try to enjoy it

• When you take a walk in winter and get thirsty, you can eat snow. (just not the yellow stuff!) But in the summer if you forget your water bottle, it may be a long hot thirsty walk until you get relief!
• You can always get warm, whereas you cannot always get cool. This is especially true for sleeping ... Winter- pile on cozy blankets, socks and Pj’s!! Summer- there are those nights that nothing helps. (exception is u have central AC & never leave home.)
• If you take a walk in winter and get hot, you can unzip your jacket, take off your hat, unwrap your scarf...in summer you just get to sweat until you get to water or AC.
• Bugs - Okay, so some bugs can live through winter, but the bugs that don’t die are pretty much inactive. And you have to admit it is truly nice having a season without ticks, flies, and mosquitoes. 
• Germs - while cold air doesn’t kill bacteria it slows down their growth and they reproduce very slowly. (maybe you should keep that bedroom window open a crack!) 
• White winter snow! The first snow storm of the year, falling snow and that short time right after a snow fall, before anyone walks on it or it melts...beautiful! 
• Winter has; Hockey, Ice skating, Sledding, Snowmen, Snow sculptures, Snow forts, Skiing, Snowshoeing, Ice fishing, and Snowmobiling, just to name a few.  
• Some are free & most are family friendly. Plus you are never to old for snow ball fights!
• You get to wear cozy sweaters and great boots!! 
• And Hats! even if you think you don’t look good in a hat, with so many to choose from, keep looking there really is one for even you!
• Hello, Hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire (we have no fireplace here and have yet to find a coffee shop or restaurant that has one, oh but that image! Always something to look forward too.) 
• There is nothing like taking a walk in the still time, usually right after a good snow storm. So quite, so pretty. (Bonus: free exercise)

Okay I'll stop at 12. 
Above photos are from our first walk after the first snow fall here last week. 
 I do think the hardest part of winter is getting outside, yes there might be no snow or too much?, it could be icy and it is very cold out there! Put on your cosy clothes...
As I write this it is snowing and the top of the pine tree has lots of chickadees...waiting for me to throw them some bread. This photo is my view right now from the LR slider to our back yard, (that's our shed). I get lots of song birds, so I'm thinking of getting a feeder..but I'm NOT fond of the morning doves (really just gray pigeons, a name thing!)...might have to take the good with the bad!

 I like summer too, but if I had to chose to take a vacation in just one, it would be winter. Can't you just picture it . . . way up North, in the mountains, with a cosy fireplace, awesome comfort food & hot chocolate, outside sports and activities, with a spa for after . . .

To Think about: God thought of everything! ICE FLOATS!
*Snow is precipitation in the form of flakes of crystalline water ice that falls from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft, white, and fluffy structure, unless subjected to external pressure. Snowflakes come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Types that fall in the form of a ball due to melting and refreezing, rather than a flake, are known as hail, ice pellets or snow grains. (*Wikipedia)
You do know if ice was not an exception you could not skate, all the fish would die...

Fact:

Because water close to freezing, for example at 0.1 °C has less density than water at 1 °C, the colder water floats to the surface. As a result, water freezes from the top down. Water is one of only a handful of substances which, after a certain point, expands as it gets colder. This means that if we drop a frozen substance into a liquid of the same substance, it will sink. As we can easily observe, water does not follow this simple rule of thumb. http://www.portageenv.com/community/pp/ice.aspx

Practical Tip:

If you hike in freezing temperatures with a water bottle, close the top tightly and place the bottle upside down in your pack. This way, ice will form in the “top” of the bottle, which is really the bottom of the bottle, and your cap won’t freeze shut. 

Orešje Lake ... Wetland or Pond?

Lake Orešje - Thanksgiving morning Nov28

Lake Orešje 

We have been told this is a man made recreational lake. In the tourist map it says "The lakeshore is ideal for walking or bike ride, the coast is about 4 km long, the area covering 39 hectares in the protected area surrounding the Strmec reservoir."

 Ice forming on Orešje Lake, December 2013

January 2014 - Lake Orešje

Many birds hang out here, besides the common types like ducks, swains, woodpeckers & songbirds, we have seen beautiful herons & cranes, and it’s not uncommon to see pheasant run across our path.

Orešje Lake, Bestovje Croatia - (T) July, (M) September, (B) October 2013

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but on our first trip here, in July when we walked to this lake ...
I did - I snickered.
I know you are thinking,  WHAT!  These pictures are beautiful! 
(not bad for an iPhone.)
 But a lake? We all know Shakespeare’s play 'Romeo and Juliet' - in it Juliet argues that the names of things do not matter, only what things "are".
By definition it does seem shallow and a bit small to be called a lake, a better name might be wetlands or even pond?  (I checked in Wikipedia*)
I live here now and this is in my neighborhood, I walk there quite a lot, have gotten to know it and it has a charm all it’s own, so to quote Juliet
 "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Slow down and take a walk, 

Christine

winter-to-spring-more-photos-of-lake.html click here

*Wikipedia - a few definitions...lakes, pond, wetlands, you will need to decide for yourself.