Damn moles... Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

This is a pic of Kin marking his latest 'bone'. This traditionally lasts for about five minutes before he will leave or bury it in the garden.

Now to get the size of a mole in proportion to the size of Kin, an entire family of moles is about the size of Kin's left paw. This being the case, these holes in the garden:

are unlikely to be caused by moles... (Three, pits visible, one bottom left, one top left (by the ball), one just below Kin, there is one more just out of the picture, bottom right, and just for good measures, the wood chips aroun the plum tree have also been excavated...) Strangely on the other side of the fenced enclosure there are no  such holes... what can this mean?!

Food - Kin's take

Kin's take:

I like sitting here, and often lie here, although my human doesn't seem to like it when he's cooking, and often he gets so annoying that I'm forced to move. Surprisingly so far this position has not proved successful for opportunistic eating...

Again this position hasn't merited much opportunistic eating. It's almost like my human doesn't want to share his food with me.

Checking the table afterwards hasn't proved so successful.

And then my human goes and puts food inside a couple of cardboard boxes and gives them to me. Does he have no idea how long this takes to get the food out!

I'm going to have to come up with a better way of training my human.

Stairs, coincidence, bad paws... Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Kin has started venturing up the stairs... sadly I haven't had a camera at the right place at the right time to take a photo, or preferably a video clip, as his efforts are really entertaining. So far his high point is about 3/4 of the way up the stairs, just enough so if he lifts his head up he can see up on the next floor... then he manages a precarious 'three point turn' and goes back down the stairs, it's very bizarre and slightly hilarious! Wonder if this evening he'll manage to do one of the things that I really miss that Karma did:

Karma slept downstairs but once a night he'd do his rounds. You'd hear his heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, your body had been conditions to get in the center of the bed (clear of roaming tongues), the bedroom door would crash open, the big head would rest on the edge of the bed, then he'd walk around to the other side of the bed and check there. Once he'd decided that all was good, you'd hear him plodding back down the stairs and then a muted bang as he lay down for the rest of the night. The only change to this schedule was if I was upset (like when I lost my father), then he opened my bedroom door, and the bathroom door (probably to create a draught) and he slept with his head looking in towards me (and there is something so peaceful about a dog snoring).

In a smack in the face by irony, after writing this Kin started to howl in the garden!

Speaking of Karma, both he and I were operated on the same leg in the same year, him first. I'm hoping it's a coincidence but Kin has damage to his pads under his right (stbd) paw, then a week after he got the pad damage, I managed to knock a glass off the kitchen surfaces, went to grab it and broke it on the edge and now I have similar cuts on the palm of my hand (or my right 'paw'), i.e. same paw! I'm going to have a word with Kin to ensure he doesn't do anything else as I'd rather not check to see if this is just coincidence or not!

Wood, more wood, empty buses, computer problems, 65 kgs (confirmed) - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

Kin helping with computer issues... not entirely true, there is a second box inside the one above and the second box has roast beef in it.

This blog is being written on a new laptop that is fantastically quick, and after two days of setting it up and getting it working just right, it's probably going back to the shop tomorrow. Story behind this laptop is that I went into various shops with a list of requirements, Startit came up with the best price and machine to meet those requirements, so I ordered the machine, before it arrived they rang me and told me that they'ed given me the wrong price, and it almost doubled in price. Not happy but that did bring it into line with similar machines and as I didn't want to have to go around searching again, and it was still within the price range that I'd set, I told them to go ahead with the order (I did check a second time that the machine had 'bluetooth'). Machine arrived on Friday, no DVD drive (as stated in the spec and when I'd asked specifically if it would have)- Now on a 13.6" machine a dvd drive is nice to have, but would not go up in size of machine just to have a dvd drive, not happy but they sold me one at cost for a low price (was thinking of insisting that they gave me one for free, but decided to save myself the aggravation). Just finished installing all sorts of odds and sods on the machine, have it working fine with all data from other machines on and sat down to write this blog. Transferred photos from camera and then tried to bluetooth pics from phone... and it all came to a crashing halt... No bluetooth...

Post script note: Turns out the machine does have bluetooth, it's just very well hidden. My mistake.

I've 'inherited' a Dell printer from an old job, when I lost the work e-mail, I lost the scanner on the printer. Today I spent almost an hour on the phone to Dell support and they were exceedingly helpful at getting the scanner to work; which it does now.

My two favner of wood has now arrived, 1/2 of Oak an 1 1/2 of birch. Kin wasn't so helpful in moving it off the four pallets that it arrived on and putting it in the woodshed. Still he wasn't as 'helpful' as Karma once was... Whilst piling up wood at one end, Karma was busy taking the wood from the other end and randomly stacking it in various parts of the garden. To move/stack the wood took me ~ 5 1/2 hours.

Kin's still mouthing, despite my best efforts to stop him. He doesn't do it to me much, as I'm firm with him, unfortunately as he's so gentle many folk are fine with it.

Still on wood, Jan (above) looks after Kin a lot. He has/had a tree in his garden that was getting too big and he wanted it removed, this tends to be quite expensive in Norway, and I'd mentioned that if I could convince a friend of mine (David) to bring his chainsaw we should be able to cut it down in six to eight hours... David brought his chainsaw, Jan took Kin for a trip and with ladders, ropes, and the chainsaw, ~6 1/2 hours later the 10 m high tree was reduced to a large number of limbs on the ground. David doesn't want to have the hassle of transporting the wood to the island that he lives on, Jan has more than enough wood, so I'm going to take it, split it, and stack it by the garage for next winter. Jan had Kin out for a short while, after that Kin was tied on the other side of the garden, well out of the way of operations, and if he could talk, I'm sure he'd be asking what foolishness I was up to now, up in a tree with some noisy device.

Now we have six months of traffic from the main road being fed into our residential streets, so Statens Vegvesen can build larger bus stops for the bendy buses, that have no one on them, I know this as they have to slow down to negotiate the corner where my house is and I can see how few people they are on the buses. There's plenty to object to with this, but it adds additional danger to Kin if he ever does manage to get lose.

This is Kin 'helping' fold a tarpaulin which was used to protect the wood before it was stacked.

Had Kin to the vet's on Monday as he's still limping on one paw. Vet believes that the limp is caused by a sore on two of his pads, she couldn't find any other problems. This is what I believed but there is always a worry with (especially) a giant breed that there is serious damage and as he was limping for a week, I thought it best to get him checked. He has some salve to put on his pads, but he just looks at the container, and one time he even tried to eat the container, so I've taken to putting it on for him. Weighed him at the vet's he's now 65 kgs (rather than the 67 kgs that I'd estimated).

He saw a new vet this time. Turns out that Kin and I have met her several times before with her dogs, she's very friendly, makes a fuss over him, seems through, and seems to know her stuff. Like this vet. (Take Kin to Stavanger Smådyre klinikk).

Hills, gloves, slow laptops, good authors, evil bitches, - Nurhan's take:

Nurhan's take:

This is Kin in search mode. If you look over his head, you see a lake in the hills behind the large lake below and further back you see a flat area with white bits on it. The flat/white area is Stavanger, where Kin and I live. Folk who fly refer to this as Veraland North, but it's actual name is Kyllesknuten and it's a 40 minute drive from Stavanger. We've paddled kayaks and slept on the islands below, this is a great area and it's easily accessible (if you own a car). Jæren hang og paraglider klub, has an agreement to drive up a farm track , quite high up on the other end of the hill, and then the club built an extra 'road' up from the farm track so that the hanglider pilots could drive up to the South start. This is a ideal place to bring Kin on his first taste of hills, most of the sheep are off the hills now, there was very little climbing to get here, rough terrain and

When I was here earlier on in the year (see post regarding reserve packing), I dropped a glove, I noticed that I'd dropped it just as I was taking off with a paraglider. The black thing in front of Kin is the glove! Despite the ground being covered with snow when I dropped the glove, we managed to find it remarkably quickly. Birds/mice had nibbled at a couple of the fingers and the glove could hardly be termed as usable, but it's good not to leave a trace of where you have been when you've been out enjoying nature, so this bit of human mark has now been removed from the hill.


This could be the last ever post written on this laptop. This laptop has an 'atom' processor, laptop is a 10" Dell Inspiration machine, it can't be upgraded and I'm beginning to refer to it as a 10" Exasperation machine. I love the size, battery life is great, as is the monitor, but the more that I use it, the slower it has got; it's now gotten to the stage where to load a message from hotmail, it takes about 1 minute. Lots of the internet applications actually time out before it's got them up and running (I have a broadband internet connection and no problem with other/work machines). Thus I've been looking at new machines. I'd like to get one from a friend of mine, Colin who runs http://www.ruramet.co.uk/   Colin is a great chap and would set me up a good machine with what I need on it, however he lives in the UK and I live in Norway this causes some problems. Could ask Mads to sort me out another machine, but I haven't talked to him for several months, and he mainly does work systems. So I've been looking around and after sever trips out and trawling through websites, I've found an Acer machine that actually cheaper in Norway than it's equivalent in the UK, and I'm now waiting for one of the local company's to get one in for me to have a look at.

 These are two additional pics of Kin in the hills.

Matt, brought his kids around the other day. We were treated to Eira screaming in his dog house, after she'd gone in there and called Kin. Didn't manage to get a picture of Kin with only his back half sticking out of the dog house with his tail wagging. Every time he lost interest, Eira would wave a ball out of the entrance and call his name. I think Eira is five and about 1/4 of his size. This was rather entertaining; the girl has no fear (not that she needs any with a Newfie).


Isaac is heavier, but:

but still out massed!


Side note on authors, Iain (M) Banks, & Jasper Ffrode, have very different styles but both write wonderfully entertaining books (and I've read all the books that they have published), and I recommend them unreservedly. I would never normally buy a book called, "the last dragon slayer", but as Jasper F wrote it, I gave it a try and I was so glad I did. Another book of his, 'Shades of Gray', was hard work to get into, and I only persevered as I'd enjoyed the other stuff that he's written; but after you got 1/2 way through the book really picked up. The way I first got into reading him was that I was 'accosted' by one of his books at an airport,  "Lost in a Good Book", I bought it and I was, this did for books what the original Matrix film did for films. 


Iain Banks write's fiction under that name and then adds the "M" for sci fi. He has better and worse books. He's very entertaining to read, but he's very dark and you probably wouldn't want him as a neighbour. I'm still grinning after reading his latests Sci fi book!


Call me racist, but generally the language used by American's writing English, tends to be less rich than a British author; this is not so with Ernest Hemingway, who manages to paint a detailed picture with remarkably few words. My only reservation about EH writing is that no one ever taught him the art of, 'a happy ending'. 


Stig Larsson was a huge surprise, crime isn't a genre that I'm particularly interested but these three books really are page turners and once started I couldn't put them down. They are originally written in Swedish, I read them in English and the English translation in still fantastically rich in language, his Millennium trilogy is brilliant and as he's sadly passed away these are his only three books.


Now for a winje and wine: Bitches on heat. In areas where your dogs/bitches are allowed to run off the leads, folk with bitches on heat should not bring there dogs here. I had to point this out to a couple who had their dog on a lead and Kin chased 400 m after her and she took chunks out of his fur, the only way to prevent him going after her was to have him on the lead and the whole point in driving out to somewhere where he can run free is to let him go free. Having words with the owners of the bitch didn't make me feel good.


Yesterday met another one. A woman with three Pointers. She said that the bitch wasn't on heat, but Kin thought differently and I would take Kin's opinion over others (look at the size of his nose, I never knew Karma to be wrong and I doubt Kin is different). First she took her pointer on the lead, now bearing in mind if we use the equivalent of cars a Newfie would be like a heavily loaded Transit van and a Pointer would be like a Lotus Elise; if the dog was frightened then Kin would not have got near her had she left her off the lead. Then she walked away from me with Kin chasing her dog on the lead, then the evil woman pushed Kin sideways down a 1/2 m drop, three times. I take her point that she was trying to protect her dog; although having her dog on the lead was dumb, and walking away from me was doubly dumb- and doubt she meant to hurt Kin, but pushing a giant breed dog down a drop sideways is just evil. Kin has had a slight limp since so I am having to be careful and only go on short walks. This is the first time that he's limped and I'm hoping that the evil bitch (and I am referring to the two legged kind), hasn't caused him a permanent injury. Examined him and can't find anything he obviously reacts to but I think that he's got a slight limp on his front left  leg. Hopefully this will pass in a couple of days, if not I'll have to go to the vets and keep my fingers crossed that it's nothing lasting. a lot of the time I don't like people very much.


Lastly, this advert has appeared on bus shelters around Stavanger:

And I overheard the following conversation: "what's that an advert for?"
'Who cares!' Said with a big grin... couldn't agree more ;-P

Stairs, opinionated pups, flying with eagles - Nurhan's take

Nurhan's take:

Finally got him to stretch out so I could measure him from the tip of his tail to his nose... he's now 2 m (79 inches) long... intention wasn't to measure him, intention was to put meat on every step to try and get him to come up the stairs. This is as far as he got. His right back paw, was tempted to go up onto the next step, but this is as high as it, and he got! Any suggestions for how to get ~ 67 kgs (148 lbs) of opinionated, 11 month old 'puppy' up/down the stairs would be gratefully received!

'Crashing' out on the back door step he shares with Karma, main difference is that Karma was never as opinionated as Kin is:

Here he is looking in through the window wondering why, 'his human', is dallying and hasn't yet opened the back door, at his command!

Notice the use of resources so he can keep tabs on what's going on! 

Here he's decided that he doesn't want to go where I want to go... he's discovered that he can't out run me so he's laying down under a tree and no amount of pulling on the lead has any affect... an opinionated puppy is a terrible thing (when his opinions differ from your own!!!). The red bit under the lead is a red cycle light, he has a white one on the other side. These little LED lights are great for keeping track of where he is when it's dark (and as with boats/planes, having the different colours you can tell which way he's moving - always handy if you are chasing after him!).

I thought he had wet exceema on the top of his hind quarters; this is a strange place to have this. I've now figured out what it was. Temperature has dropped here, we've already had snow up in the hills, many folk have swapped over to piggdekk (metal studded tyres - in winter almost everyone in Norway swaps tyres from summer to winter, not by law but your insurance is worded such that you should have the appropriate tyres on your car for the conditions). This means that I've been using my fire, which is right next to the back door, and despite my efforts, Kin has a habit of leaning against the stove, whilst waiting to go out. I think he's realised that I don't want him there but about a month ago he was leaning on it; he seems not to notice, and I make it very clear that he shouldn't do this. On this occasion he was very wet. I think that he was burnt, but because he was so damp the affected area was not permanently damaged, but whilst it's repairing itself the regeneration seems very similar to wet exceema, looks healthy now but obviously itches as he keeps presenting this area to me to be scratched (which is how I discovered it). He doesn't lean on the fire now, but I think this is more to keep me happy than he realises that this is potentially dangerous.

 Snoozing is a major past time, especially if he can do it wrapped around furniture!

And contrary to how this looks his lips aren't stuck to the floor by suction.

The gap in between the tiles breaks the suction!

He's enjoy outdoor pursuits, here he is on a climbing trip, although (as with the stairs) he chose not to climb. Dina was using him as a foot warmer at one point (from top to bottom, Dina, Kin, Mel, & May).

And talking of climbing the below picture is of Jostein clawing around trying to get some lift and it's such a fantastic pic that I had to include it:

Jostein flying with an eagle at JHPGK's main flying sight. Picture is taken by Robert Oedegaard and full version of photos can be seen at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertoedegaard/6225498671/in/photostream/
but what an awesome photo and experience! (Only incredible jealous!)

Devastation, and trips in the mountains, - Nurhan's take:

 The little chap with Kin is a six month old Pyranes Sheep Dog.

 He's not shy and he's unfussed that he's the same size as Kin's head as the two play together!

Locally Staten's Vegvesen (Government agency that deals with roads) is cutting down a whole heap of trees as they need access to get a machine in to do test bores for a new tunnel that is planned to go under Stavanger for the main road Oslo-Stavanger-Bergen. We'll see how this develops.

More irritatingly is what is going on at Bråstein. Bråstein is owned by Sandnes kommune, and admistrated by Staten's Skog (Forestry Commission). So in effect the people own the forest. Now as far as I can see it someone has become greedy as they have now allowed a private company to 'help' maintain the wood... by the paths, they have thinned out the trees:

Away from the paths, they seem to have gone for a 'scorched earth policy':

 This used to be a beautiful, tranquil woodland, which has been laid waste in the most brutal manner. This is not sustainable harvest, it's rape of a natural resource without any reflection on the folk who regularly enjoyed this area. There are many more areas that have been destroyed in this manner.

As the large piles of felled trees indicate.

Also they are destroying the paths, that the Kommune worked on only about two years ago:

The machines that are being used are just about 'go anywhere' and make a land rover look like a 'sissy mobile'.

The articulate arm holds a tree, has a blade at the bottom that cuts the tree, and then the 'appocolyps now' rollers that strip the trunk of limbs. Whilst the folk using the machinary are obviously skilled they show no regard for folk who use the woods. Felling trees across the paths, sending wood chips flying.


Someone should be brought to account for the damage that is being created.

This weekend it was planned to take a trip into the mountains and give Kin his first taste of being in a kennel, unfortunately it turned out that it is a school holiday and the kennels are all full. Happily for me, Jan looked after Kin from Saturday to Sunday meaning that David, Svein, and I had a weekend up in the mountains.

(From left to right, me, David, Svein). Saturday was lovely, sunny but four degrees Celsius. Above 650 m there was some snow where the sun hadn't got to it. We took an 11 km stroll into Skåpet, a Stavanger Turistforening cabin.

Here we tried to fit Svein with a sheep bell so we'd know where he was when he wondered off.

Cabin sleeps six (friends) and is very cosy:

The walk out the next day wasn't so good weather. We started off walking in sleet with a wind of ~ 12 m/s fortunately coming from behind. There were fresh elk footprints going straight past the cabin the next morning (and I'd thought the noise that I'd heard in the night had just been David snoring).

Jan, as always, had done a sterling job with Kin;  the little chap was happy to see me, and I'm slowly achieving the balance between being a 'single parent' family and doing other things that I enjoy.