Lingonberry blossoms seen in Vägsele, Sweden... Summer, 2011...

Lingonberry jam/jelly is something I remember from childhood as being typically Swedish. Our mother was born in the United States but her parents came to the US in the early 1900s and settled in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Although Mom spoke very little Swedish, she did know a lot about her Swedish heritage. These are Lingonberry blossoms... Lingonberry grows wild all over the hills and fields around Vägsele which is the area where her parents (my grandparents) were born and spent their younger years before emigrating to America. I've been posting a little bit about our travels to my vacation blog but am finding it takes a long time to prepare posts between having unreliable Internet access and using an iPad to prepare the posts!

For those who might want to know, this was taken with a Nikon D90 fitted with a 32mm extension tube and a Nikon 18-200mm lens. Using the extension tube with my 'all purpose travel lens' gives me macro lens capability without having to carry the macro lens. :-)

UPDATE on July 11, 2011: I've been back from my Sweden/Iceland trip for almost a week now and am finally feeling somewhat human. Recovery from jet lag is harder the older I get! Meantime, I posted this image 12 days ago thinking I'd post to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos while I was away but that didn't happen. So I'm finally sharing it today! Head on over and check out the other posts.

Rainy day greenery in the Cathedral flower garden... Gothenberg, Sweden 2011

While around Gothenberg on a rainy day... Our first full day in Sweden... We happened upon the main cathedral. While everyone else went inside, I stayed outside for awhile to photograph the flower beds. I rather like this image and hope you will too. I'd post it to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos if I weren't so tired from a long day. You should go check out Macro Monday anyway!

Fun with a macro lens... not just for extreme close-ups!

This collage is another set of images from the macro workshop at Green Springs Garden (mentioned in a previous post). Clockwise from the top left corner: a hoverfly and smaller unidentified insect on an unknown yellow flower (larger image), goslings (larger image), Ninebark 'Coppertina' (Physocarpus opulifolius flower (larger image) and Mama (or Papa) goose with goslings (larger image). I wondered when I posted an image on Flickr that was very similar to the last image how one could tell the sex of an adult goose... a couple of my Flickr friends referred me to a web article telling in more detail than I wanted to know exactly how to tell whether an adult Canadian goose is a male or a female. Personally, I think I will just continue to wonder!

I'll quite possibly be posting this to several linked blogs... Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos, communal global on Tuesday and World Bird Wednesday. I'm sort of running out of time to get ready for travel and will be posting to my vacation blog while I'm away. I've already posted my itinerary for those who might want to follow along with my journey.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to queue up a few blog posts between now and when I leave so that I don't completely drop off everyone's radar while I'm away. :-) I will try to visit blogs while on travel but am not sure how well that will work out since I'm traveling with no computer and will have only my iPhone and a Wi-Fi enabled iPad to use for limited connectivity from time to time as circumstances allow.