A MidSummer Night in Northern Sweden

Well, tonight is the summer solstice. It is the shortest night of the year. The sun set at 11.30 tonight and this is the darkest it will get and the sun will rise at 1.50. Growing up mid-summer was never an important event. It's not really celebrated in England, but in Scandinavia and in Sweden it is a massive event. People will stay up late, celebrate, eat lots of food, make and wear flower crowns. The summer solstice has been celebrated for thousands of years, celebrating the sun and the abundance of nature. It is a night believed to be full of magic. I think my favourite folklore is from Iceland, where they believed that seals would transform into mermaids on mid-summer. They also believed that mid-summer is a time of high magic and cows were rumoured to briefly be able to speak just on summer solstice. It has been a lovely evening in these fields behind our house, but truthfully it is seven celsius right now and the wind makes it feel like four celsius. So I am cold. I wanted to stay up all night, but quite frankly I'd like a cup of tea and to go inside, so I'm going to do that. I just made this flower crown for Roo. It's so cute. I have to take some videos. Also the sun has now risen. I thought I was going to go to bed, but I ended up filming at sunrise with Juan and it was really nice and I thought, why not come to the squirrel forest? And I've actually never been here for sunrise during mid-summer, so I was about to say I didn't think a squirrel would show up because I've never been here and a squirrel has literally just arrived. Okay, I'm going to get into position because I don't have my other camera. Oh my gosh, it's coming down already. Okay, it's all right. I brought you food. Hi. Hello. Oh, I met you a few days ago. I'm not sure if I mentioned that it's what time is it? 4.40am and at this point I'm kind of delusional. No idea who this squirrel is. Not sure. I'm not sure if the camera will pick it up, but there's a bird singing and I didn't recognize the call because I don't think I've ever heard it's summer call, but it is goldcrest, which means there are goldcrests nesting in the squirrel forest, which is super cool. Looks amazing. I know it's the summer, but I am already planning 2027 calendars, choosing photos and creating the page designs. This is the seventh year I have been selling my calendars on Squarespace and a big thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. Squarespace allows photographers, artists and creators to sell their own products. It's easy to create a professional website. There are many templates to choose from. Last year, I launched my calendar with an autumnal theme and had leaves falling down the page. I am still working on this year's theme, but I'm already so excited for the launch. Squarespace offers many features from newsletters, digital products and detailed analytics. So if you'd like to give Squarespace a go, head to squarespace.com slash dannyconnorwild and you can save 10% off a website or a domain. It has just gone 5.15 and I'm feeling very delusional now. The squirrel is still in front of me, still quite nervous. This time of year around midsummer is such a weird time for the squirrels because they can be active from 2am until 9pm, maybe 10pm, and so trying to spot the regulars is so tricky. I personally have not seen Sylvie in maybe 10 days, but Juan has seen her and the squirrels that I'm actually seeing at the feeding station are either babies from this year, random squirrels that I only see a few times a year, and they're like squirrels who don't live here full-time and they are traveling here to get some extra food. But I really did think I would see more than just one squirrel today, but I also think there is so much food available in the forest that they don't need the extra food. At this point I'm so tired I keep thinking I'm seeing squirrels everywhere. That looks like Sylvie. Sylvie! Ah! How are you? I haven't seen you in ages, Sylvie. How are you? I'm definitely staying now. You are just radiating. Look at you. Hello, uncles. Is that me? So, my friends, guess what? I sadly killed my sourdough starter, so I'm back to making normal bread. I found out too late that you can dry the sourdough, but when I returned home from travels in the spring, I couldn't activate my sourdough and it was officially dead. Sometimes I find myself caught between two worlds. When I'm home, I long for adventure, and when I'm traveling, I eventually long for being home again. And now I already feel like I'm dreaming of big adventures. I used to think that I had to choose one life or the other, either be traveling or being at home, but perhaps this is simply who I am. Maybe I need both. Maybe adventure gives me stories and home gives me somewhere to tell them. After so much traveling at the start of the year, all I've wanted is to be home, to bake, to be with the squirrels. I think if the weather was a bit warmer here, I would be outside more and enjoying summer, but I've spent so much of the past few weeks indoors because it's been cold or raining. Also, there has been progress in the garden, but I will save that for the next garden video. I've come outside quickly to show you the finished cake, and there's literally a mosquito on the cake. Get off! Okay, flowers just make everything look pretty. I will remove these when we eat them. I didn't end up using the strawberries because they were moldy, which is really sad. There are so many mosquitoes, I'm gonna have to go inside. If I could provide a slice through the screen, I would, so take a bite. I'm gonna try it myself now. I thought I'd sit down and share some updates. I have been creating the next letter from the wild, and this month's theme is Midsummer Night Magic, and I wanted to make the reader feel like they're stepping into a novel. The borders of the letter feature red squirrels playing the fiddle and the flute, and I was really happy with my illustration. I used acrylic paints as well as some coloured pencils and some ink pens. I was really happy with the illustration, and when I finished, I took photos and started to prepare it as a print on my computer, and then I was really disappointed with it. The colours were really flat and dull, and the texture of the painting had completely disappeared, and it just felt so flat. And then I did the worst thing I probably could have done, which is look at other illustrations online and started to compare my work to other people's work, and it felt worse. I then ended up spending a couple of hours repainting with an apple pencil and fixing it on photoshop, and now I'm really happy with it. But then I remembered and reminded myself, and I think this is important for all of us to remind ourselves, is that talent and art and creative work often looks amazing from the outside, but there are thousands of hours that nobody sees. I didn't become a wildlife photographer overnight or over a few years, I've been doing it for 15, 16 years now. Talent really comes from a lot of practice and time, and I'm only just starting this journey of painting again. I used to paint a lot when I was young, and I shouldn't be so hard on myself, because I know the previous letter, everyone enjoyed the foxes that I illustrated. I also actually did some more research and discovered how I was using my paint was wrong. So I was using pretty cheap acrylic, and when you mix it with water, the paint kind of splits, so it doesn't work the same way as watercolour. And I've actually found that gouache paint probably suits how I work better, so it might be that I invest in new paints, or I try watercolour again, because I have got watercolours. If you don't know what I'm talking about, last month I started a mail club called Letters from the Wild. Each month you receive a letter from me, photoprint, and an extra little something, and this month there's an eight-page booklet with tips on how to garden for wildlife, and how to get inspiration from nature, and there's also a strawberry cake recipe. And if you're interested, you can sign up on my Patreon. And the other thing I wanted to tell you about is my new unexpected friend. A couple of weeks ago, I was in my office with headphones in, so I couldn't hear anything, and I suddenly saw movement on the window ledge, and I just moved my head so I could look over the edge of the screen, and there was a squirrel there, and we both jumped when we saw each other. I'm not sure how long she had been there, because there was quite the mess of nuts, but she had basically climbed into my office. I opened the window because it was quite warm, and I wanted to let some breeze in, and she had let herself in and helped herself to the hazelnuts that I usually throw out for torte. Let me help you. Go on, go out. Let me help you. Okay, yeah, okay. I find this really surprising because she is a completely wild squirrel. She's not been hand-reared, and she just has this confidence around me, and she's super bold. She's around four to five months old, and she was born around spring, and I know this because she has some silver in her coat, so she's already independent from mum. She's on her own, and she just climbs into my office, helps herself to some hazelnuts, and then she's on her way. I've named her Rosie or Rosita because the day she arrived and started visiting is the day my roses started blossoming and having flowers, so she is little rose or Rosita, and there are actually two other young squirrels that could be her siblings that follow her. I hope you've enjoyed this video. I've got several videos almost ready to go from Zambia and Morocco, so lots of fun videos are coming, and that's all from me, I think. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.