My Coordinates

I am kind of "borrowing" the wireless at a resort that I'm not actually staying at, but they have a public library here so I don't feel so bad! Right now I am on Visingsö, an island in the middle of Lake Vätten, a huge lake in the middle of southern Sweden. It is a popular tourist destination but big enough to easily get away from other people. Today I rented a bike and saw the ruins of Sweden's first royal palace; beautiful flax and barley fields; a wetland nature reserve; and oak forests planted 200 years ago for the Swedish navy that are now ready to be made in to wooden boats!

Tomorrow I will head back to Frank's cabin on the east coast and spend the night before heading out for the week. Next week we are planning to finish a site we started last week, do another site on the east coast and go out to one of the large islands just off the east coast, Öland (or island country), for another site and to spend the weekend. The southern portion of Öland is a UESCO world heritage site and I hope to see viking ruins and farms that have been worked since the middle ages!

Here is the link to Frank's homepage with a downloadable pdf newsletter (nyhetsbrev) that Frank puts out about his oak project: http://www.zoologi.gu.se/kontakta_oss/forskare_larare/gotmark_frank/#Biologisk%20m%C3%A5ngfald
There is a map on page two of the newsletters that will give you a better idea of the geographical range of the project. We are only going to be able to survey 12 of the sites (since it takes us two days for each site) but the one's we won't visit are in the clusters in the east and west so I will still get to see about the same geographical range of sites. For those of you following along

Week 1: July 16, 17 - Site #4, Sandvidksås
July 18 - Site #6, Strakaskogen
July 19, 20 - Site #14, Aspenäs

Week 2: July 22 - Site #20, Fårbo
July 24, 25 - Site #11 Saftsäter
July 26, 27 - Site #17 Ulvsdal

And now I am here in Visingsö which is in the middle of the lake that sites 6 and 7 are right next to! Our plan for next week is to finish sampling at site #20, and visit sites 23 and 25.