My Kitchen and Other Animals (or, 10 Years in Sweden)

Today marks the tenth anniversary since my moving to Sweden. A few days later, I began the publication of the Chronicles, my most personal space, to tell the story of what it meant to live where - until then - I had simply traveled; especially from a naturalistic and photographic point of view, of course.
Since then, 530 images of "home" and other places in the North where I have been and loved have appeared, including this one on the side.
You can browse the very first years here (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) and the following ones in the monthly archives in the right column on this page.

To celebrate this birthday I could not find any more appropriate shot than this recent portrait of one of the protagonists in those pages: my garden’s squirrel.

A local (zero kilometers) photo if any, in fact just 90 centimeters, measured. This is the distance that separates the kitchen window, where I am having my meals, from the feeder for birds (and other animals). Nothing special here around: every Swede living in rural areas (probably 80% of the whole country) has a feeder in shape of a cabin full of food just outside the kitchen and shares meals with other guests, looking them in the eyes from the other side of the glass. I'm no exception, and as an immigrant who craves assimilation and wants to adapt to local customs, the feeder was just the second accessory added to my tiny palace (the first being a bed) after the moving.

The list of encounters from my window in these 10 years is quite long, and several shots are in these Chronicles: from the great spotted to the grey-headed woodpeckers, from the roe deers (garden’s aficionados) to the waxwings, to the sparrow hawk, and even the ring ouzel. But it’s the squirrel, though, the steady presence through this decade (not the same one, I guess...), and the one I always greet with the greater pleasure.
And it’s also the first time I am able to catch an image of “the” window - and as a result of my home – through its reflection in the hematite pupil of its perfect profile.
(click on the picture to enlarge it)