Lichen and railroad

My inner clock must have stopped during the night, I woke up very late, which is unusual, maybe due to the late evening last night when I got to bed after midnight.

I managed to get outside  for a walk today (no rain and wind, Hurray) and decided to follow a tip from a friend of finding a path near the forest garden nearby. It was a challenge but I found it, sometimes forcing my way through thick undergrowth with prickly branches. For my next walk I now know the way a bit better and will enjoy it better, leaving out the bit where I slipped on a rock and  ended up in a brook up to my knees.

The main blip is there because the colors are so beautiful. You see three or four different kinds of lichen and at least two different kinds of moss in the picture, the variety is supposed to be a sign that the air is reasonably healthy. But I'm no expert on this.

 The extra shows the remains of the old railroad bank. Unfortunately it has not been looked after at all since 1961 when trains ceased to run on Öland and the rails were removed. Railroads existed about a hundred years on all the island from north to south but was never profitable due to failed investments in mining and forrestry. Busses was also hard to compete with for transporting people. Some of the railroad banks has been made into roads for bicycles but mostly they have disappeared into farmland or, as in this case, has been taken over by the remaining forests.