Vappu!

When I was little it seemed that everyone else had already changed to summer outfits except our family that had woollen  hats and steady boots at the market place of  the 1st of May. Perhaps that is way I enjoy my own family's tradition to take the first swim this spring and "throw away the winter-coat" in an ice cold sea - sometimes in the middle of ice-cubes...

Owen sand-bathing after a swim

Meillä piti aina olla pipot ja lenkkarienkin kanssa oli siinä ja siinä ettei talvimonoissa saapasteltu Vaasan vapputorilla kaikkien kesähattuisten ja popliinitakkisten kaupunkilaisten joukossa. Oman perheen vappuperinne on ehdottomasti talviturkin heitto mereen!


Hauskasti vapputouhuista kertoo Elli: http://elli-neidin-unelmia.blogspot.com/2012/04/valpurin-yo.html

Then the next best thing of Vappu, 1st of May is to be out in the garden, make lunch and enjoy it together or have a picnic with friends.

Vappu 2011 in the garden

The classical drink of our Vappu is 'sima', a kind of self-made lemonade. This year I tried the recipe of Jenni Silvennoinen who should know how to make good sima, she has a brewery of her own near Turku!

Sugars and honey is melt in hot water and the lemon is added. When the water has cooled you can add a tiny piece of yeast, size of a pea...

After few days when bottled and held in cool the sima is ready!

http://ciderhouse.fi/in/

        Hauskaa Vappua!

Today we remember...

the war veterans of Finland - and the brave women and children of the home front!

So I began my day with the flaghoistering this morning.

It was on 27th April 1945 when the war in Lapland ended and the Second World War on Finland's behalf. My both grand-fathers fought in the war in Karelia front but like many veterans didn't tell much about their war time memories - it was too painful and I was too young.

There weren't many men left here in Rumar village either during the war and the women and children had to do also the men's work on fields and in forest. When the Russian aircraft flew over the village people took shelter in the old cellar of Pellas.

This little thing had took shelter under the cellar roof when we were renovating it two years ago.

http://www.tuntematonemanta.fi/trailer.html

Aili was the mother of Pellas household at that time, a former town-girl who had to take the horses and cut the hay for the whole village when everyone else was so afraid of the dangerous hay-machine and the big horses.

Uno and Aili

Her husband Uno was back safe quite soon and could tell how the few Russian words he had learnt from the Russian navy visiting Rumar waters when he was small had saved him in a confrontation with the enemy.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3437012581680213431 - This is a film called Fire and Ice made of the Finnish Winter War 1939-40 if you got interested.

Skepparens vik

The first brimstone and the glittering sea - perfect weather to work in the forest and by the shore! In the end of the village road there is an area called Kattlot and a tiny beach called Skepapera - Boatman's bay - that belong to our farm. We had decided to clean up the area last weekend and prepare parking for cars and boats for cottage owners.  There are people who have cottages at the near-by islands and need a place for their car and smaller boats during their stay. For us it is a way to earn and beside it a way to make people feel welcome to our village.

A lovely old school-path of our grand-mother leads through the fields and forest to Kattlot. Pellas in the back-ground and here in the front what it is left of the old 'Riihi', a drying barn of Pellas.

At right side you can see the boat harbour of Rumar and on the opposite side the old coast guard base in Fagerholm and the old pilot base in Killingholm.

Big cliffs rise high, huge old pines try to find their foothold and especially the beach had had years to grow bushes and collect litter, boats here and there and everyone parking where they had found it most suitable.

We enjoyed the work and the spring weather. We fell down trees, sawed away bigger branches, carried wood to be burnt.

We sat on the boats and warmed our lunch by the fire, had a cup of tea and watched people passing the bay with their boats and listened to the concert of birds from the forest.

Suddenly after a long winter sleep the archipelago was full of life.

And then on Sunday evening so quiet and peaceful when town-people had rushed to catch their ferries to the mainland.

In the end of the village road is also a summer restaurant and a small-boat-harbour Rumar Strand Marina. The house was originally the school of Rumar village, where for example our grand-mother learnt to read and write. The teachers were legendary and taught the village children new skills like how to find mushrooms in the forest. This was the nearest school for the children from outer archipelago and many stayed at Pellas during the school-weeks.

Ps. there are still few parking places left...

http://www.rumarstrand.com/ENGLISH/Welcome.html

Up the stairs...

I love the special scent of old attics. It reminds me of the childhood hide-aways upstairs, old boxes with treasures, hats and coats hanging from the rack, dusty books, a collection of dried flora, chairs missing legs...

Our attic had two so called summer rooms and a dark open place between them, no floor but two narrow boards as a path to connect them to the stairs.

The old stairs upstairs began from the veranda and were too steep for the modern standard.

We had to build a new but kept the railing in case we could use it - it was beautifully polished by generations of hands.

The first job was to carry out all the old moss and sand that had been used as insulations and the dangerous glass wool that could absorb humidity. And as the work proceeded with  a new roof and constructions we had to manage without proper stairs.

The old staircase was dismounted and ...

where there used to be the veranda and the stairs...

were big holes - here seen from the kitchen.

A new wall was built between the veranda and the hall.

The view to old summer rooms started to change but we still had the same path to go...

The instructions for the stairs were very strict. How much room do you have to have to every directions,  how high every step should be, how sharp turns you can have...

This was too steep!

and for a person afraid of heights almost impossible to get up...

We decided to build the staircase at the place and wanted to use old material as much as possible. 

and the stairs needed a railing upstairs, too.

It is always nice with suprises...

The steps have to feel natural....

and even suitable for a nap! 

For the walls we could use the old ceiling from the kitchen, wonderful red pine boards.

We still have left the nicest part of building left - the painting! The hall walls are painted with a warm yellow shade and with red pine panelling and the upstairs is painted with different shades of blue walls and grey-white ceiling, but how shall we paint the staircase?

- But we have lost the old dusty scent of treasures and have now instead the perfumes of teenagers, pop corn evenings and drying laundry...

The Sauna

At that time the famous smuggler of prohibition time Jalmari Mäkelä had already found the Lord. Grand-mother remembers him to be very big and very pious. While he was masoning our sauna pipe and the huge water-pot he sang psalms. Behind were the times of fast boats carring spirit over the sea and building the largest maison of Korppoo island and a velodrome beside it... Our old sauna has been warmed to wash people, the dead and the pig  bowels - and now us - nearly 80 years!

Siihen aikaan kuuluisa pirtukuningas Jalmari Mäkelä oli jo löytänyt Herran. Isoäidin muistikuvissa hän oli hyvin paksu ja hyvin hurskas. Virsi seurasi toista hänen muuratessaan saunan piippua ja suurta vesipataa. Takana olivat ajat, jolloin nopeilla veneillä pirtu kulki yli meren, ja hyvillä tienesteillä Korppoon kirkonkylään kohosi kartanoakin suurempi talo ja sen kylkeen velodromi. Hyvin sauna on muurattu, kun kahdeksattakymmenettä vuotta se on lämmennyt hirsiseinien sisällä, padassa on pesty paidat ja siansuolet. Ja nyt meidät.

Before the sauna there was a older so called cattle kitchen or scullery where the village women gathered to  wash the laundry, cook syrup and potato flour. During the civil war in 1918 the Reds ordered the house to feed their local troups and to cook soup. 

Ennen vanhaa saunaa paikalla oli vielä vanhempi karjakeittiö, ja kylän naiset kokoontuivat sinne yhdessä pyykkäämään ja laittamaan juurikkaasta siirappia ja perunasta jauhoja. Sisällissodan aikana saarella komentoa pitäneet punaiset määräsivät jopa keittämään sen padassa soppaa punaisten joukoille, vaikka isäntä olikin valkoinen luotsi.

Now the old pot is scrupped clean and the old sauna is our saviour when we are still waiting for the new sauna-building to get ready, now only with the blue wall sheats for wind-protection behind the trees. 

Vesipadan ruosteet on hinkattu pois, ja riemunkirjavat miranolit sudittu savunsinisellä, puhtaat pellavat odottavat kylpijää. Vanha sauna on meille korvaamaton, kun uuden valmistuminen on edennyt vasta sinisiin tuulensuojalevyihin. Vanhoista talon ulkopaneleista hiotaan maalinpoistokoneella uutta seinälautaa, ja odotellaan kevättä. Katselen kuurankukkien valkenevan aamuauringossa. Kiuas koittaa puskea pakkasaamua pihan puolelle, ja padan vesi kuplii odottaen lippaamista vatiin ja lantraamista kylmällä kauhallisella.

The window is full of frost flowers in the early spring mornings and the  sauna stove tries to push the cold outside, so one really has to see the idyllic in life sometimes.

All the water has to be carried in and warmed in the pot. The old floor is freezing but I stand in a bowl of warm water to melt my toes.

The wood has to be chopped and carried in. But these simple chores also calm me down. I listen to the burning wood, throw water on the stove. A bar of soap and washed soft linen towels. Peace of mind.

Kyllä tässä välillä saa tunnelmoida olan takaa, että puunkanto ja vesisankoralli, pakkasen puraisu aamutakin helmassa ja jäinen saunanlattia olisivat idylliä. Askareet kuitenkin hiljentävät mielen seremonian lailla, ja olen keksinyt seisoa vadissa saadakseni varpaat sulamaan. Hyvä pesällinen halkoja ritisee, saippua tuoksuu. Tässä hetkessä on rauha, kunhan maltan. Tätä ei hävitetä, idylliä, korjataan sitten seuraavaksi. On uusittava hapero porras, ja välikaton vällyt pullistelevat. Kiuas on lähes jalmarinaikainen, ja tuskin kaksinkertainen ikkuna karkoittaisi pakkaspiirroksia. 

Even if the new sauna some day gets ready we won't abandon the old one. It will be renovated with a gentle hand.