Suuri Seikkailu ja elämä nyt!

Hyppäsimme käsi kädessä! Olemme saanet aitoutta, pysähtymistä, heräämistä, hetkeä. Nyt elämme hirsiä ja pellavarivettä, banaanilaatikoita, teinejä ja taaperoa, koiranneniä ja lampaita, kaartelevia merikotkia ja huikaisevaa halua merelle.

KOTIKALLIO

KOTIKALLIO

9.5.2014

Heart of the Home - Happy Mother's Day...

        Kodin sydän


”Äiti, eikö pian ole se naisten juttu?” Se, jossa lähes sata saaristolaisnaista on parantanut maailmaa ja punonut verkkoa yli Itämeren kolmattakymmenettä vuotta. Se, jonne pakataan kumpparit ja korkkarit, jossa syödään omenoita ja keskustellaan elämästä saaristossa. Se, josta palataan hyväntuulisina ja posket hehkuen uskoa itseensä ja tähän, minkä on valinnut. Se, jota koko perhe odottaa. Että äiti saisi estrogeenipaukun!

80 women filled the ferry to Vorms, Estonia last September
"Mum, when is that your women thing?" The one when almost hundred women around the northern Baltic Sea have the last 30 years got together at one of the archipelagoes. The one where you pack rubber boots and high heels, eat apples and discuss the life in the archipelago. The one where you return home in good mood and shining - believing again yourself and this life we have chosen to live here. That mum gets her shot of estrogen...
Kumlinge, Åland, 2012

Kun sata naista viettää viikonloppua pienellä saarella, mukaan mahtuu poskivalssia Lauran kanssa, 70 vuotta täyttävä ruotsalainen Dancing Queen, suffragetteja Oolannista ja itse ammuttua villisikaa meille tarjoileva Marika Vormsista. 
Group work!

When hundred women spend a weekend on a small island it includes walse cheek to cheek with Laura, 70 years old Dancing Queen from Sweden, suffragets from Åland and Marika of Vorms serving us a wild pig shot herself.
At Marika's
Aamujooga kahdeksalta, luento luonnonyrteistä, kirkkokonsertti. Ei miehiä, kohtuullisesti virvokkeita, runsaasti hymykuoppia ja kyyneleitä.
Almost as old as ours at home, this one in Estonia
Morning yoga at 8, lessons about wild herbs, a church concert. No men, some refreshments, smiles and tears.
Old grave stones in Vorms
Ja kurkistuksia. Miten asutaan saariston laidoilla? Neuvostoajan kolossit ovat muistoja ajasta, jolloin sotilaat haravoivat rantahiekkaa yrittäessään paljastaa paikalliset. 
Nuckö, Aiboland, north of Haapsalu
And peekings.. How do you live in the outskirts of the archipelago? The soviet time huge buildings are memories of times when the soldiers checked the beautiful beaches regularly by raking them - the locals were not allowed to walk there. 

Marikan hirsitalossa on leveät vanhat vaakapanelit ja se on suuren puutarhan keskellä karjan laiduntaessa ympäröivää niittyä. Pehmeisiin viltteihin käperrytään syyskylmällä, keittiössä tuoksuu omenahillo, ja tyttären huone on tapetoitu One Directionilla.

Marika's log house has old wooden panelling and it is in the middle of a lovely garden cows pasturing the meadows around. Soft woollen blankets in the living-room, scent of apple jam in the kitchen and the room of the daughter covered with One Direction.
In Kumlinge
Kumlingenilaismummon tupaan majoittuu nostalgiatripille seitsemänkymmenluvulle, kun kiipeämme narisevia portaita vinttikamareihin ja seinillä roikkuvat kanavakangastyöt. 

In Kumlinge, Åland we slept in a house of an old lady and it took us to the 70's when we take the steps up to the attic. Walls are covered with canvas works here. 
Village grocery's in Kumlinge
Muistatteko, miten ennen joka kodissa oli puhelinpöytä? Catharina esittelee ihmeitä tekevää siivousliinaa ja kiillottaa mummon kristallikruunua.
Lovely Haapsalu, Estonia
Do you remember when there used to be a telephone bench with a small table attached at every home? Catharina is showing us her wonder cleaning cloth and polishing the lady's chandelier.

On our way back home from Kumlinge

Suunnittelemme seuraavaa estrogeenitihentymää ja istumme Lauran keittiössä. 
Spring at Laura's
We are now planning the next estrogen thickening and sitting at Laura's kitchen.
Sand leak from the vikings spreading under the trees
Myssyn alla hautuu tee, ja kuvun alta paljastuu houtskarilaisjuuresta leivottuja leipiä. Niityllä huutavat hanhet.  Keittiön virkatun salusiinin takaa kurkistelee kevät.

Herb tea under the cap, sandwiches made of rye root from the neighbouring island Houtskär. The Geese are crying outside at the meadow. Spring is looking inside between the lace curtains.
Paper pop-up art in Estonia
 Mekin haluamme avata ovia ja näyttää osaavia naisia. Haluamme näyttää viljelyä ja putiikinpitoa. Haluamme kutsua peremmälle kuisteille, missä pelakuut talvehtivat, ja omenaämpärit seisovat kukkuroillaan. Keittiöissä on tiskikaapit ja klapilaatikot. Kengät jätetään eteiseen, ja villasukkia saa lainata korista. Meilläkin.
Vorms church, renovated after the Russian time, a centre of local Swedes in the old times and now again!
We want to open doors, too and show our women who can! We want to show the agriculture and shop-keeping. We want to invite to the verandas where geraniums wait for the winter and buckets are full of autumn apples. We have washing cabins and boxes of wood in the kitchens. The shoes are left in the hall and you can borrow the woolen socks from a basket. Here, too.
Apples from Åland!
About Vorms in Estonia:
http://www.visitestonia.com/en/holiday-destinations/the-islands/vormsi-island?site_preference=normal

and about Kumlinge, Åland: http://www.kumlinge.ax/

1.5.2014

Glada Vappen - Snowy 1st of May..

We woke up in a soft silent world of snow flakes but the flag is up, wet paper streamers by the door and choir music coming from the radio. Yesterday at our local school the pupils made 150 litres sima, mjöd, the famous viking drink of spring-time and delicious doughnuts and sold them at the centre. So the dessert is ready and a party at the Granny's later in the evening for the 15 of us today at Pellas and at the neighbour. Perhaps we even find the grill under this sudden snow... The swim we'll skip this year!
Last weekend I attended two seminars about the local history in Korpoström Archipelago centre here in Korppoo. We heard old fairy tales and legends about the goblins that people here used to explain things they didn't understand. The goblins had their kingdom in the forest and could take unfortunate wanderers under ground - some never returned, other came back changed...

Archeologist Tapani Tuovinen took us on a time-travel to the years just after the ice age when the three kilometres thick ice melted, the ground began to raise and the first islands of this archipelago came up from the sea. Nine thousand years ago the sea level was 50 metres higher than now and still every year the ground rises 4,2 mm... It is like a football that has got a bump.

In Korppoo the first people came over 4000 years ago, started to fish and hunt and bury their dead in huge stone-covered graves on the top of the cliffs.

We visited the oldest known place inhabited here that was only a few years ago found when a farmer made a forest road and a ditch... Parts of ceramics, stones and ash, villagers living in small huts. We couldn't have guessed it standing there now.
It was quite hard to imagine the huts and people here..
The iron-age grave could be over 2000 years old. The dead were burnt and the remains with gifts to the death set on sand bed on a cliff facing the sea and big stones set on top of everything.

This round stone ground had been a place where people could stay over-night on their fishing trip or cover their belongings with the sail from their boat and few sticks. 

Russian ovens were built by the Russian soldiers in the 18th century when they attacked Finland that then belonged Swedish kings. In ovens they baked bread for the navy troops.
 

All this awakened our imagination and a lot of fabulous theories were told to explain things from the past. Some even found evidence from the old Greeks... 

I just enjoyed listening and it is always a joy to meet other islanders. Korpoström was beautiful in a spring morning still waiting for the first boaters and the new season. 


Lisää kuvateksti
http://www.sunnan.fi/korpo.html

About archeology and finds: http://www.paikkatietoikkuna.fi/web/fi or
http://kulttuuriymparisto.nba.fi/netsovellus/rekisteriportaali/portti/default.aspx