Every now and then...

Every now and then we cross the bridge over to Wattkast island and village north of the main island.

During summer we fetch tomatoes and vegetables from the local green houses and in the autumn delicious apples.

This it is the fairway north of Korppoo island.

At winter-time you can see a grey heron by the salmon nets. 

The bridge is not very old, built in 2004, and before that you had to wait for the small ferry to get over.

The sign says it all...

To keep the many deer off the apple yards there must be a fence around the fields. The apple trees in their winter sleep are cut with a hard hand to concentrate on growing a good harvest - beautiful in their winter sleep.

In Wattkast there is also our favourite farm Nystu Kött where we get all the meat that we then enjoy in our table. Big cattle and Finnish sheep are grazing at the near-by meadows, the rushes and taken to the smaller islands for the summer pastures. They are keeping the old landscape open and enjoy the freedom of free graze. And the meat is fabulous, more like game in its taste.

In the middle of the village there is the may-pole and the stables where you can get riding lessons or follow the trail out in the forest. 

We often combine all this on our trip to Wattkast - it is 20 km from our place when our village Rumar is south of Korppoo and Wattkast north.

This beautiful young horse was curious about the visitors and enjoying the sunny hours out with its mother. There are little less than 30 inhabitants at the island but many summer-visitors and cabin owners - and people like us just coming to get some local groceries.

This is a link to an old tv film from the 70's about Wattkast - it was an own municipality then - that can at least be seen here in Finland, but I am not sure how it opens abroad:

http://svenska.yle.fi/arkivet/artikkelit/wattkast_i_augusti_75302.html#media=75306