A glad day at the cemetery...

Over twenty people with their rakes were like colourful umbrellas in the autumn weather gathering leaves into huge piles and chatting over graves this morning. It was the annual cleaning day at our local church-yard. After few hours of work together we could enjoy some sandwiches and coffee at the parish house.

We arranged some pretty heathers and junipers at the graves of Pellas anchestors - next sunday it is the All Saints' Day when people light candles at the graves of their nearest and the cemetery becomes a shining see of lights in the November evening.

August was a pilot and the builder of our house and father's grandfather's grandfather to little Isak August, so Isak was there, too, with his own tiny rake - although more interested in the tractor gathering the leaves.

August's father was taken abroad by the English navy during the Crimean War and never returned home. August as the oldest son had to take resposibility of the household and over 10 sisters and brothers. He had fallen in love with Cecilia as a young man but she would not have him - he had too much to take care of already. So she married another pilot and moved to Utö island, but her husband drowned. August tried again and asked her to marry him - and she said yes. They got two daughters, bought the pilot estate from the king of Russia and began to build a new house for them, our house, in 1870.  

August, Uno and Cecilia. August is here wearing his medal from the tzar of Russia after piloting his ship in the archipelago. Uno was the grandson of August and Cecilia, raised up at Pellas.

The church of Korppoo island is a medieval grey-stone church with special painted decorations on the inner ceiling, originally a catholic church. It has a peaceful atmosphere even if it is in the middle of the centre by the main road. From the grave stones you can read many special names that the sailors and sea-captains in the families brought with them from the seven seas, Atlanta, Oseania...    

Saarelaisia - Islanders...

Living on an island and in the archipelago behind two ferries and among warm, special islanders is something different. People here are helpful and our social life has never been richer. We don't need to watch soap-operas - this is reality without tv: garden-parties, markets, dinners, get-togethers.. And the Event of the Week, visiting the local grocery's on Saturday! 

Kaivo on jäässä, rakentajat liukastelevat pihapoluilla ja pikku-Valmetista puuttuu etuhaarukka. Tarvitaan soraa, traktorinlavaa, sähkömiestä ja kaivinkone. Hyvät neuvot ovat kultaa kalliimpia! Kaikkea löytyy – ja myös hauskoja, lämpimiä, metkoja ihmisiä. Miten ne kaikki ovat tänne samalla saarelle rantautuneet? Alamme päästä siitä kärryille, emmekä enää tarvitse saippuaoopperaa. Elämä on täynnä tosia juonenkäänteitä, puutarhajuhlia, kellarimyyjäisiä ja saaristolaispäivällisiä. Lauantain kauppareissu kirkolle on Tapahtuma. Sosiaalinen elämämme on saavuttanut täällä kliimaksinsa. Emme tiedä, mihin yhdistystouhuun intoutuisimme tai miten kaikki kiinnostavat kansalaisopiston kurssit mahtuisivat kalenteriimme. Elokuviin pääsee onneksi vain kerran kahdessa viikossa. Samaa taikinanjuurtakin olevia on kuten se yksi: kun esittelin itseni, hän kertoi olevansa Herra Sämpylä! Selviä sukulaissieluja siis.

60 years ago Rumar was a lively village and people visited each other often. They had all kinds of courses in handicraft like in this photo, mangled their laundry together with a huge mangle of Pellas - that we found at our attic - cooked potato flour, had weddings. They had this special habit of baking dried sweet bread: the down side was for the ladies and the upper swinging side for the men...

Vielä kuusikymmentä vuotta sitten täällä kylälläkin tavattiin. Tapanista Nuuttiin kyläiltiin talosta toiseen. Ompeluseurassa syntyi sukanvarsia, ja marttojen käsityökursseilla lampunvarjostimia. Korppuja leivottiin etukäteen tarjottaviksi. Niiden alapuoli oli varattu naisväelle ja keinuva yläpuoli miesväelle. Tai sitten kokoonnuttiin mankeloimaan, keittämään perunajauhoja ja viettämään häitä. Nyt koitamme kyläyhdistyksessä keksiä uusia kohtaamisia juhannussalon ja venerannan lisäksi. Niitä voisivat olla laskiaismäki, elosoitto tai kekrikekkerit. On tärkeää tavata, tulla tutuksi, tukea ja toimitella.

During the midsummer at the end of June the whole village meets by the may pole which is then decorated and put up by the men. We listen to the guitars and accordions, sing and dance around the pole.

Now we are trying to find new ways to meet each other here in our village. Our own hide-away of the village is Skorvlot Island with a pilot cabin and place for cheerful picnics. It is located on old sea route that already the vikings used, nowadays a museum route.

Miten muuten tietäisimme, että katto on suorassa, ellei oma-aloitteinen saarelainen sinne olisi kiivennyt vatupassi hampaissa? Miten katto ylipäätään olisi valmis ellei sinne kesällä olisi tiukan paikan tullen ja rakennusaikataulun pettäessä kiivennyt useampikin avulias? Vanhan talon peruskorjaaja tarvitsee monenlaista sellaista tekijää ja tavaraa, jota ei löydy kataloogista. Sellaisia löytyy vain ihmisiä kohtaamalla, jutustelemalla ja pyytämällä apua. Sitten kun joku pyytää meiltä, tiedämme kuuluvamme Saarelaisiin.

Pellas News

Last night in Korppoo island the inhabitants were waken up by an unusual thunderstorm on October - some of us were already awake with the full moon... The storm was followed by a heavy rain of hails that still decorated our gardens in the morning sun.

The fearless people of the archipelago continued their daily life, although some slept late and woke up after nine for a morning porridge and tea... 

Siimeksen myllyn luomukaurahiutaleet, clipperin English breakfast tee ja kotisyltty - meidän herkkuaamu!

My love for the sheep

Summer coats...

The Urbonas

This summer has been long and days have gone quickly. Today began autumn, it seems with a heavy storm from the sea. One thing that occupied me during this summer except building and being a mamma manager was art. I took part in a contemporary art project here in the archipelago by assisting Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, Lithauen/Boston, in their Uto-Pia. It was about sheep, archipelago, connections. Last Sunday was a thrilling symposium in an old bunker, in at least 3-stores in a mountain here in Korppoo, where I was asked to tell my feelings about this art project, living in the archipelago and especially about sheep.

When moving here we had seen our small farm as a possibility to become partly self-sufficient, live near the land, the sea and each other, and perhaps even earn a slice of our incomes. Also the feeling of a living farm and a living village by having animals felt natural. Our first one was Agnes, a stubborn, lovely goat-girl. Our girls sleps with her the first nights in their sleeping-bags to keep her company - she was lonely. So we had to find her friends, 3 sheep of Finnish breed. 

We didn't know much about keeping sheep or goats but learnt by doing with a hand-book in one hand, and I started studing agriculture at school. These animals couldn't be eaten up: they were named after my husband's great-aunts... So having Aunt-Salli and Aunt-Alli in our freezer, no! They are pets, companions and landscape-workers.

Our Valmet, Tuisku the horse, our muminboat and the aunties

We have now learnt how to make bunches of birch dried for the winter. We make presents of their soft lovely wool, and they make me glad running to me - or my bags of dried bread - when calling them with their thick coats swinging from side to side. And we wrestle! I didn't know that the nails had to be cut. So it is almost like a rodea trying to catch my big fat ladies, rolling them on their side with kitchen scissors on one hand. When my little boy hugs the mother sheep she leans on him almost closing her eyes and shaking her tail like a dog; she would then meet even the jeaulous goat with the horns...

In this art project I had the opportunity to meet local sheep amateurs and professionals, and the artists with their world-embracing ideas and cameras were forgotten when everyone wanted to learn how to make cheese of sheep milk. We cooked the milk, took temperature, shaveled, sliced, packed and asked endless questions from our guru, Cecilia Persson from Skimra Gård, Åland. She was smiling, calm and amazing with her exact knowledge - and also an example of a woman who had started her own business, gathered information and sheep all over Europe.

Cecilia 

It was interesting to connect people over the Atlantic Ocean and the Archipelago of Finland. I enjoyed that I was able to tell about my passion for the wild vegetables and herbs that were then used in the cheese that we made.

My herbs from Pellas

Being the one that was asked to assist and help made me also feel myself for the first time an islander. The islanders, I have noticed during our two years, are helpful, warm multi-doers, perhaps a bit strange, but very straight and un-complicated people and I am for sure a wanna-be islander! Even if none of us would become a cheese-maker I am sure we all got a lot of possitive energy meeting each other - and strength to believe in what we are trying to achieve.

More about the Uto-Pia: http://www.vilma.cc/uto-pia/

and especially: http://www.vilma.cc/uto-pia/?category_name=guided-tour-performance