Mission Possible?

I was very flattered to get post this week, especially because I am the only married woman in the whole country to receive it. I got a x-mas card from one of the leading hardware store in Finland, K-Rauta! Thanks!

When we started renovating I went to open an account there so that it would be easier to order or fetch material from there and then get the bill home every two weeks. Well, I started wondering that I didn't get any bills but my husband did and ring their custom service. They didn't find me. They found my husband.

"Oh no, it is our policy to register always on the name of the husband because it would be confusing otherwise! No one is registered on the name of the wife."
"What if there is someone without a husband, she can't renovate then, or?"
"Well, that is another case then but in your case.."
"Have you heard that Finland was the first country in the whole world who give women the right to vote despite their wealth or position? Over hundred years ago? Do you know that we have had a female president almost 12 years now? Have you heard of the law of equality?"
"Yes, but.."
"I registered our account and I want to have my own bills. If I don't get my own bills, I will cancel our account and..."

So I am the only wife with own bills from K-Rauta. Thanks and merry x-mas to you, too, Mission Possible!

The Gingerbread Family

Why to put a lot effort and time on something that cannot be eaten before it has gathered dust almost a month? Because it is so beautiful, so funny and it spreads the Christmas scent all over the kitchen.

This year we had a new model for the house, our new home Pellas. It was the most difficult I had ever made but it is now ready and placed up on the cupboard - to be seen but not to be touched by the dogs or the small admiring hands... Thanks for the talented architect who made me the model!

In the previous life I use to bake a much more simple cabin with my girls but with a lot of symbolic features. There were I and my girls, our dogs - also the ones in heaven placed on the roof - and then our dream-come-true servants Pentti and Hillevi. I was a single-mother hands full of work and we use to dream of having some helping hands like Pentti who would cook us delicious meals and clean the house and his wife Hillevi who would clear the snow and carry to firewood inside - the strong feminist in me here educating the daughters about facts in life!

Then before moving in to our new home with our new family we had the lighthouse to show us the way through the months of renovation and all nine of us around it like the Moomin family on their way to the adventures. As you can see, I take this house thing seriously...

So it all began with baking the parts - and to make them strong enough you have to make a special house dough.

Then the parts are baked - perhaps a bit harder than the ordinary ginger bread cookies - and then decorated. Everyone gets a part  and free hands to use own imagination - and sugar-mix and sweets, lots of sweets! You should let it dry few days and then melt some sugar in a frying pan and dip the parts or with a help of a paddle pour the hot sugar on the edges. And a puff of powdered sugar!

And there is our whole family! Until the 13th January, the day of Nuutti, Knut, the day the Christmas time is over. All Christmas decorations are packed in their boxes, last bottle of the Glogg is warmed and the ginger bread house is eaten together. Can you guess which parts are the most popular...?

Something in the air...

And something in my nose because I can't scent the saffron - everyone else in the family follows their noses and gathers to kitchen when I start making the dough: - Oh, what a lovely scent! Are you baking the Lucia buns? Yes, I was because today is the Day of Lucia and the lovely yellow buns had to be ready for the morning.

I am a real fan of Anneli Pessala! She is a legendary food reporter of Maaseudun Tulevaisuus, a news paper of the countryside people and this is one of her recipes:

Celebrating Lucia is more a tradition of the Swedish-speaking Finns but we have adopted it to our family traditions after years of living in a sweadish-speaking area - and especially after my memorable year in Borgå Folkhögskola in Porvoo as a young student. My dearest memory of Lucia is when I had given birth to my eldest daughter and still resting at hospital with my lovely new-born baby-girl in my arms the door to my room opened on 13th Dec. 1996 and in came that year's Lucia and her followers singing and bringing me a bun and and a hot cup of coffee.

This year's Lucia was my eldest daughter who helped me to bake and then this morning carried a basket with soft buns and hot glogg to each and every one in the family with pappa playing the guitar and me singing so much I could sing in the light of my head-lamp and my morning voice... But we got everyone awake!

Lucia is said to have been a Sicilian girl who was tortured and killed because of her belief. Tonight at our own church a new Lucia of Korppoo island will be crowned with a crown of candels, a lovely play to see with songs and little angels.

And while we were baking we got a new cabin over the kitchen sink almost ready - it will still get the doors and some graining to finish the painting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5fnv9YKdkE 

And Lucia of Finland, here is Nora Peltola:

http://hbl.fi/livsstil/2011-11-24/folket-har-valt-nora-peltola-till-arets-lucia-2011

                      But how shall I do with the saffron and my nose...?

                     Have a lovely Lucia Day!

The Perfect Christmas Tree

Someone said that they always choose the one that no-one else wants to take home - like choosing the dirtiest, skinniest puppy with the saddest eyes. My proposal to consider this aspect or at least the forest economical growth was voted down and instead we found the Perfect Christmas Tree for this year.

We would have taken the sledge but the milk carridge was more suitable when we started walking across our fields to the home forest. Being a family with a healthy appetite it is unthinkable to have a trip without a picnic basket. Think if we got lost in the woods?

The air is so easy to breath now and a soft mist was floating between the trees when we admired the old pines and followed the path of the elks. We found many fallen trees caused by the latest storm so here is a job for me and my chainsaw waiting - and our next years firewoods...

By a small fire we warmed our bread and had a mug of hot chocolate with gingerbread cookies, sang and chatted. It is surely a primitive reaction to begin to gather more wood to burn, enjoying the warmth and just wanting it to last a bit longer.

And the Perfect Tree? We found three, one a bit longer to have by our village road and to decorate with apples for the birds, one tiny for the Little Christmas we then had in the evening and one Perfect waiting in the barn for the Christmas Eve...

The Little Christmas Tree. Before the real Christmas we celebrate the Little Christmas by making some Christmas dishes and waiting for the brownie, a helper of the Santa,  to deliver a bag of small presents, one for each and everyone. 

And what makes it so perfect this year? It is short enough for this year we will have it in the attic...

A Day at the Continent..

Every now and then we have to leave our escape and visit the mainland with a long list of to-do's and shoppings. Today was one of those days. We wake up early and to make it all the way to Parainen, Pargas -  one and a half hours journey and two ferries - we always have with us sandwiches that we eat at the second ferry between the island of Nauvo and Parainen. And newspapers, make-up-bag to make full use of the 5 minutes crossings and sometimes tea in a thermos if we are really early.

"If you lived here, you would be at home already..." Wellcome to Korppoo!

The journey is beautiful - old oak forests, hills, bridges over to new islands. We try to see sea-eagles and at this time of the year count christmas trees. The narrow archipelago road is winding. Everyone living here carries a timetable of ferries in the car and you can guess that the next one is soon to be leaving when people start driving faster... If you have a red permit card at the window you get to drive in first - we don't so sometimes we have wait for the next one if the ferry gets too full.

One of the high-points of our busy day at the continent is the choosing of the lunch place - some people just feel happy when listening to their stomach. Today after visiting the bank, library, hard-ware-store, supermarket... my husband said he knows perfect place to eat near there. I first thought it must be a joke. No restaurant in Finland can be called The Golden Elk, Kultainen Hirvi. It did, and it was a lovely place with good food and friendly service - many Finnish meals like the baltic herrings fried in butter with mashed potatoes that I had today. So we recommend!

http://www.kultainenhirvi.fi/?o=0&k=2&s=0

Tiny tiny bathroom

Over 50 years ago the old baking oven in the kitchen had to give room for a small bathroom behind it - so instead of over 30 bread it now takes seven, and the tiny room behind it was a some kind of utilitity room with a wash-basin and our washing-machine during the first summer here.

Under 4 squaremetres of well-planned surface!

The new building-rules required though a shower inside the house if we were to have bedrooms in two floors - even if we are building a new utility-cabin, a separate house with a shower, sauna, laundry and the main DT only 8 metres from the main building. We wanted to minimize the risk of humidity in an old log-house and to have the original rooms, so the small room behind the oven was our only hope.

A steady log wall was hidden behind a plastic tile imitation

We started with the digging. No treasures but rotten timber that had to be replaced and instead of the old cement floor a sewerage system for the shower and DT to be built. 

At some point it did feel a bit challenging...

A natural air-conditioning?

The sewerage system on its way in and out..

We wanted to save the old white ceramic tiles and instead of wrapping the whole room in plastic have a good floor carpet and a shower cabin.

Wooden panelling ready and the plastic carpet ordered!

But until our new utility cabin is ready our best friends are the old sauna and the old DT, hyysikkä, even if it sometimes takes super powers - and will - to run across the yard in dark, in rain and freezing.

Afternoon light

The light seems to be so mild now when days are getting shorter. 

Every time of the day has its own light now and I especially enjoy the afternoons, a quiet moment of my own with a cup of coffee.

I have begun to find my favourite spots at this house. Though this bench in the kitchen has the same affect on everyone, please, sit down, observe or why not take a nap..

This has become a cosy corner to take my cup upstairs and the day's paper, or gather around the table with the girls to play and do homework. The old wooden sofa is made for day-dreaming and the view over the fields of Pellas in marvellous. This is the best place to see elks and deer, sometimes a fox.

And if I am really lucky I get some company to share my cup with.