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.

Our Easter Story

Our Easter begins on Palm Sunday with decorating home and entrance by the village road - and hoping the Easter grass has had time to grow - I use the barley seeds because  they grow long and steady with a beautiful water drop on top of them in the mornings just like summer dew...

This year we had birthday party of our 3-year-old and had an extra reason to celebrate.

I think it is important  to have both ordinary pleasant days with routines and days with special meaning and traditions. With children it has been easy to start traditions of our own and I enjoy myself, too, sometimes perhaps even more than the younger ones. 

To explain children - and grown-ups, too - why we are celebrating certain days this book has been wonderful. It is a Bible for kids with humorous pictures and an easy text to read aload. 

As a new day of Easter passes we decorate the grass with symbols that we pick from the story read that day. 

Yesterday was the last supper on Maundy Thursday.

And today we remembered the Good Friday.

Tomorrow we add a tomb with big stones but forget the religious part of Easter for a while - it is the day of old Finnish traditions of small witches called trulli. Trullis go from house to house with decorated willow branches and hope to switch the branch into a sweet to their coffee-pots... In the evening we are going to have a bonfire on our field, a tradition at our home-area Ostrobothnia. 

Village witches year 2010 - let's hope we get some visiting this year, too!

Alan miehiä ja naisia - the fans of the DT!

We had been living in a rented house next to Pellas for months but since March-April 2011 we got too home-sick. So every evening we cleaned the day's building dust away, put our sleeping-bags on the floor and filled our hot-water-bottles... We had still plastic covers at the windows but the old ovens did their best to keep us warm.

Olimme olleet kuukausia evakossa remontin tieltä, mutta nyt emme malttaneet enää. Maalis-huhtikuusta 2011 lähtien asettelimme iltaisin patjamme sahanpurua lakaisten ja hämähäkkejä hätistellen. Ja niin kuin englantilaiset tekevät vetoisia taloja ja käyttävät kuumavesipulloja, mekin. Kömmimme nukkumaan hölskyvät putelit kainalossa, kakluulit hehkuivat kamareissa ja suojamuovit heiluivat ikkunoissa, kun mereltä nousi tuuli. Päivällä ei aina uskonut, että illalla pärjäisi vain tuplavillasukin. Se oli vuosi sitten...

Kitchen in the spring 2011. We sat in our sleeping-bags in the evening and read brochures. We had  to decide what kind of toilet and water-cleaning system we would choose. The more we read the more we understood that ours would be the DT and a system of small biological purification plant. Water is so crusial for us humans - there are already wars fought for water. Over half of our bodies is water. 

Muovi pullisteli. Me levitimme makuupussien päälle sänkylukemista ja ahmimme DT-tietoutta. Vertailimme, opimme ja ihastuimme. Tämä on meidän juttumme! DT, Dry Toilet eli kotokieleksi kuivakäymälä on nykypäivän moderniteetti, jonka ystävillä on yhdistyskin. Vesivessoja käytettiin jo ennen ajanlaskun alkua mm. indus-kulttuurissa ja Rooman valtakunnassa, mutta water closetien totinen aika alkoi viktoriaanisesta Englannista. Nykyihmisen näkökulmasta ne ovat siis historiallisia. 

They had water-closets already in the ancient Indus culture and in Rome, although the modern ones were introduced in the Victorian England - so history! It is always short of water in the archipelago, and when we counted that with a family of this size we would need over 100 000 litres clean water only to flush the toilet, we were convinced that the dry toilets - that even have their own fan-club in Finland - would be the most modern solution.

Turkulainen DT-alan mies näyttää meille omin kourin, että multaa siitä tulee kovimmastakin keitoksesta! Liemet voi laimentaa, ja joku neropatti on keksinyt niitä varten oman kannun. Kultainen Suihku kourassa voi sitten pirskotella kovettua kasvuvoimaa pitkin kasvitarhaa vähän salaattipenkkiä vain vältellen.

Our purification system was installed - the three green pots -  and pipe lines from the DTs inside the houses during summer 2011. The owner of Pikku Vihreä showed us litteraly with his own hands how everything eventually turns into soil that you can then use in your garden.

And the urine you can mix with water and fertilize your land - perhaps a bit avoid the sallads.. - after 2 months of rest in a barrel. And some wise-guy had even invented a watering-can called the Golden Shower! Our big green pot under-ground has to be emptied once a year by a waste collection firm. The whole system was easy and cheap thanks to the dry toilets and the using of environmental friendly products in cleaning.

Vedestä soditaan jo tällä pallolla. Elämää ei ole ilman vettä, ja meistä ihmisistä yli puolet on sitä. Vaikka meillä suomalaisilla riittää vettä pyttyyn asti, täällä saaristossa makeaa vettä on niukalti. Laskimme omaa suurperhekulutustamme. Kun pelkkä vessavesilukema vuodessa nousi yli sadantuhannen litran, DT-läisyytemme vahvistui. Jätevesijärjestelmästäkin tuli helppo ja halpa. On niitä pyttyjä muuten city-malleinakin, vaikka me päädyimme purutettuun jättisaavisysteemiin, sattuneesta syystä.

In our tiny bathroom inside the house we chose a small dry-toilet model.  It is simple and clean, and meant for an extreme hurry, rainy days or dark nights. 

Just in case our guests are not so used to visiting a DT we wrote some instructions on the door. ..

In all the other cases it is to run across the yard to the big DT, by the old barn. That is EXTREME on a different scale. On windy days you won't even need any toilet paper... This is the main DT until  the new one will be built ready - hopefully by next winter!

The big pot underneath is replaced after becoming full and is waiting to turn into a gardening product... Same kind of system will be used in the new DT, too. The piss is collected in a barrel to fertilize the garden this spring.

Me isot nautimme aamu- ja iltakylvystä käyttäen vanhan saunan pesuvateja, on savun tuoksua iltapesulla ja hilpaisua yli pihan hyysikkään. Katselemme uusin silmin sisävessoja, ja kirjoitamme kauppalistaan munakellon. Suihkusta seonneet teinilotraajat kuitenkin nauttivat myös juoksevasta vedestä, eivätkä muuten osaa ulos kaapista. Meilläkin soditaan vedestä!

We grown-ups enjoy the simple pleasures of the old sauna, smell of the smoke, run over the yard in a star-clear night. The teenagers prefer the small shower-cabin inside the house. But we need to get a timer - they would stand there for ages and the boiler is tiny - so we fight for the water, too...

 ... And for those of you who got interested:) http://www.pikkuvihrea.fi/ - ours is the Green Toilet 330 and inside the house Separett Villa. And the club: http://www.huussi.net/