Our door-bells...

Owen and Laara, the best door-bells ever...

It was useless to worry that some of the floors that got new flooring would look too fresh. The minute there is even a small noise from the veranda, perhaps someone coming, we are being alarmed... These two run and skate and try to win each other on their way to the hall, jump over toys, try to make the curves straight - and leave behind them deep marks on the floor panel... What if they start looking older than the house?

The Yarn Man

It is like a wind-mill with its wings.

"Yoo-hoo? Is someone at home?"

"Yes, I am! Who is disturbing my peace since.."

Since... 

" I used to count the rounds when making the skeins and announce it with my pointers - now missing - and by popping up from my window."

"I am retired now.. Just keep those nosy little children off from my wings and close the window, please. Some respect if I may ask!"

"Yes, of course, I'm sorry.. I'll dust you with a gentle hand."

They knew how to make even the ordinary things beautiful and every-day chores amusing. These rustic antique utencils are amazing - functional and lovely for the eye. I wish we had as clever hands and jovial minds when making our modern gimmicks... 

Books for the stormy days...

Our New Year's divination promised some of us problems - a peanut, some are waiting for money - a coin, some are afraid of the waiting poverty - a piece of dried bread. And the lucky one who got the barbie's shoe will be the party queen of the year... We had our traditional "The Cups Will Tell" -game on New Year's Eve at home with the family and always write down the results. It is funny then before the next game to see how it actually went.

Now we have all been on a flu, been coughing like in a sanatorium and filled our days with games, books and films.

Today we needed some filling in our shelves - especially when the weather forecast promised us a new storm and probably new power cuts. So it will be reading in the candel light then...

We have a small but very good public library on our island and a friendly librarian who helps to find some reading, remembers what you especially like and for the teenagers who just gobble books she orders from other libraries. Libraries are something very Finnish and to me personally a magic place since my childhood. All my children have got an own card when they have learnt to read and that has been a big and exciting day. I still remember my first day as a real customer...

There began my gobbling age...

My today's prey:)

I took a head start already today with a new book by a Finnish Jari Tervo. Layla is a story of a young Kurd girl who ends up in Finland - it is touching and a strong statement for the rights of women. I am afraid I  can't sleep before the last page tonight... 

First Snow on the Last Day of the Year..

Suddenly we remembered that we had forgotten to take up the leeks. 

The mild long autumn had been on our side when the renovation and the garden and everything had taken its time this year and when our only possibility to wash ourselves has meant a brisk run over the yard to the old sauna. So on the last day of this year we fetched the last harvest of the year.

We were very thankful for the deer that they had left us this much to have in the cellar - our favourite are the sandwiches with butter, mustard and leek plus a lot of cheese grilled in the oven. 

And that we remembered our pour leeks - it was the first snow... Beautiful big flakes and suddenly there was so much light and the feeling of winter when the sound of snow under the boots. 

What else have we forgotten, I don't know. Let's hope we can still save it tomorrow.

Happy New Year from Pellas!

Lights on!

We have twenty liters water all the time in big kettles on the wooden stove, batteries for the flash lights, matches and candles, canned food and juice, a generator at the shopping list. We are prepared but this latest storm lasted for hours. Our christmas tree had fallen by the village road - though it was quite a small misfortune compared with that the 23 metres high Christmas tree in Helsinki had fallen, too and compared to people who had had trees fallen on their house.

We had electricity off over 16 hours and got it back just in time to keep my 20 kg meat frozen - I had filled our storage before Christmas.. We buy all our meat from a fabulous local farm Nystu Lantbruk that has their sheep and cows grazing at the forest and meadows by the sea in Wattkast village in Korppoo. I didn't want to loose my steaks!

It's our fortune that we have a wooden stove to cook on and the other ovens keep us warm. It is cosy to sit in the candel light but a bit difficult to actually do something. So we were getting a bit bored with the dim atmosphere when we decided to take the car and drive to centrum of our island and to church to sing Christmas carols. We could see which of the houses were out of electricity because there were no X-mas lights, only a weak candel light from the windows. 

In the centrum and church they had electricity, so people sat on their seats and enjoyed singing both old and new carols. Then in the middle of the Silent Night the church went dark. The organ faded away. People continued to sing. I was moved and all the complexities that we had had without running water, difficulties to do every day chores became unforgettable. 

When writing this I can hear our roof banging again and I know many on our island are still sitting by the candel light, so I hope it won't get so bad  during the night. We have been working outdoors for hours today saving our building material when the tent over them had flown away. Please, no suprises next morning... And we haven't lifted up the Christmas tree yet, just in case.

Seeing stars...

The Christmas chores are extra joyful so the days have been quite long when baking and finishing the presents - decorating the cards, writing poems. Everything is almost ready now for the Christmas to begin.  One more poem left for the present hiden behind the green house..  The rhythm of our day is usually peaceful and now our steps are getting even slowlier, eyes follow a raven flying over the field to the forest and the carring of water to the sauna, hay to the sheep and firewood inside are calming routines.

Some Christmas routines make you jump up in the morning like the advent calenders for the children, we adults share a calender on the kitchen wall. The most popular suprises have been cards like "Today you get to choose the dinner" - we have had fish and chips quite often now...

On Advent Sundays we have sung a special song, one new verse every Sunday. The song tells how a candel is lit, how the Christmas is nearer every week and how the light is growing and we are waiting. And on every Sunday we light one more candel. Now we have all the four candels burning - and together eight verses sang because we sing on the both languages of our family,  in Swedish and Finnish.

And the Christmas holidays of school have begun! This year  the celebration at school was nominated to light and winter because school wanted to arrange it also to non-christian pupils. I missed the gospel and the angels but otherwise the celebration was warm and the pupils had prepared a wonderful program, decorated the festival hall and baked hundreds of ginger-bread cookies themselves.

We even got to see one of the short-films the pupils had made during this autumn at the YoBaNa -project school is attending, a lovely animation film about the sea - I hope they will soon have it at their YouTube-page. Have a look at their other films! We parents have been very proud of them...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB6731041813CAACD&feature=plcp

What I have enjoyed most during the past days are the stars. Jupiter is very bright here, the star of Bethlehem. Orion is near the horizon on the eastern sky. It is like a puzzle when you find one it is easy to find the next one. When lifting your gaze up from the chores to the stars all the hurry seems useless and all the things undone are forgotten. Let's just breathe... Have a

Merry Christmas!


ps. If you want to find the stars, too: http://www.ursa.fi/taivaalla/tahtikartta/ 

Tree Falling!!

Odd things happen when you get divorced and this is one of them. After my first marriage I inherited the chain-saw like some people get the sailing-boat or the volvo. I never used it for almost ten years - until now.

My Husqvarna

This autumn I have attended a course as a part of my agricultural studies in forest management. I have learnt  a lot about wooding and cutting, special areas to protect and how to stretch between the jobs -
fabulous vhs-videos from the 80's and sweaty evenings in the forest in action!

You learn by doing - so true - for example I was heading with a Valmet tractor of school up a steep slope  that was muddy and slippery to fetch some trunks. I had the first gear on because I was terrified the tractor would fall but it moved slowlier and slowlier even if I pressed the pedal as hard as I could - until our teacher jumped to the cabin and said if I tried the gas instead of the brake...

We were to have a test and I seemed to need some practising, so we headed to our own forest with my chain saw. We needed to take down few trees because we will hire parking and boat places next summer for those cabin owners who have their cabins on islands.

I got down two, it was exciting and fun.  I am now eager to start practising more but I need to get a protection outfit.

And I got through my test at school. The teacher said I should try and play the lottery, too, because I really had luck on my side that the tree fell and to the right direction. He had already started to look for an excape...