sunday evenings

bread and tea. knitting and a streamed sermon. sunday evenings and slowness. some things just go together.

winter walks

I have been sick all week and finally had the energy today that I have been craving. It's not totally back, but at least I got to go for a couple long walks. One in the forest, and one in the valley. Both near my house and equally nice (though the forest is so dark, and in the winter I tend to not gravitate in that direction). These horses faithfully search the ground for something to eat.....something amid the rock-hard, dead, snow-covered field. poor things. I wish I had a few animals to take care of. I crave some good old outdoor chores.

I am almost done knitting a sweater/jacket which I started on this day in December:

Yes, it was Christmas day in SC, and it was gloriously warm. We played tennis later. ahh! the life. But I do love winter, and boy does it make spring SO appreciated. I've been back in Sweden for 3 weeks now, and I'm missing immensly that wonderful time with family, friends, dear church fellowship, and delightful southern accents. It's been back to the darkness, and to the teaching duties for me. But I've been able to squeeze in the knitting, and I'm lighting candles, and I have a couple new mix cds from a friend....songs for the soul.

How do you transition from the after-holiday time back to the everyday?

Sunny South Carolina

I promise this is the last photo i'll snag off someone else. (but isn't it nice? edisto beach, sc) The word on the street is that i may finally be the owner of a digital camera around the 25th of this month. Then i have the lofty goal of becoming a regular blogger. I know, it may be hard to believe, because i've promised it before and always seem to end up with .....nearly a month.....between my posts. But with my own camera i feel certain everything will change. I can't wait to document more of my everyday life here in sweden both for you readers and for myself to be sure and capture this particular, special time in my life.

The point of this post is to say that i am leaving TOMORROW for SC. Sunny, south carolina that is. These days i can't seem to say one without the other. i know it's not always true, but indeed from my perspective the sky is definitely sunnier on the other side. It has been a year since i've seen dad, luke, calvin, harry, caroline. 9 months since i've seen becca and mom. a year and a half since i've seen joe. too long....far too long. though i am grateful for what i have. That I have such a wonderful family that i want to be with all the time. That both me and my älskling can afford a place ticket. That we get to have 24 blissful days in a row together....full force, focused, concentrated time together.

The snow is falling outside my window now. That makes the winter darkness a lot less dark and much more beautiful. Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a blessed season.

Sunny SC here i come!!

european boy

This picture is from the wonderful film Le Ballon rouge, or The Red Balloon. It is a 34 minute short film about a boy befriending a red balloon and the 2 of them having adventures through the streets of Paris. Highly recommended. Last year when I was home for Christmas I saw this and several other short films at the Peace Center in Greenville with Cate and friends...fun times!

Last week I was reading The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson and smiled when I read a particular paragraph.....this is for all my American friends who have a hankering for Europe every now and then. These days my thoughts are on America and home and all the wonderful things about my home country. But when I am home, it happens that I long for the smaller streets, the better cheese, the bicycles.
Bryson writes about himself as a young, Iowa boy:
"From that moment on, I wanted to be a European boy. I wanted to live in an apartment across from a park in the heart of a city, and from my bedroom window look out on a crowded vista of hills and roof-tops. I wanted to ride trams and understand strange languages. I wanted friends named Wermer and Marco who wore short pants and played soccer in the street and owned toys made of wood. I cannot for the life of me think why. I wanted my mother to send me out ot buy long loaves of bread from a shop with a wooden pretzel hanging above the entrance."

The Librarian

I met a librarian today. Well, a soon-to-be librarian. Alexandra is studying Library Science at Uppsala University, and she helped me track down some of Bill Bryson's books in the maze that is the humanities library in town. I was always highly confused with the Dewey Decimal system as a kid and had just started to figure it out when I moved abroad where they have a completely different way of organizing books. In our search for Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, she asked if i was from America, and when I said yes, South Carolina, I was surprised to see her face react with excited surprise instead of the dull unrecognition I am used to getting. She is in fact leaving in 2 weeks for a library internship at the College of Charleston, and as we spoke I tried to think of what to recommend for her to see. The weather will be a highlight, as we have had fallish, greyish, cool weather since the middle of August, and I am sure the South Carolina beaches will still be warmer than a Swedish summer. Charleston is a beautiful city to explore, one i loved as a child because of those cobblestone streets that made it feel thousands of years old. (and that pinneapple water fountain....how cool was that!) I told her she ought to check out the fall colors of western North Carolina, to which she asked the logical (to the European mind) question of "Is there a good train system? ....busses?" Well, not really, i said. Unfortunatly everyone just drives cars. With some hope i suggested she rent a car since it's fairly inexpensive. She doesn't have a liscense though, having never really needed one. So, my question for my SC readers is...does anyone know of a good non-car way to get around our great state? Surely there is a bus or train I have just never looked for before?

a week with Marco the goat farmer

Up in the hills of the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy there lies a farm. On this farm there are several beautifully-dilapidated stone houses, about 200 chocolate-colored-brown goats, and the farmer Marco, a crazy young Italian man who transforms his goats' milk into the most delicious cheese. For the past 10 days Erik and I have been wwoofing on his farm. WWOOF is an organization which brings organic farmers who need some extra help in touch with folks who are seeking an adventure in agriculture and who want to have free room and board. (for more about wwoof check out: http://www.wwoof.it/gb/about.html)

I regret not writing about my last week in Sweden, which was spent on a beautiful tiny island called Fårö, pictured below:

I spent a lovely 10 days there with Erik's family, seeing a place so near to his heart, where he has spent nearly a month of every summer since he was born.

But now, Itlay. We flew directly from the island to Milano, then took a train to Bologna. From there we took a bus to the tiny town of San Prospero, though we nearly didn't make it since our bus driver seemed to have never heard of the town. We were helplessly lacking in the Itlalian language when we arrived and are faring only a bit better now. I do feel a bit ashamed at not preparing for this HUGE part of being in another country, called communication, yet i suppose i say my excuse was a busy spring and the fact that i'm still plugging away at my 2nd language, Swedish. So we arrived in the evening at the bus stop, got picked up by another wwoofer, and saw the farm for the first time....it is extremly picturesque as to be expected. By the end of our first evening here, we knew we were in for a good time. Before Marco got home from market, we munched on fresh bread with several kinds of goat cheese to choose from, local wine, and sweet, seasonal fruit. (finally i'm eating peaches again!!) Marco came home bringing with him another wwoofer, Emily from New Zeeland, who arrived the same evening. He gave us a friendly hello, told us to eat and drink whatever we wanted, then turned up The Police in the kitchen and made us a late-dinner of amazing pasta, bitter salad greens, tomatoes....yum. And chocolate and grappa to finish off the meal. Erik and I only had to give each other a knowing glance during the night to say, "cool.....this is going to be great."

Well, of course we have worked. We have taken turns milking about 120 goats 2x a day. We have helped make cheese, mowed the grass, cleared in the forest, weeded the vegetable garden. We have become dirty and goaty at the end of the days, but in between all this work we have laughed, ate the most delicious meals in the world (have i forgotten to say that the 2 other wwoofers are basically professional chefs?!), and taken long siestas.....so long we almost wonder if we're being lazy, then we look for the others and realize everyone is sleeping. :) The Italians are wonderful people. Full of expression, emotion, chaos....everything that the Swedes aren't. It is a refreshing change, though a little tough to get used to hearing them explode at one another, but when they make up and laugh after 3 mintues we realize maybe it's just one of those billions of cultural differences that exist between people on this earth.

A lot has happened during 10 days, but we're told it's been a typical week. Here is some of the drama that has unfolded: I cut my eye (it's better now), Carlo the worker got a nail through his foot, the dog Tommy (the sweetest, biggest, gentle giant in the world.....we love you tommy!!!) had his tail run over while taking his siesta under the market van, we threw a party for 100 of Marco's farmer friends, making homemade, brick oven pizza, listening to italian folk music, and trying out some traditional dancing. and drinking lots of wine. To continue....the inspectors came to check the cheese room so we spent a frantic day cleaning to pass inspection, the pipe broke yesterday which takes the milk to the cheese making room (do we have a word for this in english?) and all 300 liters of milk was lost, Marco's extended family stayed for 2 days and we served food for 14, and....well, that's all I can think of for now.

We are leaving today for a second farm 2 hours from here, going west heading towards the coast. We hope it can live up to our high expectations we have now, and we hope we are offered as much wine and grappa, and homemade gellato. We will miss the goats, and Marco and his crew and remember them fondly.....ciao!!

Spring soup: a recipe

I realize all of you gardeners out there reading this are far ahead of me in the harvest....i am aware i'm only just now enjoying what your tongues tasted weeks ago. I heard a report yesterday that the Wrights in SC are enjoying zuccinni. yes, those days in the 90s certainly help. Nevertheless, i was in the garden yesterday evening, thoroughly loving the cool evening air and the quiet (Sweden was playing a fotball match against Greece in the European finals and every person in the country was glued to their tv but me), and I was inspired to cook a soup from my small though exciting growing garden. There is no need to wait for the big showy veggies of summer like tomatoes and squash to enjoy your garden. As I filled an empty pot with the greens and herbs I picked, the smell was intoxicating....the essence of spring. Here is the recipe, and maybe you who are in warmer climates can store this in your memory for next year

Spring Soup

1. Go out to the garden and harvest what you can of any green or herb. Even if the plants are small, you can take a couple leaves without harming its growth. My bowl was filled with a few leaves of the following: kale, collards, spinach, lettuce, basil, cilantro, and 1 radish.
2. Wash and chop finely all that was harvested. Boil this together with water (maybe 4 cups for every 2 cups of greens), some bouillon (not much, you want the flavor of the greens to take center stage), 1 clove garlic, and enough salt to taste.
3. Boil for just a couple minutes, then let simmer for a few more. Not much time is needed. Then sit down and enjoy this deeply green, nutrient dense, fresh soup

I also made 4, 0.5 liter bottles of rhubarb saft recently. Saft was a new thing for me when I moved to Sweden, but it is the common drink of kids and adults alike here. It is basically a condensed juice which you buy or make in small bottles, then dilute yourself every time you want a glass. Hmm......it's hard to explain. Here is a picture:


You can make saft out of any berry or fruit. Rhubarb is coming out of our ears here so that is what i chose. Here is the recipe I followed:
Rhubarb saft
2.2 pounds rhubarb
1 cup water
1.5 cups sugar

Chop the rhubarb and boil it with the water for 10 minutes, or until it is soft and broken down.
Drain this thick, fruity mixture through a cheese cloth or regular dish towel for approx. 20 min or until all the liquid has drained out.
Boil this liquid with the sugar until the sugar has disolved, then fill a clean .5 liter jar with this thick, almost syrupy looking saft!
This keeps forever in the fridge, and when ready to drink, mix about 2 T. in a glass with cold water. Just test the amount yourself and decide how sweet you want the drink to be. I think it's nice when it's not too sweet.

Other news...Erik and I leave in just 1 week for Gotland!! I'll write more on that later....and after this short trip we'll head to Italy for a month of working on 3 different organic farms there, including (we hope) drinking wine under the evening Tuscan sun. :) We are really looking forward to the education we will receive from this ancient and far under-valued method of simple apprenticeship, involving direct teaching from an experienced person to an eager learner.