The Reading Challenge 2026 - Part 2

This year in March-June I've read two fat and two skinny (compared to the fat ones) books. All in Finnish and each mine, but 3 of them are vintage and pre-read.

I've read:

T.I. Itkonen's Suomen lappalaiset part 1 and 2. They are huge folklore books about Sámi people in Finland. Also Forest Sámi people are included in these over 1000 pages. Unfortunately Itkonen's books are not available in English. They are very comprehensive and informative books about Sámi people written by an outsider but still one that was part of the Sámi society. He was for about 8 years old when his family moved from South Finland up to Inari, Lapland, when his father received there a job as a local vicar.

Guiseppe Acerbi's Matka halki Suomen v. 1799. That is a part of his book Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland to the North Cape that considers Finland. That complete book might be interesting to all and available in several languages. Again, when reading this kind of book, remember it is written by an outsider to outsiders. But it still expresses his own private experiences on his travels and he has seen what he has been shown. That's only the part of the truth, but it is his part of it. Also, because it was written 200 years ago, that creates another interesting aspect to the story.

Juhani Torkki's Plutarkhos mielen tyyneydestä. Even this book is in Finnish it actually is a translation of ancient Greek philosopher Plutarkhos' essays about the peace of mind. It is an ancient mindfulness that still works in this modern world. It is amazing that his 2000 yrs old ideas are still valid and still human nature needs practice in these skills. I received this book as a gift from YoungLady who moved out to study ancient Greek 5 yrs ago. 

Here you can find her Barchelor's thesis.

Here you can find her Master's thesis.

They both are in Finnish but I bet that google translate can understand it better than ancient Greek. They both are about horses: the former about the role of horses in book four of Xenophon's Cyropaedia (which is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great) and the latter is about latin loanwords used by Apsyrtos (who was a renowed horse doctor) in  Hippiatrica (which is the only surviving work on Greek hippiatrics). The topic of horses and hippiatrics has attracted relatively little academic interest. So if you are interested in horses and ancient history, you might be interested in trying to read these with the help of translator. Hopefully she'll get the funding (and a topic!) for her dissertation.

StateOfMind

Welcome to MidSummer fest. It isn't just a day, weekend or a party. It is a state of mind. An occasion that bases on the cycle of the nature. Usually many preparations precede it. One is all the spring work you need to do after the winter. Inside and outside. Including cleaning your home decor textiles. 

I usually wash the rugs outdoors by myself. This time I tried out something else because of the creepy chilly weather. I did wash one by the sea shore but it was cold even for me. In Kemi opened new self service laundry 24 Pesula. We have never had anything like that. A year ago 24 Pesula opened in Tornio but I never tested it. I was planning but it was a happy surprise when I heard it opens now one in Kemi too. I can't wash our down jackets and blankets at home so I need a laundry service for that. Using 24 Pesula was easy, fast and happened then when it was best time for me. After trying it out with my down jacket I washed also the rugs there. I really am going to use the self service laundry also in the future and feel very cosmopolitan when doing so! Wow!

The spring work in the garden includes investigating and fixing the possible winter damages. It is always a bit exciting to see what has happen in your garden after at least 6 months of hiding it under the snow and ice. This year I have been a bit worried because we had so little snow to protect the vegetation from the frost. They even warned about it on the news in February and told if your apple trees didn't die yet they will die now. Fortunately my arctic garden is old and been on a freezing place for 80 yrs. Only thing that has faced the winter damages are my strawberry beds. But that is something we can cope with. We've re-arranged them and reduced the number of the plants. That was our plan anyway because our garden is going through some changes in the future. This summer we continue from it where it all was left last year. Without any stress. With a hope "no disaster" this year.

People who have at least some kind of place outside where to put summer flowers, do so at least for the Mid Summer Fest. I always grow and buy pansies (violets) for my garden decoration. They are not wimps. They stand well the freezing breezes from the Gulf of Bothnia. Even a bit frost. When I just pick up the fading ones they bloom all the way to mid autumn.

Children -mainly girls- love to wear flower garlands. I learnt to make them already as a small child with my grandma. She taught me also the traditional Sámi MidSummer magic with the flowers. I don't share it here in my blog because it is traditional and cultural information and heritage. You share it only within the family.

In Forest Sámi culture you share your fortune with your special ones. My grandchild received this sculpt as a gift from a Forest Sámi artist KuukkeliUkko when she was born. Since that it has been sitting on our front door stairs, no matter the season. To her -and all of us- it is a living creature called Marja-peikko (Berry-troll). Traditionally Sámi people start to increase children's wealth right when they are born to make sure they don't need to live in the poverty. Sharing and giving back are the traditional Forest Sámi ways, not being greed. That's why you learn sharing and giving already as a child. My grandchild loves to share things with Marja-peikko. We have celebrated even its birthday this year!

Part of our MidSummer work is also "puusavotta". It includes two words puu and savotta. Puu is a very old Finno-Ugric word puwe for "wood, tree". Savotta is a Russian origin word from zavod (завод) which originally means "factory, sawmill". In Finnish savotta means "forestry workside, forest logging" but in daily use people use the word savotta to describe any kind of huge and long term work that demands a lot of either physical or mental -usually both- power. When you heard someone to talk about "puusavotta" it means their preparation for the next winter fire wood storage. 

In our case it means our annual fire wood delivery arrival from a local small business. That's 12 m3 of chopped 33 cm long fire wood (usually birch) dumped on our driveway. It, like many other thing in our traditional life style, follows the cycle of the nature. It arrives every year by the MidSummer when it doesn't rain according to the forecast in few days -or rains as little as possible. And when that happens, everything else stops until it all is piled in the wood shed and secured from getting wet in the rain. Depending on the weather and how many people can participate on it determines for how long it takes. This year it took two after work evenings. We piled it into our new wood shed.

You know we have Forest of our own. But that's not for the fire wood. We still keep on buying our fire wood. This year our fire wood was cut down just 1 km far away in our neighbor village where they need to cut down some trees by the sea shore and houses for better infrastructure. A local small business does all the work and we buy the result: the firewood. 

WeavingTools

I usually never have time to go shopping just to hang around. Yesterday I happened to drive by a local Goodwill charity shop that had opening at the new place. I pop in just for the support. I don't buy distaffs at second hand but I do have 2 of them. Now I found this distaff and decided to buy it just for the support. It laid next to the wooden warping paddle. They both looked old, vintge, miserable and worn out. I brought them home just with 5 €. I cleaned them and oiled with the Macadamia nut oil like I did with the Wind Catcher. Just look how beautiful they are now.

Someone would say this is not a warping paddle but a spaghetti serving size measuring tool. I don't know about that. All I know is that these were used as a warping tool around here when the spaghetti was not here yet. And many were hand made and home crafted. It might be a multi-functional object / design! 😁

Pegs

This is my very old peg basket. It is almost 30 years old. It has finally faced the end of its time. The plastic has weaken so much that every time I just look at it, small plastic pieces falls off. I've been seeking a new one, actually for a year by now. The problem is they don't sell baskets for pegs without pegs. I don't need pegs. I need the basket. I have been looking different kind of options but each one would have needed some DIY extra.

That's why I ended up to design my own one and crochet it. I used loose end weft from YoungLady's rug project. I am satisfied with the result and it works well. I hope it to last the next +25 years!

DogWoolVest

After 3 years it is here: dogwool (chiengora) vest for Him. Made of our own arctic dogs' wool. All in natural shades. I didn't card the fibers. I wanted to use it all just in the way how it pops out to reach a lively surface for the vest.

If you don't card it, it causes the uneven structure. It is difficult to spin but the result is lively. Also, because it is uneven you can notice unbalance of the twist in the yarn to go this and that way in the knitwear. And no, I didn't plan any single stripe. It all is like it came out from the fur bag when I spun. I designed it, I spun it, I knit it but Nuka and Pii gave the fibers for it. It is slow craft and FashionNOW. A very sustainable garment!