Water

At late autumn 2023 we had some exciting moments in our garden. I ordered 4 concrete well rings (size 1 m diameter, á 420 kg) which were delivered on our driveway at late September. We had exciting moments because we feared the frost arrive before the digger. In that case the rings would have got frozen on our drive way and been there until the next summer. The digger arrived actually only few days before the frost in late October 2023.

I wanted the well to be built at the furthest corner in my garden, because when we moved in there was a tiny duck pond with real ducks. We filled it because wild ducks and hunting dogs are not very mindfulness combination in your garden. It's not relaxing to the ducks, dogs or me. The pond was natural and just 2 m2. It is the part of our property where used to be a swamp. So I knew there will be a proper source of the water. And that's why I wanted the well to be dig there. 

Because of Poor Pii we didn't do much in our garden last summer. This summer the project well has taken few steps forward. We did got water into it immediately but only now have started to decorate it. On the video you can see how to get the water up and how bright it is. If you drop the bucket upside down into well it gets filled up easier.

Our water it is not suitable for drinking. We use it to water our garden. Because of the climate change and sustainability we wanted to have the water source of our own and free access to it anytime. In our arctic garden we grow mainly plants for our food. We do have flowers too, but they all are planted with the idea to create habitat areas for pollinators from May to September (October), when they can fly. In a sustainable garden you need to provide all year around sanctuary for the creatures to make them stay.

Later I will show you how the decoration of the well turns out.

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. 

WindCatcher

I love wind catchers. This one I have bought a very long time ago at second hand. It has been scaring bad creatures away from our property until last year when it lost one part of it. I found it and took it all down to make sure nothing else will be lost. Since that I have been seeking a thread to fix it. Nothing was found until now. 

See, I wanted to use UV-resistant thread to make sure it will last even longer after I fix it. Wet cloth and these were all I needed. The tread is a fishing hook cord. I bought it at our super market's fishing department.

At first I took few proper pics of it by my smart phone to make sure I can put it all up again. Then I unwind it all and wipe by a wet cloth. I love the impression how the time and the weather has applied the metal parts so I didn't do anything special to them.

I oiled the wooden parts by a nut oil I found in my kitchen! I gave a nice look for the wooden parts. Also this is real FashionNOW. There was no need to throw the broken wind catcher away. It still plays a beautiful sound so I just fixed it.

To create even more power to its protective feature I added some traditional shiny Sámi culture element by a mirror glass. I used a glue to attach the glass on the both sides of the lowest wooden part. It should be frost resistant but we'll see that in the future.

OctoberWeekend

This October weekend I have been quite busy. I have been doing traditional Sámi craft which results you will see later. This is a fur of a wild mink my father-in-law caught and made ready for the use.

I've also designed a new tablet weave band and made the warp for it already. It is going to be something special for my father-in-law. Don't tell him! It's a gift.

It has been dry an beautiful so we went to the sea shore to collect some sea grass. The autumn has been warm and we have not got the 1st snow yet despite it already is October. 

He needs sea grass to refill His decoys. He hunts black grouses by decoys. What is that? We'll, in decoy hunting you set up stuffed fake black grouses on the top of the trees. The real ones think "oh, there's a great place to eat" so they come to land on those trees. And that's how you get them caught for the food. But He needs to fix the black grouse decoys a bit because last season He faced a demolish. A white-tailed eagle also thought they were real and attacked at the decoys. The white-tailed eagle was quite confused and did everything it could to get the decoys but at the end it needed to give up and fly to find real food.

We are drying the sea grass on our bathroom floor by the stove. It works well. Soon He can finish fixing the decoys.

From this you can be sure the climate change is here and true. This sun flower blooms with few fellows in my arctic garden. The remarkable thing is that it is spontaneous and not planted. It is nearby our bird feeding place where we feed birds over the winter season. But it is a shadowy place and we have been feeding birds there for ages! Never before we have got any "wild" sun flower as a result even tough I know it can happen.

Despite I saw today almost full white hare (yes, they change the color of the fur coat for the winter to be safe from the predators) the frost has not arrived. We have protected our apple trees by the nets to keep hares and Roe Deer away. This may seem funny to you, but this really is necessary. Just image 1 meter high snow cover. Our apple trees don't grow much higher than a man. When there's deep snow cover on the ground the trees are partly buried in. If you protect only the stem, someone will eat the rest.

He has set my new old wooden rowing boat ready for the winter. He bought it for me from our neighbor who doesn't need it anymore. It is designed for the rivers, not the seas. I need to think where I will take it to inland because we live by the sea shore. You can notice there is a construction going in the garden which we were not able to keep on this summer because of Poor Pii. About the construction project you will hear next summer because we really can't start it now when the winter is arriving to cover the earth by the snow.

While I was looking after Poor Pii He fixed His boat but also built our new wood shed for our fire wood. Believe or not but He carried each timber over His shoulder from the street to the end of the garden (25 m) because we didn't want to damage our plants and tress because of the project. That's why He also dig the soil by tiny gardening shovel at some point because we didn't want to damage the roots of the huge old spruce that grows behind the new wood shed. The shed is built in the terms of the garden. That's why He also lift the timbers by his own hands one by one over each other all the way to the top. To avoid the damages to the trees we could not use any machinery/vehicle for the project. We are happy with the result, despite the shed looks like a brand new it also looks it has been there for the ages like the nature had already grown around it. But we just built it into the nature.  This season we don't have the time to built the stairs for the shed so this temporary solution will do just fine over the coming winter.

This weekend I have also been at the friend's farm to help with the wool and sheep. We have been sorting out the wool and kept on learning shearing the sheep. Also, meeting other old friends and making new friends. It really was empowering occasion.

Actually, my friend Elina has started a small business to run a farm holidays. You can take a look and book yourself in if interested at Farm of Old Leinonen. I've been there before and showed you around. And for sure I'll be back to gather with friends at Elina's sheep farm.

SlowCraftWool

After our angora rabbits passed away 2018 we had one last delivery of wool to the mill and received for about 10 kg AAW. On that time Liinu moved in 4 years ago. Since that I still have -like always- collected our arctic dog wool. I started to spin it 2 years ago in May 2023. Now I have spun ~500g of 100% chiengora from our own dogs' wool. I do have spun everything else too but this has been my main and long term project. 

How much I have used the time to spin this yarn? I never counted. But, a skillful spinner spins 40-6o meters of yarn in an hour. This is not an easy yarn to spin so I have used much more time to get ~50 meters than an hour. I have not calculated yet but there might be approx. 200m in 100g. Normal wool of 500g would then have appeared in ~20 hours. This is not a normal long fiber wool. 😅

Today I finally reached the point where we slowly start to see all the shades of the wool. I have washed those 4 skeins now. I used only ~50 liters of water to wash 500g of wool. It is a small amount of water to wash the wool. I did it in home industrial hand-washing way so it was possible. This really is FashionNOW and eco-friendly wool.

I hung these 4 skeins to dry outside so for that I don't need electricity. Just the wind and a bit sunshine. It is +8 Celsius degrees outside at the moment. That is enough to get it dry. But, because the drying up takes time and the birds are building their nests I need to hang up also some scarecrows to prevent them to pick up any wool from these beautiful hand spun chiengora skeins!

What I am going to make of it? A vest for Him. A very warm vest.

The problem to solve was what to use because I don't want to scare the birds away from nesting in my arctic garden. I need the birds for my biological and ecological toxic free gardening. That's why I chose 2 wind chimes you can see in the previous picture and one crystal hanger. The birds are used to the sounds of my wind chimes but still don't go close to them. This crystal hanger has been hanging in my veranda so they have seen its reflected light outside. I just moved it 4 meters and placed it outside. 

I need to pay attention and see if they scare them enough but not too much. At this time of the year the birds appear to pick up the dog wool everywhere. We also leave it outside on purpose for them to use.

HarvestSeason

The growing season in Lapland, Finland is short. Officially it is 100-140 days because it is classified to  end in autumn when the mean daily temperature drops below 5°C. It starts from the moment when the grass begins to grow and you can sow the seeds. Growing season includes the long weeks you need to wait does it begin to grow or not. I always think if I can make it in 3-3½ months I could try it out. 

The growing season is challenging for many plants because we have the MidnightSun which all the plants (or flowers) can't stand. Many can adapt the cooler climate but most not the MindightSun because it means they get no darkness or rest hours during the day. And when the darkness begins to fall it happens fast and starts to cover the world like a blanket. 

Here where I live the harvest season begins with the berries in July. First we start to get the strawberries in the garden, then cloud berries in the wild swamps. The blue berries (my favorite) follow. Because we follow the traditional lifestyle the season is very busy to collect all the berries for the winter. During the winter time -what comes to the greens- we buy mainly potatoes, onions and bananas at the shop. 

We have also traditional common hop crowing in the garden. It's very beautiful and actually the only proper creeper plant that grows here successful year after year and reaches even 4 meters height over the growing season. 

When I was doing this a child asked if I was making weed, meaning d***s. My reply was: "Sort of." 😂 Every year I grow also nettle in my garden. It is, especially its seeds are, superfood. I take only the seeds for the nutrition. I mix max 5 ml as a daily portion into my gluten free bread to get enough FE (iron) and other vitamins to my challenging diet. Like I do with the fireweed. Both nettle and fireweed are nutritious greens for a diet but also good plants for natural dyes. 

I've picked up also tansy blossoms (Tanacetum vulgare). Tansy is an excellent plant for natural dyes to get yellow color. 

This summer I collect natural dyes also for my students for the coming season classes. That´s why I dry them for the further use. Did you know that fresh full blooming tansy scents like chamomile? You can use it also for sachets.

GlutenFreeIreland

I was in Erasmus+ funded Europass education Learning and acting for a better future in Dublin, Ireland. Because of the connections I arrived to Ireland 1.6. and left 10.6. You know I need to follow gluten free diet. When you travel gluten free because of a permanent state of a coeliac disease it challenges your daily routines and feeling of security. I need to follow 3 other diets too but 2 of them are are more like "sustaining" and 1 is absolutely "no" because of a serious allergy. That means I have 2 absolutely no diets and 2 of which I can flex a bit in needed because of the other 2. When travelling, these 2 usually needs to flex a bit but not daily and more that 3 day at time. So, there's a lot of thinking, arranging and preparations for every day of travelling when we think what I can eat because at the end also I need to eat something. 

In Dublin many pubs were aware of there is a thing called "gluten free diet". Most of them had announced the allergens in their menus. Unfortunately most of the ones we visited had no idea of the practical activation to serve or keep it gluten free. At my GlutenFreeZone you can learn more and check things out how to make it and keep it. At my hotel they were aware of it and somehow able to serve it. So, every morning I was first in line at breakfast. I learnt that when you order limited Irish breakfast just with scrambled eggs and bacon there is excellent changes to win in the lottery. I stayed in Lansdowne Hotel. In their favor I must tell that they had excellent table in the dining room for the breakfast where they served fruits, yogurts and other things which are suitable for the persons with coeliac disease. So, the hotel's breakfast provided me a good start to kick the day to run. Because I had proteins compared to my normal lunch like egg and bacon the rest of the day was not in a huge panic what came into my nutrition. It is FashionNOW. We neither need to over consume the food.

With the school group I visited Airfield Estate. It is a very interesting place: a farm in the middle of the city. It was not always in the city but the city grew towards it. It is organic farm run by the idea of sustainability. Airfield has its own restaurant where they provide the farm food they grow. 

They have a big fruit and vegetable garden. It was very interesting. We had a guided tour and limited time in there. You should take a whole day out in there if you are interested to explore the gardens and the whole estate. These are grapevines on the pic above. According to our guide they don't harvest them because the grapevines don't grow so well in there that they don't produce the grapes because of the Ireland weather. The plants itself form out a proper wind shield so they let them be there until figuring our something else. I suggest they could use the leaves, that's why I try to grow one in my green house. You can use them in Mediterranean style cooking. 

At Airfield Estate they have also -of course- a beautiful Victorian style green house. It was allowed to peek in but not to step in. In the future we plan to build another green house at home so you can be sure my curiosity woke up and I needed to see some ideas.

They have also the covered beds for growing at Airfield Estate. It was very interesting because for the future green house we want to make the opening roof.

This mechanism is simple and sustainable solution. I bet it lasts from decades to another. I needed to take a pic of it to remember how it is done.

At Airfield Estate they use the sheep fleece as an insulation to protect the plants against the cold over the winter season. You can buy wool insulation at garden centers too. It is sustainable choice if you need any. I don't use any manufactured frost insulation in my arctic garden. On the open land I farm only the plants that survive here without any special support. In my green house I use Finnfoam frost insulation.

I accidentally crashed at MacAri's stand on the street where they advert their gluten free menu. I had to step in (for the last time I had eaten 8 hours ago something small). I was amazed they served gluten free and the process seemed to be safe and well handled. On that night we had Irish takeaway at Malahide beach. It was a perfect Friday night.

I have no idea about MacAri's sustainability program or ethics but you can't always choose what to shop or eat. When you can, make the right choice for FashionNOW, when not, don't think hard on yourself. Just do your best for the better future. 💚

GardeningSpring

It is spring! Indeed it is. My spring may look a bit different than yours. But it is there: the spring. I can see it in many ways. I can experience it all the time. Today we made a spring cleaning in the green house. The snow and ice has melted enough so we were able to open the door and get in.

The black berry is alive! We bought and planted it on 2021 in our greenhouse. It has never been covered over the winter but has Finnfoam insulation like all the other wooden beds. So far it has not produced one single berry but I hope soon it will. It takes a bit time -more than usual- of plants to adapt and accept the new colder location & climate. This year it seems the blackberry needs at least 3 years of time. Later we'll see, is 3 years enough for producing berries.

I bought and planted the grapevine Zilga also in 2021. We had a setback in Her first ever winter 2021-2022. And I still am very sorry for it. For my defense I must say autumn and winter 2021 was very hard. Zilga seems to understand it and survived after a great patience. Everything else except a piece of her root had frozen. In the winter 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 we have remembered to cover her by Finnfill and it has helped a lot. She was still late last spring but seems to be alive and waking up already now. I expect her producing grapes never because of the arctic location and non-heated green house. But hope some day her leaves will grow plenty and big enough so that we can use some for cooking.

NaturalDyes

The plant dye process keeps going on. I keep on using our own AAW yarn and also some 100% Finn sheep wool I inherit on 2010. Here´s what came out from my Earl Grey Tea soup.

In Finland garden lupine is classified in the top five invasive species. Because they pose a threat to Finnish nature. I have grown lupine in my garden on purpose. We moved in on 2009 and the feral garden had a huge hog-weed problem. Also hog-weed is classified in the top five invasive species in Finland. On my list the hog-weed is more unwelcome than lupine because here by the arctic its getting far too cold for the lupine to spread around and survive in massive way. Opposite to hog-weed. And hog-weed is much more dangerous than lupine. In my arctic garden I noticed where the lupine grows hog-weed will get drown under it and die. That's why at early years I had massive lupine field. Now I have been weeding the lupine away but I still need it to grow over hog-weed if needed because hog-weed still is a huge problem everywhere. My garden is in control -finally- but dogged hog-weed still tries to rise up its head every now and then here and there. And I know it won't stop until the municipal does its work and gets rid of massive hog-weed fields everywhere. Before that happens I keep my tiny lupine flower bed just in case. 

Meanwhile waiting the hog-weed to face its eternal end I use lupine blossoms in dyeing. It is very interesting and at this point it feels a bit crazy when you have it all in the kettle at the same time. You start to fear nothing will happen and you get just huge amount of trash into your yarn.

At the end it makes the difference, and the difference is fabulous! Worth of every step in the process. Can't wait next summer to get more!

It is interesting to collect samples of the dyed yarn to remember the shades later. Also, the sample cards are easy way to show my friends and students what I have done and how. Also, the years and yarns and growing places impact on the dyeing process and the final shades, so I always include the year on my own sample cards.

So far I've used these on this summer.

BodyScrubSoap

I did HandMadeSoap in 2021. Now I did it again. This time I used -again- rose petals but also broken Sea Buckthorn seeds. Both herbs origin from my award winning garden. I used rose petals for balancing, calming, healing and refreshing. Sea buckthorn seeds I used for scrub effect of course but also for skin care and skin healing.

You can see small bubbles on the bottom side of the soap. The soap is upside down in my molds and the extra air bubbles born during the process rise up. I could cut them off but I let them be. They really don't matter if they are there, after the first use they'll be washed away anyway. 

It is very interesting that during the process -because of chemical reaction of soap and plant- rose turns out green, not red in soap making process. It scents like rose and buckthorn but looks like green because there is not used chemical dyes. 

I wrap them into baking paper and secure the pack by paper cord. Looks pretty indeed. The little one I will take to work as a sample work later in autumn when the schools start out again.