November

It was already the beginning of November. It was unusual warm for the time o the year. The first day of my return we worked in the gardens to turn the soil with the hoe. It was so warm that I had to take off my sweater.

The next day we went to check a moose skin that were laying in the river. The Belgian girl wanted to scrape it and the weather was perfect for that. The skin had been in the river for two weeks but unfortunately it was not enough. I had never had a skin in the river for more than two weeks but I had also not had a skin in the river this late in the season. Since the water was cold it probably needed to be there for another week.

The unusual warm day was over, the cold return but still not so much snow. We did the last logs of the chicken house and put on the roof. Now it was almost finished, only the window and door was missing but that was for later. It is also good for the logs to dry a bit before doing more.

My plan was to build a sauna next year and I wanted to use big spruces on the farm that were too close to meadows and fields. Some of the spruces were very big over 40 cm in diameter. The spruces had also been growing fast that decrease the quality but I did not know what else to do with them. We started to take down the trees and debark them it was a time consuming work. I guessed I would need around 20 trees for the sauna and was not sure we would have time to do that this month.

A week had passed and we checked the moose skin again now it was ready since I could easily remove the hair with my hand. I left the Belgian girl at the hide tanning area to scrape the skin and returned to the farm. It should take about a day to scrape the skin. In the end of the day she had not returned and it started to get dark, it had also started to snow. I returned to the hide tanning area to help her get back since it was 3 km out in the forest. She was not there, I started to shout her name and searching for her. I did not find her so I decided to return to the farm to see if she where there. It was dark when I returned to the farm and she where not there. I told the Woman from Swabia and the two of us prepared to go back and search for her together, but then a car arrived and one neighbor brought the Belgian girl. She had walked in wrong direction but luckily found a road that lead back to the neighbors house. She was a bit chocked but happy to be back, she had prepared her self mentally for a night in the forest.

More snow fell and this time it would probably not melt away. Before that I had found quite many mushrooms called herald of the winter (Hygrophorus hypothejus). That mushroom is usually found very late in the season after the first night frost. We made tasty omelets from that mushroom.

We continued with the trees and every night we had aching arms from the work. We also brought up grass bumps from the wet meadows with a sledge. We crushed the grass bumps and used them in the outhouse.

We tried some ice fishing but got nothing, it was to early. In January I was going to try again.

We cleared the area around an old house foundation from small birches and goat willows. Someday I wanted to build a guest house there.

Some of the spruces I wanted to take down were not in such a condition that they could be used for building, but they were big and shading the meadows so I took them down either way and chopped them up into firewood.

It was now the beginning of December and I had to return to the south to work some more. The Belgian girl also wanted to leave the farm to explore more of Sweden so we went together to the south. The woman from Swabia stayed on the farm to take care of the animals. I did not want to leave the farm but I had promised to work three weeks in the south.