May

The snow have melted away and the sun have returned with a lot of warmth. Everywhere it is starting to sprout.

We are preparing new grazing ground and is burning a lot of spruce branches and raking away moss from grasslands that have been covered by big spruces that we have cut down. Its seems like an endless work also a lot of roots have been removed from the grasslands.

A big moose hide have been tanned with fat from eggs but first I had to scrape away the hair down the river where the hide have been laying in the water for a couple of weeks. We mixed the yellows of six eggs with rapeseed oil and water and used the solution to tan the hide. It was very difficult to ring and soften the big hide, and the result was not perfect. I think I have to fine another way to ring a big hide like that to get a better result. The moose hair have been spread out in the gardens.

We have started to prepare the gardens, almost all the hay we covered the soil with last year have been decomposed during winter. Some perennials like rhubarb, lovage, shives and strawberries have started to grow and I found that a small maple tree I planted last year have survived the winter.

We have got a lot of pikes from the fishcage. We have eaten some but dried most to the dog.

Now the ice is completely gone from the lake so we can now take a bath in the lake.

Some strange creatures have found their way to the hill like the moose giraffe and the guardian of the gardens. It might be Vittra that have attracted them to the hill.

The return of winter

The weather had been great with a lot of sunshine and snow melting rapidly away, but then the snow returned. For a week it have been some snow almost every day. Still we continua with the garden work that we have started. We are building new terrace gardens and fixing the old ones. In one terrace garden I had planted some Jerusalem artichokes that we dug up and replanted. We now have seven terrace gardens in a southern slope, there the snow melts away early. The main gardens cannot be prepared yet since they are still covered in snow. 

Inside the house we have been sowing cabbage, winter-kale, winter-squash and some flowers.

The freshwater spring has been almost icefree the whole winter and we keep getting the good tasting water from there. 

Birch sap time

We have started to get sap from the birches, we drill holes and put pipes in holes to get the sap. We make quite big holes and later on we will take down the birch and chop it into firewood. If you do not intend to take down the birch you should make smaller holes and close the holes with something when you are ready. We use the sap for drinking and we also add it when we cook food. 

We have started to dig a foundation to the new guest house that we plan to build this summer. It is actually an old foundation there but it need to be repaired. The old house that once were there is now gone. It is hard work since its a lot of soil and sand mixed with bricks and iron trash 

The hens have now moved to there new house and they seem to like it. They have started to go out on longer adventures now when the snow is melting away in search for worms, bugs and green grass.

Except for nettles and cow-parsley we have also found some small willowherbs, soon we can start to pick them for real.

Middle of April

The newly built storage house have been cleaned and most of the tools have been moved there. It feels good to have the tool more organized. Later in summer we will store hay in this house.

We have now chopped a lot of wood and filled the two new woodbarns, even so the chopping goes on and we start to fill the old ones too. Every year the amount of wood seem to increase and increase, its better to have too much wood than to less.

The final touch have been made on the chicken house. And soon we plan to move them to their new home.

Helena have been making a shaving horse. It will make it easier to make shafts for different tools.

We still fish on the ice, but soon there will be no more ice. Its getting warmer and warmer and yesterday I found small nettles and cow-parsley.

We use the last snow to transport some heavy logs up the hill.

The beginning of April

The snow is melting and its soaking wet to be outside, the fat from the badger is well used as leather lubricate on our shoes and gloves. Several days the sun have made a warm appearance and it almost felt like the last snow where going to disappear but then the snow returned and once again painted the landscape white.

Two dried moose hides have been dragged to the hide tanning area to get soaked in the river. We will let them be in the river for a week or more before scraping off the hair.

The second storage clamp have been opened and like a surprise from the sky we found out that almost all potatoes where in a good condition. We now eat a lot of potatoes. 

The storage house was not completely ready, it lacked supporting beams between the standing poles. Luckily the chainsaw is now working so we could easily make some beams from spruce. The house is now incredible stable.

Easter

The hens started to lay eggs in the middle of Mars a week or so before Easter. They had made a nest in the hay in the barn. I had forgotten how beautiful their eggs is. We have two hens that is laying brown eggs and three chickens that is laying green eggs. They are of mixed breed mostly an old northern Swedish breed that is called hedemora. The green colour of the eggs come from some isbar genes. 

We have started to cook food outside during the days, on the fireplace in front of the shelter. Its nice to get out of the house. Two of us have moved to the log hut and the rest sleeps in the house.

Some hunters passed by and gave us a badger. I have asked them for a badger for some time since the fat is very good to lubricate on leather shoes. I mix it with some tar and wax and that is the best leather lubricate. The skin is also useful for now we have conserved it with salt.

The chainsaw is now repaired so we do not need to spend more to saw big logs, even if the woodwork is almost done. Its good to have the chainsaw ready when we start to build the sauna of those big spruce logs that we prepared in winter.

Its still snow around but its melting fast away soon we might be able to pick the first greens, I do look forward towards that.

Mars

The days are getting longer and in two weeks the days will be longer than the nights. In sunny weather we need to protect our eyes when we are out walking for long since the sunshine reflects on the snow and get very much stronger.

The chainsaw is broken and we have a lot of firewood still to chop and cut. We use a swed-saw (bågsåg) to cut smaller trees and an old rip saw (timmersvans) that I found on a flee market for bigger trees. I hope I can repair the chainsaw since it takes a lot of time to cut trees by hand tools.

As usually we found a lot of interesting tracks on the snow like this from a grouse. 

Last year the hens started to lay eggs in the middle of mars and we look forward towards this. The hens have become much more active thanks to the sun.

We still have a lot of stored food from last years harvest potatoes, berry jams, dried mushrooms, dried roots, and dried nettles and cow-parsley leaves.