Photos from my summer

[luzula]

Here are some photos from my pandemic summer. I've spent it with my parents, either sailing or being at the family summer place.


This is my parents' boat. My dad grew up with lots of sailing and we did it all through my childhood as well. The west coast of Sweden is LOVELY for sailing; it has a multitude of large and small islands where you can just go in and lie whereever you want on the uninhabited islands, or on the inhabited ones, as long as you don't do it too close to someone's house. This is the beauty of Sweden's tradition of public access to land! Or you can lie in a town harbor when you need to fill up on things like electricity, freshwater, and food. This summer we spent about two weeks going up the coast from Göteborg and then back down again.


Here's the inside of the boat, also featuring the family dog. I sleep in the space in the front which you can just see through an opening; it is called "förpik" in Swedish, which apparently is "forepeak" in English, heh.


This is the family summer place, which is also a perfect place to be during the pandemic. I am the fifth generation in that house; my mom's maternal grandparents and one generation before that were "torpare", that is, tenants on a larger farm. My maternal grandmother went out and worked on other farms, but then came back and got married to the man who took over the main farm. So she moved up in the world. And then in 1974 my mom took it over, five years before I was born. That combination of red walls and white corners is very typical of Sweden (red paint being for hundreds of years a byproduct of the copper mine in Falun). In front of the house you can see part of the vegetable garden.


Here is the lake close by, where we go swimming.


Things I picked in the nearby woods! Those are pretty much the only chanterelles we've found so far, but the blueberry harvest is reliable.


Everything in this dinner is from the garden or the woods nearby, except for the bread and cheese and butter. Which admittedly make up most of the calories! We do have dairy cows grazing close to the house, and grain fields not that far away, but obviously they're not ours... Besides the squash, red beets, and spinach, in the garden we also grow lots of potatoes, onions, Jerusalem artichokes, peas, gooseberries, currants, rhubarb, various herbs, this year also a pumpkin plant which seems be giving us one pumpkin. The salad, dill, and beans failed for various reasons (eaten by slugs, diseased, and eaten by deer respectively).


One of the two monster squash plants which are thriving in the new vegetable bed we made last year from old silage. They produce squashes faster than we can eat them, despite our best efforts...

And now I'm going home in a couple of days, since I got my second shot a week ago (Pfizer, no side effects whatsoever except a slight soreness in my arm) and will unfortunately need to start working soon. Meh.

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

Sailing, and beautiful seas and islands, and lake swimming, and meals foraged from the garden and the woods: what a perfect recipe for a wonderful summer! Everything looks so lovely. It's understandable that you don't want to leave and go back to work!

[luzula]

I am anxious to get home so I can get to know my two new housemates, but other than that I don't want to leave! Especially with the uncertainty around how teaching will be this fall.

But as consolation, I will be able to get artisan gelato again...

[jesse_the_k]

Mmmmm .... gelato!

I've recently discovered the wonders of Oatly Frozen Dessert, a local-to-you hero.

[regshoe]

That sounds like a lovely way to spend the summer, and these are some beautiful pictures—thanks for sharing! The sailing in particular sounds idyllic, very Swallows and Amazons—those land access rights are such an important thing, and I think it's a real shame we don't have them here, I love the idea of being able to just go and camp wherever on an island.

Mmm, those blueberries look delicious, and all the vegetables.

(I can't see the one of the lake, though—is the link broken?)

[luzula]

Hee, we have fewer adventures than in Swallows and Amazons. Although actually we did run aground once this time (very mildly, no damage done!), and once we couldn't get the motor started and had to lie a whole day recharging the solar panel. Very minor adventures...

I've read that Scotland does have public access to land, though.

Fixed the link, thanks!

[regshoe]

Sounds exciting :D

I've read that Scotland does have public access to land, though.

Yes, that's true!

And that is a lovely picture of the lake—so atmospheric.

[sovay]

I've spent it with my parents, either sailing or being at the family summer place.

Thank you for these photos! Especially the sea-ones. (The lake's link is slightly broken, but if retrieved from the HTML, it's a beautiful photo.)

[luzula]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed them! I've fixed the link. I'm not good at taking photos, but the lake one did turn out nice.

[baronjanus]

Gorgeous

[luzula]

Thanks! : )

All lovely pictures

[jesse_the_k]

...of a lovely time. The förpik looks like you have to sleep in the fetal position. There's another English term for that location: forecastle. It's an old word, so some of the syllables collapsed: it's often written fo'c's'le.

The old family place is exquisite! Is there a second floor, or a loft? Was this the house she moved up to?

Re: All lovely pictures

[luzula]

But surely the forecastle is on the deck? At least that's the impression Patrick O'Brian has left me with... Hmm, it seems to have two meanings. But no, I don't have to curl up--it's long enough for me to stretch out. : )

The house was rebuilt and enlarged in the early 1900's. Family legend says that before, it had a large boulder built into the wall because it couldn't be moved, which was frost-covered on winter mornings. Now it has a second floor and also an attic space where there are bats. And no, the farmhouse that she moved up to is much larger! Like, four times this size, at least.

Re: All lovely pictures

[jesse_the_k]

I'm trying to imagine what heating (wood? coal?) a house with a boulder would be like.

Mmmmm, we like bats because they eat mosquitoes (or so I've heard: never witnessed it myself).

Re: All lovely pictures

[vatine]

It is a building (castle), at the fore of the ship. Or, at least, that is what I have been lead to understand.

[mergatrude]

♥

It looks idyllic!

Have you tried making zucchini bread with the squash? There's plenty of recipes on the internet, and I'm particularly fond of chocolate zucchini bread.

[luzula]

I am always confused by this use of the word "bread"--no bread I would ever make has chocolate in it! But I suppose you mean something closer to what I would call cake, which is sweetened?

Anyway, I will make a search for recipes!

[mergatrude]

It's usually a cross between bread and cake - no yeast, but sturdy enough to slice and toast. And yes, it's usually sweet. I often make banana bread or pear bread with raspberries or blueberries.

[rushthatspeaks]

Oh, these are gorgeous. Thank you.

[luzula]

Thanks--glad you enjoyed! : )

[osprey_archer]

That looks like such a beautiful summer! The bowl of blueberries and the chanterelles are such a lovely color combination.

[luzula]

It is! And yes, it's a lovely combination of colors--chanterelles always make me so happy when I find them.

[rachelmanija]

Those photos look so cozy. What a haul of blueberries!

[luzula]

Ha, that is just a fraction of all the blueberries we've picked. We stopped measuring after a while, but we're probably up to 20-25 liters in total. It's a great activity while listening to podcasts or audiobooks.

[china_shop]

What gorgeous photos! ♥

[luzula]

Thank you! <3

[chestnut_pod]

This is all so astonishingly beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

I am glad the Pfizer is treating you gently.

[luzula]

Thanks! Sometimes in the day-to-day I forget how lucky I am to have a place like this to retreat to.

[hurry_sundown]

Wow, it's all so pretty!

Also, yay for being fully vaxxed. *hugs*

[luzula]

Thanks! Yes, I'm very relieved to be fully vaxxed. *returns hug*

[seascribble]

I want to go sailing on a boat with a dog. How does he like it?

[luzula]

He's twelve and getting a bit stiff, so he thinks it's annoying that it's sometimes a bit awkward to get from one place to another on the boat. But he's careful and good about doing it. He's always extremely eager to get onto land when we put ashore, probably because he wants to sniff everywhere. He doesn't like it when we're tacking with a stiff wind, because the boat leans a lot and he slides off the bench and switches to the other one, but then we tack and he has to change again. But I think he does like it that the flock is so close together.

ETA: Also, he is the BEST DOG and extremely affectionate. <3

[seascribble]

Awww, sweet boy. Tacking doesn't sound like much fun, it's true.