kareina

This morning I completed the last major task for my report: burning the dvd with the data, reports, 3D model, and geochem graphs, and packaged it up in a box along with the samples and paper copies of the reports--all ready to turn in to my colleagues at the mine. Yes, it would also be nice to do a paper for publication, but that doesn't need to happen this week. Yes, I should finish converting the spreadsheet full of sample collection information into the format it needs to become one with their database. But those are minor details compared to wrapping up the project itself, and I am very pleased to be done, and before the month is over, too.

To celebrate I came home at lunch time, and after eating I went out to the field and rescued some strawberry plants that had been growing too tightly entwined with other plants to have been moved to the new strawberry patch by the house (A. the new patch is full, and B. we took only those berries that had been growing in the part of the old patch that was still only berries and the black plasticy cloth that is meant to keep other plants from growing in between the berries). While that cloth worked well in the center of the patch, other plants had done a good job of colonizing the edges of the patch, and, of course, many strawberry plants had managed to take root outside of the patch proper (they do that). However, since I don't want them to all get plowed under when lord_kjar brings his dad's tractor and the (now repaired) rotating field-smoothing device, I have moved them all to a place at the bottom of the field, next to a nice large rock. That boulder will be just the thing to lay down on drape oneself over while eating strawberries, and I figure those berries that were thriving well despite being tangled up with other plants deserve to keep growing.

We can freeze most of the berries from the patch by the house, and the lower patch can just be for grazing while out enjoying the day. Many of the berries, both the ones I moved today, and in the new patch by the house, are now in flower, so it won't be too long before we have fresh strawberries again. Good thing too, since the last box of last year's frozen strawberries is now nearly empty.

I only spent about an hour rescuing berries before I was too hot and sweaty in the bright sun in the middle of the field, so I called it done for the day (after four wheelbarrows full of berries had been moved), and, after a short break for some quality time with a book and a snack, I went out to the alleyway leading to the earth cellar and begun the project of getting it smoothed out and sloping only the amount we wish it to slope and putting down the large paving stones we got from his uncle.

Another hour work there saw the first three paving stones set into place the way we want them to be--each one sloping just under 1 cm from the upper point to the lower point, and the next located ~10 cm away, with its upper point the right amount lower that the slope continues unchanged. (To accomplish this I have taped a small block of wood to one end of the level, so that if the bubble indicates that the level is level when it sits on the paving stone(s) then they are slopping the correct amount.) This task is much easier than it might have been, thanks to a bit of weaving I did:



We made this sifter to separate the rocks out of dirt last week, using some scrap wood, some tines from a cheap rake that didn't hold together after the first use, and some scrap metal from an old computer. It isn't large, but it is as big as we could make it using those rake tines (the handle we attached to a pitch fork head that the previous owners had left here, so while the rake turned out to have been useless as a rake, the parts have all come in handy for other things, so we haven't lost the cash we spent on it), and it turns out to be plenty big enough for this project.

I had tried a week or two ago to set the paving stones in without using the level to check my work, and as a result had gotten too enthusiastic in how much sloping was happening, and I wound up with a low spot in the walk way that, now that I am measuring, turns out to have been several centimeters deeper than it needs to have been. Therefore I am sifting dirt onto the low spot to build it back up to the appropriate height, but without those rocks that make it hard to get the paving stone to sit perfectly.

I am enjoying this project, though after an hour working on it I was quite ready for another break, so I came in a curled up with my book, and finished it. This makes 15 books read so far this year—still a very small number compared to before moving to Sweden, but it is the most books read in a single year since switching to reading fiction in Swedish, and the year is only half done. Granted, part of what helped that was this book and the last are both re-reads—the Swedish versions of The Little House in the Big Woods (Det lilla huset i stora skogen) and The Little House on the Prairie (Det lilla huset på prärien).

I have always loved those books—they are heavy on explaining how things were done and what everyday life was like in that time, with just enough story to hold it together, and they are great for someone who is trying to learn the language, because it is full of so many useful words.

As one might expect for a country which extends so far to the north, midsummer is a rather important holiday. The holiday itself was Friday, the 21st, Midsommarafton. We spent it, as we have every year since I arrived in Sweden (this is my third midsummer here!) with the folk music/dance community. The day started with a gathering at the gillestuga in Gammelstad at 10:00 for a quick dance rehearsal, followed by lunch for all the musicians and dancers. Lunch ended just on time to head over to the open air museum in Gammelstad and raise the leaf-and flowered covered cross and lead the children (both large and small) in the traditional dances around the cross, followed by our dance performance. The crowd there to enjoy the beautiful day and the traditional activities was quite large (the number 7000 was mentioned by one of the other dancers, but I am not certain where she got it), yet I saw a few people I know in the crowd. However, I didn't have a chance to speak to any of them, since it was time to hurry over to a park near city center, and do it all again.

The crowd in town was noticeably smaller than the one in Gammelstad, so there was much more room for dancing, which was fun. As he does every year at midsummer lord_kjar didn't dance with us, but instead ran the sound system for the music at the park in town, which he rather enjoys doing. I can't complain about losing my favourite dance partner for the day, since the man I wound up dancing with instead is one who has been a very good dancer since well before either lord_kjar or I were born, and is always a pleasure to dance with.

After the second dance performance ended we took the sound equipment back to Gammelstad, and joined some of the other dancers and musicians for a dinner of leftovers from lunch (I had, of course, brought some food with me to eat between the provided lunch and dinner) and then we finally returned home some eight hours after leaving the house.

Soon after we arrived home liadethornegge arrived. She had spend the day in the area, and was going to spend the night at our place, to save having to drive back and forth two days in a row. It was lovely getting a chance to visit with her--we both tend to be too busy at events to slow down and talk much.

Our event started around mid-day on Saturday. I got up early enough to bake a large loaf of garlic bread (of the sort where one puts in many whole (or half, depending on how big they are) cloves of garlic into the bread so that they roast and become soft pockets of yumminess within the bread) that came out of the oven around the time the first of the other guests started arriving.

It was a lovely, low-key SCA event. We danced a little, sang some songs, worked on handicrafts, chatted, ate yummy food, and in the evening soaked in the shire hot tub (which we had fetched last week so that it would be available). We had around a dozen people, and a good mix of long time SCA people, people new to the SCA, and some friends from choir and folk music, too. Some are local, and some drove from as far away as Skellefteå (two hours south of here). One of the guys who came up from Piteå is merchant, from whom I had purchased some yarn at an event sometime in the last year or so. I am currently using that yarn to nålbind some socks, and they are about half as tall as I want them to be, but I am running low of yarn. So I emailed him this week and asked if he could bring me more. He did, and the price was so reasonable I bought another six skeins--so I should be able to make a few more things from it when this project ends. I love not needing to actually go shopping, but just have what I need show up when I need it, ready to purchase with no effort on my part.

We did wind up spending the day inside (except for hottubbing and using the bbq to cook), since it was a rainy & blustery day, but we had enough fun that I don't think anyone minded (well, save for the one friend who couldn't stay due to an allergy to the visiting dog. I had told another friend last week that he could bring his old, small, and well behaved dog with him to the event, since we had planned to be outside all day, and his dog is too old to be left home alone all day. However, when I woke up to the rain I had forgotten that the dog was coming too, and when they arrived I didn't feel I could ask him to leave the dog outside in the rain and wind, so I let him in (but insisted that the dog stay on the floor, which is easily cleaned later, and not the nice wool rug I use for a yoga mat). The dog was quiet and well behaved, so I didn't mind having him there, until a friend arrived who couldn't risk staying, since she is allergic to dogs. Sigh. I would have loved to have had her company, too, but she said she was content to go visit her grandchildren instead.

People wandered home early enough that we had the kitchen cleaned back up by midnight, and got to sleep at a reasonable hour. Today we started the part of the yard work we have been putting off till after the event--the root cellar! The area we want to build the root cellar happened to already have some of the lovely, tiny, strawberries that the Swedes call smultron growing on it, so I moved them (and the dirt they were growing on) over to the area next to the shed, while lord_kjar used the tractor to do a bit more work on the lower part of our field. Once I had rescued most of the berries he brought the tractor up and started the digging, which involved alternating between using the forklift point to loosen and carry away single large rocks, and using the large scoop to carry away bunches of small stones and earth. I helped for part of this by using the huge steel rod to loosen up some of the medium sized stones to make them easier for the tractor to scoop up. Other bits of the project I was inside the house working on organizing stuff there. His dad's tractor isn't a huge one, so this process takes rather longer to do than it does to describe, so I had plenty of time to be useful in both ways.

We managed to do what is likely to be about half of the digging for the root cellar, and after that was done we also made time to bring in the ladder and finally hang the light above the stairs that has been sitting on the floor under the kitchen shelves for six months waiting for us to put it up. Granted, we still need to actually run electricity to that light, but that is progress, nonetheless.

Now I am curled up at my computer--first time I have touched it all weekend, and he is watching the Lord of the Rings on his, which, I must point, is somewhat distracting. I started typing at the opening prologue began, and now Frodo is waking up in Rivendel after his near death experience at Weathertop. Somehow I doubt that it would have taken me so long to type if he had chosen a less interesting way to relax....