LearnSweden Blog

Who turned out the lights?

Did you blink? If you have you might have just missed it. What's that you ask?

 

Stockholm has a new record and that would be that it has only seen the sun 4 hours for the entire month of November. That was until last saturday when the sun reared it's sunny head to give Stockholm more hours of sunlight in an entire day than it had seen in the whole month of November.

I hope everyone enjoyed their few hours of needed sunshine. When it's dreary.....I suggest heading over to cinema Victoria in Söder and watching Coco before Chanel. Truly poignant and beautiful.

Autumn~

falling leaves
hide the path
so quietly
~John Bailey, "Autumn," a haiku year, 2001

 

 

Truffles

The black gold, the mushrooms of Gotland, Bourgone truffles. Every fall the season starts sometime in September and lasts until sometime in December. Around 40 truffle dogs, Lagottos are working with their noses around the forests to find the truffles. It grows about 10 cenimeters or deeper under ground and you need a very good nose to find them. Lagotto are perfect for it. They are traditionally used in Italy, but they have become our tradition here in Sweden too.

Gotland is a good place for truffles, but they have also been found on Öland and in a few other places, but Gotland is the best place. You can´t pick truffles in other peoples land, so you need to own your own forest for it or pick in other people's forest by invitation only.

We have a big parcel of land, but we also pick for other people and our dog Diesel is a truffle king. Very fast he scan the area we are in and dig out the truffles. This weekend he picked over two kilos in about two hours. So we were very pleased and all the truffles were sold out directly.

You can eat truffles raw or heated up to maximum 70 degrees Celcius. Otherwise they loose their taste. If you have more than you can eat during the two weeks they are fresh, a good thing to do is truffle butter. Just cut small pieces of truffles into room temperature butter, stir and mix. Then put it in the freezer and you got a perfect taste for fried meet, boiled fish or in an omelette.

The Blue Lagoon

There is a lot of limestone in the Northeast section of Gotland. on the south part of the island it is sandstone. You will find old broken and closed limestone factories but there is still one working in Slite. Eventually, as more and more limestone was taken from the earth there would come a point when the mine would fill up with water.

These quarries are deep and the water is very clear and turqoise, just like one might find in the Caribbean. The most famous quarry is called The Blue Lagoon. In the summer it is crowded with people swimming and sunbathing.

Sädesärla

I don´t know the English name of this bird, but it doesn´t matter. Maybe someone can help me with that, but this black and white bird has been our friend and inherent this summer. The couple have lived under the roof, just above our outdoor dinnerplace. Everytime we have been eating, the mother and father have been flying in and out, just above our heads.

    

One morning at breakfast, one of them was sitting on the back support of a chair near us and chirping. Not the ordinary chirping, this was continuing for at least five minutes. It was just as she or he was talking to us. I started talking back and said, things like: "So your children have come now, they are out from the eggs?".... and so on. We were chatting together for a while.

Later that day, three lovely small birds were crawling around our table. We don´t know how they got out, it is about three meters high, but they were there and the proud parents were coming now and then feeding them. I was afraid that our dog would have hurt them so I put a fence around them. But they just walked out from it and the dog just sat there watching them. So I realised I couldn´t change  nature, it is what it is. I´m sure my dog, that usually likes to hunt birds, understood that these small birds were not supposed to be hunted.

     

     

    

The rest of the summer we could see the small birds growing, start flying and hunting there own food and helped us to have less flies and knats.

    

Summerflowers

     

From a white and cold winter, to warm and green. The summer is fantastic. Just look at all these lovely flowers, growing wild everywhere around us.

     

    

    

   

   

  

  

 

The Right to Roam

Allemansrätten (Everyman’s Right) is an old tradition which guarantees each person the right to enjoy nature without restricting access to it.

    

You are allowed to pass over any ground, field or woods, as long as you respect the land and the owner’s property. Please, however, do not camp too close to a private home, you can only camp at a place for just one night, but you must put up your tent in a place so you can’t see the owner’s house. You may not walk in a fenced in area, or in cultivated farmland. If you should open a gate you must close it behind you. You are not allowed to pick protected flowers and you must always take your litter with you.

   

   

   

     

Always make sure that if you want to have a campfire that it is allowed and make sure it is completely put out before leaving. Often times after a dry spell it is forbidden to light a fire. This tradition doesn’t just pertain to the land but to the sea as well. You can travel by boat over any water, and gather wild flowers, berries, and mushrooms from anywhere.

    

   

   

Sweden has 26 national parks which have been selected because of their areas of superior natural beauty but you can find incredible green areas within cities as well. In Stockholm you can enjoy wonderful walks and bike rides in Djurgården but for the true nature seekers why not take an excursion to Ekoparken.

Ekoparken is the world’s first national city park stretching in a 7 mile arch from Ulriksdal Palace to the archipelago islands of Fjäderholmarna. This green lung area is so large that you need a full day of some serious hiking to explore it on foot. If you can wait until winter, however, you could do a bit quicker perhaps on skis or on long-distance skates.

There are quicker ways to see the park and that is by boat. The Brunnsviken Runt is an inexpensive boat trip. On it you will see three royal parks; Djurgården, Haga, and Ulriksdal, and the palaces of Ulriksdals Slott, Gustav III’s Pavilijong, Haga, and Rosendals Slott. So enjoy your right to roam.

Tale of a Travelling Kitchen

    

19 Students, 3 teachers, many canoes,backpacks, and tents ......now how do we feed these people? Very easily ! Along with us is our natures kitchen. Nearly every Swede has one for such occassions. You just take it from your backpack, put the parts together.....in the right order, I might add and then voila, you have your travelling kitchen already to use. Just fill it with T-röd or methanol and strike a match to it. This little burning flame is good for tea, coffee, and anything your stomach can think of.

    

                      

                       

                       

     

    

Look at all these talented nature's pantry chefs. Oh .....and don't forget to clean up.

       

    

   

Out in Nature

       Just south of Stockholm in Södermanland lies a crystal clear landscape just waiting to greet us.

 

     

        

        

        

       

       

A Little Canoe Time

    

Every year the eigth graders of Botkyrka Friskola take a canoe trip from Åkers Styckebruk to Gnesta. In all, it is a journey 28 kilometers long....if you go straight....but as many are new to the world of canoeing the distance becomes much longer.

  

19 students and three teachers embarked on this two day waterway event. We were lucky because the weather was just perfect. Sunny and warm with a few clouds, no wind and just a little rains at the very end of the trip.

  

The first day saw us camping in a fantastic place near the water.

    

      

I must admit that during the whole trip that we made a lot of stops for eating, portage of the canoes over roads and just plain resting.

                         

                         

The lakes and rivers were so calm that is was an easy ride for us. It was so lovely riding over the calm water, hearing the birds and watching the beautiful nature passing by without a care in the world. Unfortunately, the water was too cold and so there wasn't any jumping into the water for a swim.

All came back home having a nice time but completely exhausted.

     

    

Today's post and photos are by Per at large.