LearnSweden Blog

Almedalen

Every year, during one week in July,Visby holds a political week in the Almedalen.

Almedalen is a park in Visby, very beautiful, with flowers, trees and a pond. In the parc and all around the town, there is a lot of activity going on. Each political party has one day of their own. The day ends with speches and activites from the big stage in the parc. It is a tradition that it is each party´s leader that is holding the speech.

 

But there is one thing that everyone says is more important and that is to be there. You have to be there if you are a politican or if you have a message that you want to have on the Swedish agenda.

So there you will find, the red cross, the Swedish church, the automobile club, Save the animals, save the Baltic sea and so on.

Blueberry Day

                                        

                                                     Through our magic forest

                

                                                Are the most wonderful Blueberries

                   

We know it's one of the last days of summer when the picnic hamper is filled, the picking baskets are stacked, and a copy of "Peter in Blueberryland" is taken off the shelf. First we pick them, then we eat them, and sometimes we pick and eat.

                                                            

                 

                                                  Some for now

                 

                                                             And some for later.

              

                                                 Spiced Blueberries served warm over ice cream

                                            

                                     With a reading of our favorite blueberry day book.

                                                        Spiced Blueberries

                                                       7 oz of blueberries

                                                       1 tbsp of sugar

                                                       1 tsp of balsamic vinegar

                                                        pinch of cloves

                                                      pinch of cinnamon

Put on the stove top with a lid ,cooking on medium for 5 minutes, stirring every now and then. Once you have some juices going let it gently boil for another 4 to 5 minutes. Let it cool a bit and place over vanilla ice cream or spread it on bread. Refridgerate afterwards for up to one month.

                                                           ~Enjoy~

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.

     

    

    

   

   

  

  

 

Bluebee's Knitting Round

Knit one:purl two:eat three blueberries.

        

Yes,we're already getting ready for the winter. Actually, I've been knitting down my stash by knitting for charity. Eariler in the summer I became aware of an orphanage in India which needs knitted baby hats,blankets,and burp rags for their new arrivals. It felt really good to help these little ones.

                            

While in Oregon I paid a visit to Foothills Alpaca farm where I took the wool right off their backs. These are going to be knitted into wonderful earflap hats. Don't worry....there isn't too much yarnery going on,I'm getting in a swim or two as well.

                    

              

          

Wild strawberries

      

Except for being one of Ingmar Bergman's best films, "Wild Strawberries" also is a fantastic berry in many ways. It is so tastey and so sweet, but it is also difficult to find, as it is so small and truly depends on the weather. Too much rain and it will not get red, too much sun and it will get very dry and small.

This year was a perfect year on Gotland for wild strawberries, so we managed to pick enough for a couple of desserts. But as the berries are so small, it takes a long time to pick enough for a plate, And the berries are difficult to see from above so you better lay down in the grass, to see them.

     

     

Then you put them on a straw, bring them home and serve with a panacotta, cream, ice-cream or just eat them as they are.

I thought about the name one day when I was out picking them and put them on a straw. Maybe these wild berries got their name from this, berries put on a straw, Strawberry and then people get them bigger and bigger and we got just strawberries. Big, red and lovely to eat. Not as tasteful and sweet as wild strawberries, but anyway.

                           

         

Carl von Linné also found out that wild strawberries were good for one's health and he said that you should eat at least one bowl of them each day, for keeping your body in a better shape.

Oh the places I've wandered.

It's great to be back but before I hit the road to go home, I just had to stop by one of my favorite places,Hood River Oregon. First stop........the lavender farm.

           

           

                             

                                

           

Midsummer

Even though it is still summer, we are having less daylight for every day. Still there is long lit evenings and light early mornings. So it is still a lovely time. Midsummer was the longest day of the year or should be, but as Midsummer was placed on a Friday, it could be a couple of days after or before. This year the longest day was two days after Midsummer. But we celebrated the day anyway.  Midsummer was a lovely day and night.

       

Most Swedes will go away over the weekend and celebrate it with friends in the countryside somewhere.  The celebration is very traditional, just as Christmas, Easter and all the other holidays. We were talking about it during this Midsummer and said there aren´t many differences between Midsummer and Christmas.

       

       

                           

We wake up early, because it is a special day, we celebrate together with friends and family, we dance and sing the same songs and at Midsummer around a pole and Christmas around a spruce. We eat herring and we drink snaps. But at Midsummer we eat new potatoes and that we can´t find at Christmas. But the big difference is the weather, hopefully. This year we had mostly bad weather at Midsummer in Sweden. Gotland was lucky with a very sunny and warm day, but in the evening the temperature was just a few degrees over zero, just like it could be during Christmas.

                                                         

            

             

              

             

Hejsan!

 

Greetings everyone! We are back from semester. As you can see, we are head over heels in love with summer. Over the coming days,there will be a lot of sharing going on. Like what did we do during our vacations? What's new at LearnSweden? and many more trival things which happen in our everyday lives.

Most importantly, we've missed you and have appreciated your daily support of our blog. We'd like to know what you've been up to this summer? Just leave us a comment. Have a great weekend and we're back on Monday.