Last night Elin and I were out at a summer house with some friends, celebrating the end of summer. That means we did not get much sleep. So when we came home a couple of hours ago and I realized that it was my turn to write something on the blog, I was like: Noo, I don't have any inspiration now, just want to relax and watch a movie or something.. Anyway, I slapped myself in the face a couple of times to wake up, grabbed a journal about ecological homes and stuff and went out to try to get some kind of inspiration. I sat down under an apple tree, like Isaac Newton did when he got he's smart ideas. I took a bite of an apple and started to read the journal. It's nice to read a journal thats filled with articles about likeminded people who are trying to live a more earth friendly lifestyle. I hope that more people will begin to think about how they live their lives, and start to change it, so it becomes more sustainable for our earth. Because we have just one globe, therefore we should be more careful with it.
Well, I didn't get any smart ideas there under the apple tree like Newton. But I did get more inspiration to continue to live more ecological. After picking a basket full of apples, I went inside to start with the writing.. ..And now I'm done with that, hope it's readable, and that someone else than just me got something out of it. /A
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I thought I'd give you some weekend reading, for when you have some spare time. Underbara Clara is a Swedish blogger living in the northern parts of Sweden. I've followed her blog for years already, it's always inspiring. She gives a lot of different tips and tricks for an alternative way of living. Green Kitchen Stories is a food blog. Fresh and good looking vegetarian recipes. You'll want to try something out. I highly recommend you to take a look! Intentionally Small is a blog viewing different small houses. If you haven't heard of tiny living or want to be more inspired you should take a look. We have been looking at different documentaries about tiny living and want to make more changes in that area.
/E Since it was such a beautiful autumn day and I had a day off I decided to bake some muffins with apples. These muffins are perfect to eat as an afternoon snack when you need a bit of extra energy, for example at school or in the forest. It's the first time I've tried this recipe since I just made it up, but it was a successful one. The ingredients you need are the following:
3 small grated apples 70 g crushed walnuts 4½ dl flour 1½ dl sugar ½ dl oat bran 1½ tbs cinnamon 3 tbs baking powder 2 dl muesli 1 pinch of cardamom 2 eggs 1½ dl milk or natural yoghurt 40 g melted butter and sesame seeds to put on top of the muffins First put the oven to 175°C. Mix the dry ingredients and the apples together, then add the rest of the ingredients. The oven time is 15-20 minutes. It's good to keep an eye on them so they don't get burned. Enjoy with a glass of cold milk! /E Today was not one of the most pleasant days, it did rain a lot. And I had to stand there in the middle of it and build some stuff. Luckily my companion borrowed me a raincoat, but either way I did get wet. So when I came home I was wet and frozen, and not in the best mood. Well, I decided to treat the bad mood with some nice and hot coffee. So here comes the story about todays lifesaver: The Cubans Those who know me and have been to our house, knows that I like coffee a lot, and that my coffee shelf have all kinds of varieties. However, while standing there trying to decide what to have, I saw behind all the others, almost hidden, a small glas jar filled with coffee beans. I picked the jar up, and saw that it was my little Cuban beans I almost had forgotten about. It was a gift from my parents in law, who had been to Cuba last year and bought these coffee beans to me straight from the grower. I opened the jar, and the scent that came out was heavenly. The scent was a mix of roasted coffee and a faint fragrance of cigar. It was a easy pick, because now when we had a coffee grinder, that maybe needed a bit of cleaning, I could grind the beans. The mood was back. I did put on some cuban salsa and started to clean the almost 90 years old coffee grinder. What a beauty! The feeling when I started to grind the beans was overwhelming. With the scent and the music it was like I was standing behind a desk at a small café in old town of Havana myself.
My evening was saved, the mood was high, all thanks to an old coffee grinder and a jar of cuban beans. /A I'm no chef. I don't really like making food and I'm not good at it, except for when I make waffles, and that's maybe the only thing I do when it comes to making food. Tasty, crispy waffles... Anyway, what I do like is woodworking and whittling, so when my wife asked me in the beginning of this summer if I could make her some kitchen tools in wood, I was like: Yeah, I can do that!! I started making some spoons in various sizes that she might have use for, and of course a butter knife or two. We decided that we should try to replace our plastic stuff in the kitchen to wooden or metal. Therefore I now have this list of kitchen tools that I have to make, or buy. It feels like a good challenge for this fall. In the picture below is some of the stuff I've made, and can cross off the list. Why wooden tools? Obviously it is much better looking and aesthetic than plastic tools. But it's not just for the aesthetic we decided to try to get a plastic free kitchen. Plastic releases all kinds of toxic substances that aren't good for the body and can upset the hormonal balance, especially for kids. I do not have all the knowledge in the subject so I will stop the preaching now, but think about it folks.
/A This past weekend was one of our favourite weekends, the annual Juthbacka Market in A´s hometown. It's a two day long market, like a gigantic flea market. About 800 vendors selling everything from dinnerware and old toys to motorcycles and homemade crafts. I heard that this year about 40.000 visited the market, even though the weather was cold with occational rain. We visited both friday and saturday since we'd been looking forward to it all summer. And there is no way to find all you need in one day, if that's what you want. My tip is to come well rested and with a filled stomach. Look closely and feel, otherwise you will end up not buying anything. This year we didn't have anything we were searching for, but as always we found a bunch of things we didn't know we needed. Since it's so big I think the best way to be pleased with your purchases is to just buy it if it's a price you're willing to pay, and then to not look and see if you could get it cheaper. Because there is always someone selling the same kind of thing both cheaper and way more expensive. I'm really pleased with our purchases. Here are a few of our bargains, mostly kitchen supplies this time. I also found a good cast iron frying pan, which I've been searching for previous years. It's such a joy to find things you need at a good price. The coffee grounder from the 30's, that many would just have as an interior detail, we are going to use because it still was in good condition. If you're a fan of flea markets this is definitely the one to visit! Since me and A became a couple I've visited the Juthbacka Market every year. Maybe one day we'll be among the vendors, selling things we no longer need.
/E So, now it´s time for me to write my first post ever, and I´m not used to write a lot so what I lack in words, I complete with pictures. This first post of mine will be about me and my twin brother. We decided that we would spend an afternoon together out hunting yesterday. So we took our gear and went down to the lake nearby to see if we could get some ducks. It was a bit chilly overcast day, with a little rain now and then. But I would say that is the perfect hunting weather, not to warm and sweaty. This is my brother, Daniel. He´s a very good hunter and fisherman, and because I was on his hunting grounds, he was the guide for the day. Even tough I did grow up here too, he knows the grounds better. First we tried to just walk along the shoreline, to see if we could get som ducks flying. It is quite exciting to go slowly on edge through the reeds, and not knowing when or where a duck would fly up. Unfortunately the sneaking around in the reed didn't work. So we went back to get Daniels boat and go out on the lake.. ..an hour later maybe after padeling around I saw a duck lift from the reeds about 25 meters away from us. I took the shot and the duck went down. It was a fullgrown female mallard, and my first duck this autumn. We were out on the lake a couple of hours, but didn't get eny more, even tough we saw some far away. But we were happy anyhow. We went back home, ate some well-made waffles with blueberrys and cream, to get our strength back. The weather was still cloudy and it did rain a bit, but a little rain haven't killed enyone. So we went back out, this time to the woods to hunt pigeons. Walking around in a forest is always nice, it´s so peaceful, you just hear the wind in the trees and birds chirping. However, after finding us the right place, we put out some pigeon decoys on a field, after that it was just to sit and wait, and we waited and waited. Daniel had this pigeon birdcaller, so he tryed to lure the birds to us, but we didn't see any.. ..After a while, we gave up, and started to walk home, satisfied with the day well spent together out in the nature. To hunt is not always about to get to shoot something, I should say that the best part is to be out in the nature that God gave us.
And now we can see forward to a nice ecological dinner with duck breast on the meny. /A I thought I should share some of the reasons why I decided to start changing my thoughts and choices. I was for a long time aware of what was happening to our environment, but I thought it had to be totally life-changing if you wanted to do something about it. You'd have to change the entire way of living at once. Luckily I noticed that that's not the case, that you can take small bits and apply them into your life. One step at a time.
It's almost two years ago I started noticing that my stomach didn't work as it should. It was almost always bloated and I started having cramps that were really painful. I had to lie down with warming pillows on my stomach to numb the pain most evenings. Then I started to try out differnt diets, lactose-free and gluten-free diets. They helped a little but my problems didn't completely go away. I read a book about the impact food and cosmetics has on our bodies, written by a woman who had experienced the same thing I was going through only that her problems were worse. I tried to reduce the amount of fried food since it's hard for the stomach to process. Sometimes I still get problems with my stomach but it's not as often and it's always after I've eaten so called "hard" food. At the same time I started to think more about what we actually have in, on and aorund our bodies. I tried out some nature-friendly shampoos and have now finally found one that works for my hair. I also bought some cleaning supplies that are free from chemicals. I found out that treating your body as it should be treated actually also treats the nature as it should be treated. It's definitely a win-win situation. I still have a long way to go to get to where I want to be. But the thing is that when you start taking small steps towards a more ecological life you will want to take more and more steps. And I'm so happy that my husband now also will join me! /E Spent a few hours in the forest today, I went with a good friend picking mushrooms. For the first time I dared to pick other mushrooms than chantarelles, mostly because we both had our mushroom books with us to help identify our small forest friends (and because her grandmother later made sure they weren't poisonous). You can never be too careful. Hopefully these will give us some tasty dishes this autumn, I'm thinking soup. One of the best smells in the autumn is mushrooms being parboiled. I just love spending time in the forest since it's so peaceful and beautiful.
/E Today we heard on the radio that it is the Ecological Debt Day. That means that we will from this day until the end of the year live on natural resources that the world doesn't have. We have used up all the resources we had for the year. These are scary facts, and when we heard it we started to talk about what we can do to make a change.
This is our way. We will by the help of this blog record our steps in the right direction and hopefully get others to join. This is something we all have to do together. Noone can make all the change, but we can all help by living a bit more ecofriendly and at the same time more healthy for our own bodies. /E |