Give it to the Pig

This was the week of strange purchases here at Bossgården. The first was the arrival of Buta, a 45 kg pig. We had spent the morning thinning out the carrot patch (a back breaking job I might add), which meant that we now had around 15-20 lbs of carrots which were too small to be sold, and so another solution had to be worked out for them. Jonas immediately suggested they should go to the pig...if we had a pig. He has also been making a cheese a week, which produces about 8 liters of leftover whey for each cheese, which is also very good pig food. So we all agree, yeah if only we had a pig, and start listing all of the recipes we can think of for carrots; carrot cake, carrot bread, carrot soup, roasted carrots, etc. No one noticed that Jonas has disappeared at this point until he returns about an hour later and proclaims "I've just bought a pig! We need to go pick it up this afternoon, and before we do that need to make a pen for it, get the mill working for its food, and make a transport case for it". This was greeted by blank stares from the rest of us for a moment, until Aki (a ten-year old WWOOFer) excitedly asked if she could come up with the name for the pig (As a side note, this began a rather humorous discussion of the possibilities, as the owner of the farm this pig came from was also the leader of the local conservative party. Jonas, being a liberal and holding a political office in town, was more inclined to name it after its previous owner). At any rate, the pig arrived, and was given the name Buta which is Japanese for pig. As we were heading off to bed Jonas commented that he had no idea when he woke up this morning that he would have a pig when he went to bed. Best impulse purchase ever. The next strange purchase came a few days later when Jonas ran up to me and said that he had just sold some vegetables in exchange for 100 clay roof tiles, and I needed to take the wheelbarrow and go retreive them. It was my first experience with true bartering and rather interesting meeting the man who drives a van around with a few hundred roof tiles in a trailer.

Besides the strange purchases, there was quite a bit of commotion surrounding the pub night that Jonas and Sanna organized in their pub, The Golden Pig (so named because it is housed in a refurbished pig pen, actually a really cool space with a kind of grotto vibe). One of Jonas's good friends, David, who had recently moved to Uppsala to study psychology, came to perform some songs with witty lyrics and simple melodies. Though most of them were in Swedish (and apparently quite funny) the few that he performed in English were also very humorous. What I liked most about the events surrounding this evening, however, was the dinner that Jonas made for his friends and the WWOOFers the night before. He cooked an amazing stew with all ingredients that he had grown on the farm, and had pulled out the nice china and set a beautiful table on the three hundred year old table that is sitting in his kitchen. Even though the discussion was mostly in Swedish, I had an overwhelming sense of being really and truly welcomed into this family's life and being a part of it. I took that feeling with me to the pub night the following evening as I looked around the room at the community that had gathered and realized I already knew a few stories about each of the thirty people there. I just felt extremely lucky to be able to have an experience like this and become a part of a this tight-knit community for a few weeks. And that is really what I wanted this year to be all about. This way, I feel like I am truly experiencing part of Sweden, instead of just looking in from the outside as a tourist.

Jonas's sheep which graze on 1000 year old burial mounds in Dimbo, which are also the site of my first blueberry picking adventures. They are so fluffy.

The WWOOFers of Bossgarden after picking blueberries in Dimbo


The view from the burial mounds

The swimming lake

Making a hook in the smithie I helped restore. The hook is less than beautiful, but will hold a towel as well as anything

Exploring this area on bike has also been a true pleasure. Because the sunsets about 10 PM here and there are a few hours of beautiful light around this time, I have taken to going on a 15 km bike ride on nice nights. The light on the barley and wheat fields is really unbelievable. It's funny that I had to come to Swedent to really get the essence behind 'for amber waves of grain', but no one grows anything but corn back in PA. I've also found some really beautiful spots like Kvarndammen, which is a small spring-fed pond in the woods surrounded by wild blueberry bushes, and Gerumsmansteln, where they found the remains of a man who had been murdered about 3000 years ago. It doesn't look like much when you get to the spot, but the bike ride up to it is through what I would describe as an enchanted forest of tall trees and a thick mossy forest floor. It looks like the perfect place for elves to hide or bed down and nap. Today we also visited a 900 year old church which is about half a mile up the road. The whole experience is neat, as I needed a note from Jonas to ask his next door neighbor if we could borrow the key to the church because she only spoke Swedish. After a lot of gesticulating and confused looks all around, we walked up to a small church, made of stone and plaster. The outside is very plain, so I wasn't expecting much from the interior, but was pleasantly surprised to find that the ceilings had been spectacularly preserved and painted with reds and blues. The pulpit and altar piece were also intricately carved with figures of important saints. Because it was so small and quiet, the experience was very peaceful and intimate. I would have loved to hear the stories this church has to tell, as it was built around the time that Christianity first came to this region. Amazing.

The interior of the church

The 900 year old church in Ostra Gerum

The pulpit

A few hours after picking blueberries (below), I transformed them into this pie, of which I am quite proud (It made Jonas cry after all)

Blueberry picking at Kvarndammen

Hej Hej

That is Swedish for "hello hello" and also represents about the extent of my Swedish knowledge. However, I have just added 'thank you', 'your welcome', and 'I do not understand Swedish' to my vocabulary. All very important phrases.

Sweden thus far has been absolutely breathtaking. I really enjoyed my time in Stockholm, which already seems like an eternity ago. I spent the majority of my time simply wandering around Gamla Stan and looking at the buildings. They are beautiful, and not at all what I expected from Sweden. The wonderful pinks and oranges and yellows that they are all painted make the city feel almost Mediterranean. I have to keep reminding myself that this is July and the weather in January is not so enchanting to convince myself that I do not actually want to move here. Unfortunately I am on such a tight budget and everything in Sweden is so freaking expensive (i.e. my dinner of spaghetti bolognese and a beer in a 'cheap' restaurant cost about $25) I didn't go into very many of the main tourist attractions like all of the museums and the Royal Palace, but I did get into the Stockholm Cathedral. Princess Victoria (the crown princess) had just been married there, so everything was beautifully restored for the occasion, including a huge ebony and silver altarpiece.

To be honest, with only three days and medical school applications to do, not being able to afford many things was a blessing in disguise, because I was able to really just enjoy the atmosphere in Stockholm more than trying to hit all of the tourist spots. It also meant that I jumped at an opportunity to see the first annual Stockholm Street festival, which I might not normally have done. This was a wonderful show that took place in Kungstradgården which is a beautiful garden in Stockholm City. They brought in all sorts of street performers from all over the world and had them perform their acts to a backdrop of the sunsetting on the buildings. It was truly a magical experience, especially because it stays light here for so long and the sunsets routinely last over two hours.

Gamla Stan at night

View from the bridge outside the parliament building. This picture was taken at 11 PM.

Kastlehommen

A door in Gamla Stan that I especially liked

The band which performs at the changing of the gaurd

A street in Gamla Stan, I really liked the mail box on the handle bars of the bike

The view of Gamla Stan from Af Chapman

(Because I am not very good at formatting with this program, there are more pictures of Bossgarden to come in a later post) Bossgården has also been amazing so far. Jonas and Sanna own the farm and have a truly adorable 14 month old son named Alvin, who is as stereotypical a Swedish baby as you could ask for with straw blond hair and blue eyes. I have been doing all sorts of interesting things from tending chickens, to tending vegetables, selling vegetables in a village market (for which I made the local paper), to blacksmithing. A typical day begins with breakfast at 8 am which is usually homemade bread, butter, filmjolk (imagine something the consistency of really thick milk that tastes like yogurt), and meusli. We start work around 9 and work until 11 when we stop for fika, which is a coffee break, and then back to work until lunch which is sometime between 1 and 2. Work stops at 4, and we have been going to a beautiful lake most afternoons for swimming. It's about 80 over here, but I am told that that is extraordinarily hot. The thing that has been most incredible about this experience is cooking with all of the incredibly fresh ingredients. There is a HUGE difference between store bought eggs, and eggs that you collect yourself. Similarly, going outside to pick the ingredients that you will be using for dinner is incredibly satisfying and makes for really wonderful dishes. A German guy named Timo and I made lasgana with homemade pasta and garden fresh vegetable for lunch one day, and the experience was life changing.

This place is just so idyllic and peaceful, it's hard to properly describe it. Everything is beautiful rolling hills of barley which has turned a gorgeous yellow and sets off the red houses. Hopefully some pictures will help, however, it will be a little bit until I can get those up. Well because of the way their schedule works, this is a Friday night for me, so I'm going to go to bed to prepare for what I hope will be an exciting 'Saturday'.

Aboard the Af Chapman

I had a realization that if the hostel I am staying in was not moored to the dock in Stockholm, I could officially say I had made use of the four major forms of long distance transportation today; car, plane, train, and boat. The Af Chapman is a 19th century 3-masted ship which has been turned into a really beautiful youth hostel. As I write this, I am sitting on the upper deck watching the sunset behind the Royal Palace, which is just across the river/canal. Life is hard. So far, everyone had been surprisingly nice. I don't mean that to say I didn't expect people to be nice, but they are nice and heplful in a way I'm just not used to as an American. I have yet to encounter the slightly defensive or annoyed attitude that can begin to bubble up in people if you ask a lot of questions, which I have been. It is a welcome change.

Considering that it is 7:30 over here, I think it is time for me to go to bed. I have big plans for Gamla Stan (the Old City) tomorrow.

The sitting area on the bow (where I wrote my application for Mt. Sinai)

With the Royal Palace in the background

A view of Gamla Stan from the window of my room