Long time no new post, but we've been up to things! And this month Mira from Korea has been here for some almost two weeks helping out with cooking for Annelie and Pernilla's jam/marmelade/jarred fruit business, plus shearing the sheep, plus some garden work that finally got done after 6 years, and also helping out with doing drainage around the guest house! Very nice to have Mira here but today she left for Holland, so kinda empty, and also Izo is wondering why, I guess. Other than that we've just been hanging around the house and heating it up and riding the ATV's and having dinner at Annelie's parents house, cooking at home (Mira's a great cook!), walking Izo in the forest and apparently a crap trip out with the bicycles, haha, the rough forest terrain wasn't a success with Mira I guess :) Before Mira there was autumn and more garden work cutting down the lilac bushes (or trees more like it), started digging around the guest house in mid-September, finished the drainage late October haha. Started the boiler to heat the house first time in late September too, and it's been like every 3 days since. Also we've had a friend from Oslo here that Truls makes electronic music with, plus there was the moose hunting week that we had (haven't enough land to hunt more than a week, and only one moose to shoot given by the authorities, but the weather was so shit that there was only 2 days we could sit in the forest looking for moose. Oh well...

Lådor med lammkött finns till salu! Leverans i mitten av november 😊

In June we had Alexandra from Stockholm paying us a visit for a little more than a week. We did some this and that, but mostly tried to focus on the guest house that now has been attacked by dry rot yet again, so we’re a bit bummed out about that, will have to try get the insurance company to help out again, which surely isn’t gonna be fun. Didn’t take much pictures when Alexandra was here but on the picture of her and Annelie in the couch they’re trying to warm up some ducklings that had fallen behind their mother on a long walk around here, too long for the little ones so they were just lying in the wet grass getting cold. On Wednesday our ex-WWOOFer Nele from Germany and her partner in crime (and other things) Bart from Holland came to visit us again for some weeks! We had planned to do up the guest house but now that there’s dry rot again there’s not so much to do really except muck for the animals and some small things here and there, so probably gonna be a relaxed second stay for Nele. Yesterday we went to a lake and brought Bart’s bagpipe and my mandolin and Bart, Nele and Annelie had a swim. Welcome back Nele! In between this we’ve been doing some other things of course, summer and all requires some hike and last month we went to Fulufjället in Dalarna to camp in the mountains, me, Annelie and Paul. Very nice scenery and all, we didn’t get to see the world’s oldest known tree that’s in the national park there though, mostly because Izo was having a limp and the climb to see it was very rocky. Also Annelie ran Sweden’s biggest orienteering competition that took place in Värmland this year and came 15 out of almost 80 runners in her category that day (it goes on for 5 days), so very proud of her!

So finally the ducks made it! Or one duck anyway, cos last week we suddenly had 12 or 13 ducklings one morning! The next day it was down to 5 cos our cat Fia took 2 and the ducks themselves are horrible to new born like the chickens are, so had to separate the mom/ducklings from the rest of the pack, and there's still 5 ducklings at least. Before the snow disappeared we had some bear tracks out on the area between the house and the barn, never had that before. Also moved our pregnant ewes from Annelie's parent's farm to here after not having any sheep for a while after the male lambs got slaughtered, and in the middle of moving them from the horse trailer to the barn the smallest one got away, and she was gone in the forest for a week, once me and Paul were riding the ATV's we saw her far up somewhere in the forest hiding behind a mobile home they had there cos they were cutting in that area. Finally, one day I was picking up some gravel/shingle stuff to repair the road with, she was standing in front of me, staring at me, so managed to herd her up to the farm, but wouldn't go in the barn, but then Annelie let out the other sheep and she was straight through the fence and in with the others! Now just waiting for lambs! Also been out riding a lot in the forest with Paul, and Annelie. Not to mention sailing the canoe!

Four more days of thinning down in the small thick birch forest and the pile is four times as big. Also been in the stable in the barn where the chickens and sheep are inside, and rented a jack-hammer to knock away the big lump of cement that was in between the sheep and chickens, so after 3 or 4 days of this and that we could finally build a wall so to make the space inside for the sheep twice as big! Also been to Gysinge national park and yesterday we went for a fika at Annelie's parents to check out some "America-letters" that Annelie's father had found under the floor in their old house, telling about a woman that lived in that house going to Minnesota in 1911 partly to escape the grip of the church here back then, but also for a better life in terms of work and welfare and whatnot.

So Nels from Minnesota is here helping out with things and being a forest worker by trade we're in the forest working, naturally :)

Today at Backas, we have three new arrivals. Thor, Loki and Freyja.

Hayley has been here for over a week now, all the way from Burlington, Vermont in the USA. Hayley likes to work, knit, play the banjo, play the mandolin, play the guitar, drink a beer or two and read (she's reading the Poetic Edda in the picture), cook and probably more things I cannot think of right away. So we get to be musically creative and eat food and have a fika or ten in between mucking out the sheep's space in the barn before winter. Other than that we've had our regular chores, going about to pick up this or that or just relaxing, doing "nothing", or Paul's favourite past time: shooting. Today we're picking up hay and straw for the winter and unloading the last trailer full of sheep shit and Hayley's gonna dig up the old, not so productive anymore, strawberry plants down on the field, plus cleaning up a bit of things. Gonna expand the space for the sheep also in the barn, partly because Paul is planning to get some sheep also, but also because we need to separate the male and female lambs now that they are older and fertile, so there's no inbreeding, but need to hire a pneumatic drill for that purpose. Anyway, here's some pictures:

Kantareller på g!

We've got a new rooster thanks to Nanna and Lina and Otto. His name used to be Dunboll but because that was a bit too little majestic we have decided to call him Oden from the norse mythology Odin :-)

First thing’s first…. Records and stereo… Since late yesterday Paul is officially a Backas resident for good. He’s been here lots of times and knows most stuff and the general drill around here, and we’ve known him for some good 7 years so it feels good to have him living here! Something that doesn’t feel so good is that the insurance company won’t help out with the house that Paul was supposed to live in upon arrival here, so for now he’s in the guest room downstairs. Anyway, welcome Paul! :D