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fredag 19 juli 2013

Vacation activities

I finally got some time to just sit and rest. It's not easy with children around and lots of things that need to be done. Thank godness for headphones and Cathedral 13, the only way for me to get peace to write a post.
Otherwise..I heard a rumour that the cloudberries are ripe, well they are out for now but a few days ago, I took a short walk up in the forest with a bucket to a nearby bog were I know there is cloudberries to find.
As these berries are treasurous, I will not tell were to find them. This is how the place looks like. The moss is soft and wet and you have to be a bit careful were you walk.
See the tiny red plant in the middle of the picture. It's a fly eating plant.

This is how a ripe cloudberry look like. You can pick for hours and only get a few litres, but it's worth it. The taste is like a combination of honey, dried apricots and a tint of moss.

I was supposed to go to a farm to pick strawberries but it was closed (even if it was said it wasn't :( . By a coincident we took the wrong way and drove by a nature reserve. We stop by to have a look. Frostbrunnsdalen as it is called is a huge natural spring were ice cold water running up from the ground. This spring is keeping a whole city with fresh water (not this part of it though). As many natural springs, this is also an ancient sacred place from the time of the vikings (and propably further back) to christian time, there's a large medeival church nearby. 
We drank the water and bathed our feets in the freezing cold water. 
Alfons is testing one of the holes in the sand, trying to se how deep it is.

These three had a contest how long they could bare to stand in the cold water. Red feets!
 Annoyed about the closed farm I went by the market and bought 20 litres of strawberries. We have been eating ripe strawberries a couple of days now and I've made jam and syrup.

Last picture. Alfons dancing rainddance in a water puddle, it ended with him washing his shoes and the raincoat and himself lying in it splashing. It isn't obvious in this picture but there were two very distinct rainbows, on the inside of the first, the rain is pouring and on the other side it's clear.


End of blog post and time for doing all that is waiting to be done. Picking currants, taking a run, building a garden wall, weeding....

18 kommentarer:

  1. Oooh I have had Cloudberry jam from Ikea (the only place you can get it in Australia I am sure) and it was amazing! I hope someone goes to Ikea and gets some more sometime! It is the best jam I ever tasted, not too sweet or sour!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. I didn't knew that. :). I have looked in stores and on markets and it is way too expensive when there is a chance to pick the berries oneself :)

      Radera
  2. I only once tried cloudberries when I was in Helsinki and found them to be very sour. Maybe the one I tried was not ripe? Your description sounds much better!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. And there is a thin line between not ripe and too ripe. Very few of the berries I picked were ripe enough, most almost wet. Try the jam next time ;)

      Radera
  3. Älskar smaken av hjortron, känns lyxigt på nåt sätt..!
    KRAM, Jenny

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Ja det är lyxigt :) Iallafall när jag tänker på hur lång tid det tog att plocka ;)

      Radera
  4. Hjortronsylt och glass är ju nåt av det bästa som finns! Jag önskar jag visste nåt ställe här i Västerås var man kunde plocka :P

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Leta på gröna kartan efter en myr, de växer oftast i kanterna på den.

      Radera
  5. Härliga sommarbilder, men inte trodde jag att den där flugätarväxten växte här i Sverige?! Det trodde jag var en exotisk växt från någon annan del av världen=)
    Ha en fin helg!
    Kram,
    Regina

    SvaraRadera
  6. You have such interesting plants in your bog! The grass is so high and the mosquitoes so bad that I haven't dared go in and have a look at what's growing in ours yet. :P

    I was checking through the Plants of Alberta book and we have those cranberry plants here, too. They look so much alike that I thought yours were the shooting stars that I was seeing. I will have to look closer next time to be sure I'm not missing any cranberries to eat! :o)

    Our raspberries will be ready in about a week or so. I can't make jam this year because I don't want to have to pack it, so I think I'll invite the neighbours over to pick them so they don't end up on the ground. Strawberry syrup sounds lovely!

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. I know another bog in the neighbourhood were there is plenty of cranberries to pick, but that is later. I googled shooting stars and it really looks like them but cranberry flower is propably much smaller.
      Our raspberries are also a week away :)

      Radera
  7. Your jam sounds lovely! Homemade is ALWAYS better than store-bought.

    I can see both rainbows in the sky in that last picture, but there are actually THREE altogether... Alfons is one as well! ;-)

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. Thanks that was sweet :) He is a fantastic person, always up to something interesting.

      Radera
  8. Lovely photos of the scenery and your beautiful kids! Those strawberries look delicious!

    SvaraRadera
  9. Great photos! It looks lovely where you are. I've never heard of cloudberries before. If they're sold at Ikea I will definitely try them. :)

    SvaraRadera
  10. Very lovely photos :3 I've never heard of such a thing as cloudberries, but from the way you've described them they definitely sound delicious ^^

    SvaraRadera
  11. Jag har aldrig sett en " flug- ätar blomma" i naturen!

    SvaraRadera