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September moon

This week I've been working a lot. It's about the harvest time, and at the milling company they asked for a few software updates which are best to be implemented now before they start buying in loads of this year's buckwheat. So I have been coding the new features for them, having massage customers at the side, and then having my own homesteading chores (I started renovating the main room floor, and then there is all kinds of small-scale harvesting to be done). All of this has meant a lot of time spent indoors.

Well, I know I need all the money I can get, so I'm happy to be busy at work. But I also know that I'd better not wear down all of my energy. So I thought that if I haven't been getting any fresh air at the daytime, then I go sleep outdoors for a night. Wednesday it was full moon, and the weather forecast said that on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday the sky will be clear. Monday evening I packed my backpack. On Tuesday after a full day of work I was back at home about 9pm. I placed harvested onions on the sauna bench and started a small fire in the sauna stove so that the onions will dry quickly in the mild heat of the sauna. I gave hay for the horses and went walking to the lake, carrying the backpack.

I rowed to the nearby islet. It was rather nice to be out on the lake in the night. The full moon shed enough light making it possible to navigate. Looking around the lake on the dark silhouette of the shores I could spot only a handful of lights - houses and cottages. I love the atmosphere, when it is not too crowded around. At the islet I started a small fire and cooked myself a little meal. My plan was to set a hammock in between trees, but unpacking my stuff I noticed that I had forgot to pack the hammock ropes. Oh well, but no problem. Since the ground moss was not moist nor frozen it would be perfectly okay to sleep on the ground. I chose a spot under a big pine tree, encircled by younger pines. Somehow a place like that feels safe and protected.

In the morning I cooked coffee by fire. There was fog over the lake. I thought it will disperse as soon as the sun climbs higher and it gets warmer. I packed my stuff into the boat and went fishing. I rowed around slowly, dragging a lure. No luck with the fish, but it was very nice to watch the fog slowly dispersing, revealing the landscape. For a moment it felt like the world got created afresh - everything was so gorgeous and beautiful, there was peace and tranquil. (I thought that maybe, just maybe, when I go back home and read the news it will say that all the political crises got solved as people just agreed to have a fresh start celebrating the joy and beauty. Then I thought what if I don't go back, can I just stay here and become a total hermit. And once again I concluded that I'm happy enough with my semi-hermit life, a bit away from all the hustle and bustle of the mainstream society. I watched a black-throated diver who calmly minded his own business, swimming around the lake just like the black-throated divers have been doing for thousands of years.)

Back on the home shore I chose a small path instead of the dirt road. I knew that by the path there are two spots which might have chanterelle. And there they were, I picked enough to make a nice addition to the day's meal.

On Wednesday I enjoyed the luxury of spending a sunny day at home - I only had one customer at 7pm. I cooked by open fire - frying chanterelle, onions and zucchini for a meal. Then I threshed broad beans, boiled them and mixed with cooked zucchini and fried onion. That made two big kettles of vegetable stew. I froze the stew in smaller portions - that's one of the easiest way of storing zucchini for winter.

The moon over Lake Paloselkä, seen from the islet
The moon over Lake Paloselkä, seen from the islet
The morning view
The morning view
I slept under this pine
I slept under this pine
The morning fog dispersing
The morning fog dispersing
tags: 
diary
homesteading
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Comments

Chilled-out writing. I like that.

Thanks!

Hehe, I'm not that much of an agitator. On the contrary, most of the time I like to write in a way which promotes peace and tranquil =)

It sounds like a night in paradise :) Great great photos! Only missing the yummy chanterelles :D

Indeed, it is a paradise islet! Also, at this time of the year there aren't any more stinging nor biting insects, which makes sleeping outdoors even more pleasant.

Hehe, I remember when I started writing the blog at some point I was experimenting with a possibility to add small pictures embedded in the text, so that the user could click on images to view them in bigger size. But then I've been lazy and just using the "first text, then pictures" format, which is easier to post but is also restricted to four pictures (although that restriction can be configured). I mean, I often have about a dozen of pictures, and then I try to select which ones to use for illustration of a blog post. This time I chose to omit chanterelle picture, as I thought that I've been already posting them elsewhere.

Hi Erkka,

Discovered your blog a few weeks ago, looking for URW-related stuff. I'm a big fan of the game, by the way, very good work both of you!

I'm writing from Panama, and I have a very different life from yours. Climate and geography are the least of the differences, it is the kind of society you are in, the bigger "climate", as to say, that shapes the soul. Yet I feel quite related to your way of thinking, only that I, for the time being at least, can't live in any wood, or jungle, or anything outside The Matrix. Working on that ;-)

I've had a similar experience to your night at the island, hiking here by the beach, looking out to the Pacific Ocean some years ago. Nature speaks to us all in the same language, and it is not English! :-)

As for me, I'm in the middle of a personal re-organization. Re-growth, maybe? Spring, at long last? I don't know but people like you inspire me. You are braver than many people, don't you know that? Anyway, thanks for the reading and all the best.

Regards,
U.

Hello, and thanks for the feedback! It is so nice and encouraging to hear that people around the world, from different background, find my writings inspiring. As I'm not writing in a framework of "everybody needs to know how I think and feel" but more like "I wish sharing my personal stuff makes a connection with other people out there, so that readers find something to relate to."

I know very little about the society and culture in Panama. And I applaud your phrase "Nature speaks to us all in the same language, and it is not English! :-)" Something like that was one of the turning points of my adolescence - it was early spring, I sat by lakeside woods in a spot where snow had already thawed, feeling a warm wind on my face, thinking that scientifically speaking wind is a mass of air in move, and it is possible that this wind has travelled all the way from the Equator zone. That we all all touched and nurtured by the same great winds travelling the globe.

Oh well =) I wish you all the best for your personal phase of re-organization. Feel free to drop a comment or post a personal message in case you feel like that. And / or, naturally, it is also perfectly fine just to follow the blog without commenting that actively.

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