A lamb is born.

  While feeding the sheep their daily ration of pelletized grass bits, which I assume is the ovine equivalent of Haribo Gold Bears, I heard a queer cry from just beyond a knoll in the next field over.  I thought to myself, that isn't the sound of a sheep following the herd to ruminant goodies, that's a sheep with something to tell me!  I sloshed through a soggy pasture to investigate and found to my surprise, an ewe and her very late lamb.  Yet barely able to walk, it must have been born that morning.  I of course had to pick it up and marvel at its soft wool, adorable baa, tiny body, and the unique beauty of creature so superbly new to this world.  After reuniting it with its concerned mother, Sarah and I went back to the farmhouse to inform Bonde and Maria who were equally surprised.  It seems the now departed ram had gotten a bit on-in-years and aside from developing an irritating habit of protecting his herd from well-meaning farmers, he also had found nineteen ewes a bit much to handle in one month, or even two.  As a result, what was originally thought to be an unfertilized ewe, was in fact to become the mother of the very last lamb our poor old ram would ever sire.  Despite being born near a fox's den, having to watch out for ravens large enough to carry him off, and now having two disproportionately large ear tags, the little lamb is growing up quickly and healthily.

Causey Commentary

Sorry to those who have attempted to comment recently but have not been able to.  I have changed the settings so you should now be able to.  Thanks, I look forward to hearing from you.

Midsommardagen

Last Friday was a day celebrated all over Sweden with strawberries, soused herring, boiled eggs and potatoes, lots of drinking and dancing around pagan fertility statues;  there was no exception at Bataholm.  The men started the day by tromping through the forest with a chainsaw, hacking down small birch trees and saplings while the women collected wildflowers from the fields.  Some of the trees were implanted along the main drive leading to the house, giving it a sacred-grove feel. 

  Around two in the afternoon, Bonde’s sister and  brother-in-law came by to begin construction of the midsummer’s pole.  They had in tow a pail of Fläderpunsch, a lovely midday cocktail of white wine, elderflowers, sugar, strawberries and pineapple pieces.

  A few neighbors arrived soon after and we commenced drinking and decoration of a large crucifix and two bicycle rims with birch branches and wildflowers.  Again, the work was gender specific; the men trimmed the birch branches to the appropriate sizes while the women tied them to the pole and added blooms for color. 

 Once all was in place the pole was hoisted overhead and paraded to its hallowed home in the middle of the yard.  All the while everyone sang or hummed a midsummer song; these would prove to be numerous and frequent as the day went on.  The traditional lyrics became more obscured as the songs became less familiar and the singers more intoxicated.  Once the pole was raised, we did some dances around it, holding hands and singing.

  I think we were singing about the summer fauna but we might have been hopping like frogs for the simple enjoyment of our fellow dancers.  After so much activity, a snack was in order.  

 The festival moved onto the veranda for coffee and three kinds of cake.  After the final strawberry meringue, the snaps began.  “Snaps” is the grand Swedish tradition of drinking half-shots of hard liquor while toasting and singing songs about drinking snaps.  Thus was our introduction to Grammel Dansk, a dark, bitter elixir somewhere between Jägermeister and Cynar.

  

  After coffee we had a break before going to dinner which was filled with beer and kubb.  At six-thirty we mounted our bicycles and began the short ride down the dusky country road to dinner.  On the way we stopped by Bonde’s visiting nephew’s cottage to meet his friends and have a quick snaps of Hallands Fläder, an elderflower-flavored akvavit.  On down the road, we rejoined the neighbors at their house for dinner.  We were greeted with an aperitif of a bright green sugary punch of unknown origin.  We made our introductions to friends and family of our hosts and were seated before a table filled with myriad akvavits, both store-bought and homemade.

  

  Dinner followed in the traditional way; soused herring is much better than I had anticipated.  The taste is more like gravlax made of whitefish and is excellent with plenty of dill and sour cream.

 

Many more snaps were had with cheery jingles such as “Drink it all, drink it all! If you can’t drink it all then you can’t have any more.” and “Now we drink, now we drink. Now we drink, now we drink…”  These many and merry drinks were of flavors local and imported, aged and freshly prepared.  Some of my favorites included Bësk, a local product made with wyrmwood and plain spirit; Fläder, the aforementioned elderflower brew; OSB, an aged caraway akvavit deliciously reminiscent of Irish whiskey; and homemade vanilla snaps, made simply of whole vanilla beans steeped in vodka.  All this drinking of course inspired great conversation.  Topics included local wildlife and whether or not reindeer existed so far south, the differences in northern and southern Swedish dialects, the pejorative Danish, the Swedish elite attending the local tennis tournament, and travel in southeast Asia.  At the end of the night we were asked back for the upcoming “neighbor party” and wished a happy midsummer and a safe bike ride home.

Welcome to Bataholm's Gård

  We are now living at Bataholm, the family farm of Bonde and Maria.  We live in a small farm cottage with two WWOOFers from France, Kevin and Julie.  There also live here many sheep, cows, hens, two dogs, two cats, one rooster and about 200,000 bees.  There is a nice big garden full of vegetables, lots of pasture and forest to walk around, a sauna for relaxation, a vineyard, some boats for the lake and a barn full of the artifacts that Bonde's father collected.  Some of these include a stuffed hawk, plaster ghoul masks, an amazonian bow and arrow, an ivory samurai sword, a set of Danish ship's cannons, old fishing nets and a number of other oddities.  The bees provide us with plenty of delicious honey and useful wax.  The forest contains blueberries, strawberries, chanterelle mushrooms and edible snails.  The hens lay eggs, the cows and sheep are good for meat, and the vineyards produce a very tart and tasty Swedish wine.  There is lots of work to be done on Bataholm.  We spend a lot of time clearing pastures of sticks and branches, weeding the garden, tending the sheep, collecting honey, and carrying logs for firewood.  We usually have the afternoons free for walking around, reading, boating on the lake, biking around the countryside or into town, collecting treats from the forest, archery, or playing kubb.  In the evenings everyone eats together.  Usually Maria cooks but sometimes we take a turn.  Monday we made southern specialties of chicken fried steak, biscuits and gravy, boiled cabbage, mashed potatoes and apple pie.  Tuesday Julie and Kevin made Senegalese chicken and rice and a delicious chocolat fondant.  We're having a great time and learning a lot on the farm.  This friday we are going to celebrate Midsummer with some neighbors so check back soon for details.

Louisiana and other fine things in Copenhagen

  After some fumbling with directions we made our way to the home of Tomas, Sara, and their new son Orla; they are absolutely lovely hosts.  Many thanks to them for their hospitality, generosity, and assistance with making our way around the city.  Thanks also to Christian and Hella for providing a delicious meal, interesting conversation and plenty of wine.
  Aside from soaking up the goodwill of our gracious hosts, we also managed to get out to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.  There we were pleased to take in the David Hockney Exhibit, Me Draw on iPad as well as his painting, A Closer Grand Canyon.  Both showcase his colorful contemporary-pop-post-impressionist-neon-heart-attack style of painting but the iPad images playfully bend this style into a new and back-lit medium.  By using the "Brushes" app and a stylus, he creates electronic images directly from his hand, taking the concept of painting into new territory.  While limited in scope by resolution and screen size, the iPad-produced images have a beautiful painterly quality that is intensified by the bright glow of screen-light in a dim room.  Hockney makes it all look like child's play in a video looping in the exhibit hall as he swishes colors out, creating one of the images on display in less than ten minutes.  Above all, I love the fact that these "paintings" can be replicated instantly, infinitely and exactly by means of electronic copy; suck it Warhol.
  We also had the privilege of drinking a few beers at Mikkeller Bar, one of the best in Europe.  Twenty taps showcase a number of hop-heavy brews by Mikkeller himself as well as some the best stuff from around the continent and the U.S.  The real awesomeness is in the tap list, which is pages and pages of exotic, mouthwatering treasures that I have either heard of an never tried before, heard of and will never be able to try, or have never even heard of.  I'm trying to go back soon as our first trip got cut short by some puritanical influence on Denmark which tragically causes legendary beer joints to close at midnight just because it's a Monday.  Luckily it's just a two hour train ride from our lovely farm-home.
  Updates coming soon detailing our environs and the good life here in Sweden.

Iceland, Land of Ice.

Iceland is a beautiful country; I cannot fathom why Vikings settled upon it.
  It is hugely beautiful.  It contains stunning glaciers, waterfalls, mountains, fjords, black-sand beaches, geothermal features and other natural wonders.  It is also windswept, frigid, dismally dark in the winter and eerily light at midnight in the summer.  It is devoid of trees and other resources an Iron-age culture might consider useful; local cuisine developed around fermented fish, whale meat and puffin.  It sits 600 miles from mainland Norway.  In short it is a wondrous frozen rock in the Middle of Nowhere, North Atlantic.
 Oh, and it's made of volcanoes that tend to blanket parts of the island with molten rock and huge clouds of ash every so often.  The kind of ash that blows wildly across "lava fields" (think frozen desert) stripping the paint off of cars, blinding sheep and sending them stumbling off cliffs to their deaths, blacking out the sun, moon and stars and grounding air traffic across Europe.  You know, just the kind of place you would want to raise a family, a herd of sheep, and the occasional pillaging party.

  Anyways, it's a wonderfully modern nation nowadays and I had a lot of fun visiting.  Check out my pictures and if you're ever in Reykyavik, I recommend you try the hot dogs.

The beginning

I am creating this blog in an effort to document the upcoming summer of 2011.  In one week I will embark on a trip to Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway for the summer.  I'll be going with my girlfriend, Sarah.  We will be eating, drinking, farming and playing kubb. If you are interested in any of those things or in the lives of Sarah and myself, I encourage you to check back from time to time.  Thanks,
Nathan