Gym, jogging and Mölkky

Despite the cold (12-14 degrees C) and rainy weather the high season in this house started in the beginning of July. JD and I escaped to Italy for one week after Midsummer, but when we came to Kemiö almost straight from the airport we found 12 pairs of Crocs welcoming us in the porch. Annie’s family with four small kids and Rose had already arrived, and Inka and Yaffa came a bit later.

Many things are going on with the kids: Hanna, 12, was collecting flowers for drying and pressing, as they have a flora task from school to collect 30 plants, just like in the old times, except we had to collect 120 plants and know the Latin name of each and every one of those. Emma, 9, has sports competitions in the neighboring towns every week and she is practising running, long jump and shot put, and Ollie, 5, is learning letters and numbers. Vappu, 1.5, is learning to speak, she already can run fast.

It was too cold for boating and swimming in the sea. Instead we had a gym on the patio with Inka as a trainer, several people went jogging daily, and there was Mölkky games, football (soccer) on TV and sauna of course.

All the plants are growing fast and we don’t need to water them, which is exceptional on this island. The perennials are blossoming and the flower bench has doubled its size in a couple of weeks. 

 

Even the grapevines have flowers, but the summer is too cold and short to have grapes. The zucchini and chili plant have plenty of flowers which are turning fast into zucchinis and chilis. Soon we can cook them. Zucchini is not everyone’s favorite, but we have two options for dinner here: Take it or leave it.  

Tomorrow, Rob will try to catch fish - and I promised to cook bouillabaisse if he is successfull. 

Midsummer - or autumn?

Regardless of the weather, the Finns escape to their summer cottages for Midsummer and tend to repeat the same rituals every year. So did we. The weather was rainy and coldest in 30 years, 8-11 degrees, but self-evidently Midsummer was to be spent in Kemiö.

JD and I arrived on Wednesday evening to prepare the house for Midsummer, and the others, 11 members of our family, came on Thursday.

We bought 6 kilos new Siikli potatoes (for sale for the first time this summer) from a local farm with cute sheep, loads of salad ingredients from Perniö, and brought fish, meat and plenty of other food from Helsinki. It’s kind of funny that you cannot buy fish on the island (or it’s very difficult, there’s only one fisherman in Kemiö selling fish on Friday from 2 to 4 p.m., and his fish is normally sold out by 2.30.

Rose brought six liters of local strawberries and a big bag of bread from Kimitö Bageri.

Butter didn't melt on a potato 

On Friday, Midsummer Eve, we started heating the beach sauna at noon. It takes many hours to heat it, but once it’s done properly with birch logs the heat will last the whole night. We set the dinner table outside, as always, knowing it will be too cold. The Finnish flag was hoisted at 6 p.m. Then we sat down at the table, sweaters and jackets on, and started the dinner with new potatoes, salmon and Baltic herring. Butter didn’t melt on the potato, it was so cold…

After the first course, the children and some of their parents went to the sauna. They continued the bathing in the outside hot tub, while the other couples went to the sauna in turns.

JD and I went last, we enjoyed the black smoky renovated sauna and sat on the terrace watching the cool night, the sea and boats. I plunged in the sea, too.  On the opposite shore there was a Midsummer fire, but no party noises.

 

Meat Eaters’ dinner

After some hours of sauna and bathing, we set the dinner table inside to continue the dinner with the main course. This was actually the first time ever to eat inside at Midsummer! Close to midnight JD started grilling special rib-eye steaks from wagyu beef. He had bought nearly 5 kgs of the meat. That seemed as plenty for 10 adults, but he knows his family, they’re real meat eaters as soon as they get teeth.

The wagyu meet is said to be one of the most delicious meats in the world.  It is very juicy due to intense marbling.  In Japan they even massage the animals and add beer or sake to their food to make the cows happy and improve the meat’s flavor. So we ate at midnight the best steaks anybody had ever tasted, the meat melted in the mouth. Thanks JD! He spent several hours studying the cooking techniques for this meat. This time he chose to cut the meat in large, half a kilo steaks which were then cut to slices after grilling. As Emma (8 years) said, “This meat wouldn’t have tasted so good if someone else than Grandpa had made it.”

The kids could stay up as long as they wanted, but the three smallest ones were deeply asleep at midnight. I and Hanna (12 yrs) made the desert. Local strawberries with a cream of Mascarpone, lime, creme fraiche, vanilla and whipped cream.

At 3 a.m. the house became silent – but just for a couple of hours. Baby Vappu (1 yr) woke up early.

Picking mushrooms

Saturday was cold, too. There was even a shower of hail. It was also boring to be inside. Nelly and Mark went for a walk in the forest and came back with mushrooms. There were also tiny chanterelles popping up. This is supposed to be early summer – not autumn!! Never before have I seen mushrooms at midsummer. 

Twisted ankle

In the afternoon, one of the young men sprained his ankle and had to be taken to a doctor. Salo hospital was the closest emergency room. JD drove him there and the ankle was taped. It took several hours before they came back. Then we went, of course, to the beach sauna. The flag was laid down at 10 p.m.

So we had, once again, a very late dinner (the kids were fed earlier and put to bed). At midnight we were sitting inside, eating sweet peppers and chicken breasts from the grill.  The discussion continued until 3 a.m. again. Seems to be a standard here.

 

Vacation:)

Sunday morning was windy and plus 10 degrees. Three cars were loaded up and headed back to Helsinki. I was happy that we didn’t need to leave the island because I have vacation – 3 weeks ahead without any plans! Well, some visitors coming… and hopefully warm and sunshine!

Pink pots, poppies and a pine marten

Two extra holidays around the weekend made our stay on the Island a labor camp. Our boys Hank and Yaffa had spent four days in the house during the week, treating our patios with wood preservatives and doing some garden work.  A farmer living near-by fetched the big piles of limbs, twigs and reed. I arrived with JD on Thursday evening and JD’s sister Rose on Friday.


Tools for the sauna job

I had planned to give a new look and feel to the old beach sauna, a log cabin built some 20 years ago. First I had to clean the sauna properly with a special detergent. Then I took the benches out (quite a job), and removed resin from the logs (there was plenty of it allover) with a sharp tool. Unfortunately it left white spots after resin removal. Then I polished up all the surfaces with a grinder. This was dirty job, dust allover and quite a noice.


Smoky black sauna after waxing

Sauna walls before the treatment, resin

Then I covered the floor and the stove carefully, and treated the roof, log walls and sauna benches with black wax (Tikkurila, Supi Saunavaha). This all turned out to be a 3-day job. I enjoyed it, the weather was nice, birds were singing and the sea was great.

After all the time and effort, black nails and cuticles, the result was luckily what we wanted, a smoke-black sauna. Next I have to find a wooden 'mat' and some new sauna textiles before Midsummer.

Pink

After many years of strong colors in the flower pots we decided with Rose to have pink flowers this year. We planted pink geraniums, petunias, lemon thyme and million bells in many pink shades mixed in long pots.










In addition to all the summer flowers, the pink bushes, such as honeysuckle, azaleas and rhododendrons were blossoming.

So did the poppy, gorgeous three flowers. We have only one old poppy plant. I have tried to grow more from seeds without succeeding.

Pine marten

The range of animals observed in our garden increased by one – on Saturday morning Rose saw a strange brown animal with a large fur tail and long nose, with a size of a small dog, snooping around on our patio, then loping across the lawn.

Obviously it was a pine marten (never seen before!).  Hopefully it's not going to settle down on our yard.

I discovered a little bird’s nest with three 1 cm dia eggs behind the house. And plenty of mouse poo while cleaning the beach house.

Picanha

JD took care of cooking while I was busy with the sauna and Rose helped him. On Saturday he bought new potatoes and strawberries at our favorite farm, grilled veal picanha and I made a quick salsa from chile, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic and lime. As a dessert, we had strawberries with a crème from mascarpone, crème fraiche, vanilla and lime.   On Sunday, the dinner was simply left-overs, 'pyttipannu'.

White explosion and culinary experiments

Hot, +27 C and sunny from Friday to Sunday evening:) 
Apple and cherry trees, together with some bushes had exploded into white blossom. The air was perfumed with the flowers of prunus padus (tuomi) and spiraea Grefsheim (norjanangervo).  This was the weekend to buy summer flowers. That was task number 1. The second task for this weekend was to try some recipes of Mindy Fox’s  salad book (Salads: beyond the bowl) that I bought in Francis F. Coppola winery  and shop in California, close to Napa valley.

We made Mexican-spiced pork on the grill with chunky guacamole and frisee and cucumber salad on Friday evening, straight from the book. Guacamole was hot (with 2 large jalepeno chiles) and plenty of cilantro. Yum!  Succeeded very well.

On Saturday, we drove to Dragsfjärd to buy flowers at Söderlångvik mansion. They have large greenhouses full of marvellous flowers. They also grow tomatoes and apples. This year they had less choice than last year, however, after stopping at each greenhouse on the way back, we managed to get all the flowers needed for seven long flowerpots and some other plants as well.

 Before planting them, I mixed the charmoula sauce for the chicken marinade. I picked recipe also from Mindy’s salad book. It is a North African fragrant sauce with zested lemon, garlic, cilantro and other spices. I used it as a marinade and it was excellent with grilled chicken thighs.

 

Charmoula sauce:

• 2 large lemons, zest one lemon and take the juice of 2 lemons
• 1 dl chopped cilantro
• 2 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Fine sea salt
• ¾ teaspoon cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon turmeric

Mix all ingredients in a blender and marinate the chicken thighs 2-3 hours, then grill them 15 minutes. JD is our grill master and knows the exact minutes and heat required, I would probably burn the meat or cook it too long.

We had ice-cold Prosecco from the freezer as an aperitive, and Portuguese red wine Tiempo Briego from Douro valley and it was a bit peppery and in that sense a good companion to the spicy food.

Our culinary experiments will continue with Mindy’s recipes, I can recommend!

Thousand shades of green

Summer came early,  already in mid May, at least for one weekend. 24 degrees Celsius in Finland is considered heat.  That was nice continuation to our 9-day holiday in California where the temperature was 26. I still miss the palm trees and turquoise Pacific... A weekend in Kemiö was great, too. The garden and fields were dominated by green - all shades of it. The leaves appeared in a couple of days to most trees, except for oak, cherry and apple trees.

Swallows had arrived and they were busy making their nests under our jetty, as every summer.  The seagulls had finally understood to build their nest elsewhere than on top of our jetty.

The sudden heat made berry bushes to blossom, although apple and cherry trees were still waiting for more warmer days (or nights).  I am happy that the plum trees which I brought ten years ago as 50 cm saplings from my mother’s garden in Turku were now in full blossom. They have found their new home in our garden.

The composting equipment we bought last summer did their job. I distributed some compost soil to the flower benches. Butterflies, such as brimstones and swallowtails, were also busy flying around the flowers. 

The sun was so strong that we had to stay in the shadow in the hottest hours. It was lovely to take a book and read - I'm in the middle of John Grisham's Sycamore Row and it's exciting.

The herbarium  was already pushing the first edible greens: lovage, thyme and chives. I made an omelette for our Sunday breakfast seasoned with plenty of chives and some basil. Rhubarb had grown a lot since our last visit almost three weeks ago. They are best at early summer, and next weekend I’ll make a dessert from rhubarb.

 

Dirty job – but had to be done

Anemone nemorosa

Marvelous Easter weather, all sunny and warm with some 20 degrees. Time to put on shorts and sandals and watch how the nature is waking up. Beautiful!

However, there was one evil disturbing our long weekend in our paradise – a nest of snakes under our patio. 

On Sunday morning, when I went out to hang some laundry, I heard a rustle of leaves on our patio, and saw an amazing view: two large black and white zigzag-patterned vipers (Vipera berus, a venomous snake), intertwined, raising from the leaves. They were mating. Vow!

I ran inside to get my camera and tell JD. When I came back they were still there, lying, so that I got some pictures. JD came with two spades as weapons. We have not seen vipers in our yard close to the house so far, but our principle is that any snake coming into the house or the patio will be killed. We have four small kids in the family and don’t want any poisonous creatures hanging around!

So JD hit the bigger snake with the spade and nailed it, then I kept the spade steady, so that he could cut the head of the snake with the other spade. We saw one tail disappearing, and thought that the other snake escaped. After the dirty work we buried the snake and went inside. I googled vipers and learned that the female can be up to 80 cm and male 60 cm. The snake we killed (first) was 80 cm and so a female.

I went out again, to hang the laundry, and noticed that the other viper had returned on the patio.  I run quickly inside to tell JD, and pick my camera again. The spades were close by, and we got the male killed as well. This time I had to cut the head while JD was holding it with a spade. It was not nice, I can tell, but I felt that it is better than have 20 young little snakes around next summer from this couple. So, two vipers buried the same day.

We were so exhausted from the sun, garden work and battle with snakes that we didn’t want to cook anything. JD fetched pizzas from Taalintehdas, restaurant Portside. They make the best pizzas on the island.

Next morning, I said as a joke to JD that I go out to see some snakes. That said, I took three steps outside and saw a viper, again, on the patio. My eyes are so used to scanning these creatures that I see them all.

This was smaller than the previous two and brownish. While we were killing this one, I saw a big black snake lying a couple of meters away from us. The smaller one was a male and the big one, again some 80 cm, must have been the female, lying there after mating. We nailed that one, too. It was hissing. Disgusting, yäk!

So, there was a nest of vipers under the patio. We killed four of them, and probably some of them managed to escape, or are still there, enjoying the lizards and mice that also like to stay there. It will be an exciting summer ahead. 

Defending territory against seagulls

We arrived at the island on a sunny Friday evening, there were three of us: JD, my youngest son who is a law student and had a spring break and I. The weather looked nice and warm, the sea was brillant, but the wind was icy.

I didn't have to cook dinner, as JD had brought sushi from Helsinki. And then we had mämmi for dessert. A great combination:)

The sun, lack of snow and some plus-degrees had made the first flowers of spring, anemone hepaticas blossom a couple of weeks earlier than normally. Beautiful blue flowers.

And the early birds – seagulls and Eurasian skylarks had arrived, too. They say that it’s one month left to the summer when you see skylarks.


When I was sitting on the bench on our jetty, a seagull tried to scare me out of its territory. Every year, a seagull builds its nest on our jetty, and that’s not a good idea, we need to destroy the nest. Funny, that they never learn. This time I tried to warn him early enough, waving on the jetty with a red cap on - trying to show him that this is our territory. Let's see next weekend if I succeeded.

As the sunny weather continued on Saturday (with cool wind), it was time for me to start garden work. I am the only one who likes gardening in this family, and I enjoy the physical exercise and being out-of-doors as much as possible. JD stayed inside surfing car models and my son was in the basement playing horror games with virtual friends.

We had hired a local man to cut trees last autumn, and he had burned the smaller branches in the garden. So there was a big pile of wood ash. I’ve heard that ash is good fertilizer. So I shoveled ash under black-currant, red-currant and gooseberry bushes, apple trees and a flower bench. Let’s see how this magic works… I also raked dead leaves, so that after a couple of hours in the garden I felt like having been in a gym. The rest of the day I was lazy, sitting in the sun, and even took a nap inside.

Sunday was rainy, doing good to the garden. I was mostly inside, and made meat-macaroni casserole (lihamakaronilaatikko) in the old style for my boys.