First Potatoes And Tasting

About two months ago we prepared our potatoe land and now our potatoe plants begin to bloom. This is the time when we cannot wait any longer and just have to try our first potatoes of the season. So that's what we did today - amongst picking more mushrooms and renovating our shed...pictures coming soon.

Our dinner tonight: Fried potatoes, sallad and pickled fish (whitefish)

Good Mushroom Year?

A few days ago we walked on an island without even the intention of picking mushrooms and we found so many of them that within a few minutes my hat was full of little leccinum versipelle.

Guess what we had for dinner!;) The rest was left for drying. We will use them later for soups or sauces.

Fried mushrooms with onions, beacon and garlic served with bread.

Force Majeure - Scary Gust

Yesterday we received a call that a strong gust had uprooted a tree on our cottage land and several other trees close by. One of them had fallen on the power line thus causing a power failure. The power supplier was quick to fix it within a relatively short time considering that it was Sunday and somewhere in the bush.

Noone was injured luckily but our boat had flown several meters and tipped over. Unfortunately it had landed on a sharp rock. Ouch! So what had happend? A big crack at the front side of the boat. But we were lucky things didn't turn out worse. Luckily we have a lot of tools in our shed. Jan put some glue on it and fixed it with two screw clamps. We hope it'll last.

Furthermore, some of our stuff had flown around several meters such a bucket (totally destroyed), a barrel, a table and several smaller things. The one house wall was completely stained with dirt.

We've had some strong winds at our cottage but it has never been that bad. Thank god nothing more serious happend and no tree landed on our house!

Sorry, I don't have any pictures this time but I had not thought of taking my camera with me in this incident...scary as it was.

Canoeing on Hornavan

 We've had some lovely summer days lately. While people in mid-Europe, Germany moan about extreme heat (up to 40 degrees C) we enjoy temperatures around 20 degrees.

A couple of days ago we went canoeing on lake Hornavan, the deepest lake in Sweden with a depth of up to 221 m. We had some wonderful views over untamed wilderness of virgin forests and lovely shaped mountains on a at first glassy surface.

After an hour or so a breeze sprung up. We took a break on a beautiful island and afterwards headed back to our point of departure.

Meanwhile the breeze turned into a moderate wind and we had to paddle hard against the wind. Our canoe bobbing up and down in the water. Anne sitting in front, Svempa in the middle and Jan in the back of the canoe. More than once the waves crashed into the canoe and it was tough to keep Svempa on the bottom of the boat in order to prevent a tip over.

After two hours of hard paddling we were back on safe grounds.

Thunder Storm Approaching

Thunder Storm Approaching
Originally uploaded by LapplandTimes

This was the view from our cottage last evening.

Climbing up Áhkális

A few days ago we climbed up Áhkális (748m). We parked our car near the Hornavan lake and started from there. A lovely trail leading through the Akkelis nature reserve, a virgin forest. From the top of the hill we had a great view over the landscape of Arjeplog's municipality. The great lake area is the gigantic Uddjaure (Storavan).

 

On top of Áhkális
Originally uploaded by LapplandTimes

Lonely Sailor

The last week we have had lovely warm summer weather in Swedish Lapland and we still have. For us, summer in Lapland means temperatures above 15 degrees C. The last days we have had average temperatures around 20 degrees C. Perfect for outdoor activities hence not much blogging within the next few weeks. ;)

Summers in Lapland are very short only lasting for a couple of weeks really. We enjoy every second of it.

Anne took this picture today at our cottage lake. A lonely sailor - a rare picture in Lapland.