Winter Days

A cold morning.

But it's warm inside.

All done with my aamupuuroa!

Blowing snow is a way of life up here.

Some people think that's funny.

But snow is no problem as long as you don't run out of hay.

Some get by on caffeine.

Heading out with my pole saw to trim the lower branches from my pine trees.

This was one weird snowstorm.  First snow, then rain, then heavy wet snow that filled in the driveways like concrete.  The following day I spent three hours blowing it with my tractor.  It felt like blowing slush, just like when I blow the mat from my driveway when it melts and softens in the spring.

Morning.

 Evening.  The  Finns call this the sininen hetki, the blue moment, when the fading light turns the snow blue.  A culture has expressions like this is a culture that is close to nature.

Visiting the Sheep

Winter is an easy time when it comes to keeping sheep.  All I really need to do is take out one bale of hay from the hayshed each day and spread it on the snow.  I usually spend some time watching them feed, not because it is necessary, but because I just enjoy watching them.  They paw through the hay, searching for the tastiest bits, and munch away with determination.  The dominant ones will push aside the others, so I spread out the bale into several piles with my hayfork so that everyone has  place at the table.

Helga and Enni are sisters, one year apart.

I no longer use this old hay feeder, but it turns out to be a fun gym.

What's that kid up to anyway?

She sure is making a lot of noise!

Uh oh, now she's bringing that kid closer

Watching sheep is fun, isn't it Mummu?

Winter Wonderland

This year I upgraded my snow removal equipment.  My father always said that you need a five foot blower to handle the snow we get up here.  Last winter I came to share his opinion, so over the summer I traded in my old tractor and blower and got this John Deere 38hp with a five foot blower.

David breaking in the new generation.

As the old whalers would shout, "There she blows!" 

Blowing snow is fun!  My new cab works quite well, but  some snow still blows in.  I plan to add some more material and make a modifications.

The sun comes out.

Highlighting a winter wonderland.

Isn't this just lovely?

BAAA...Humbug!

Winter is a two-edged sword.  Snow is beautiful, but it must be dealt with on its own terms.  One of the things I enjoy about the Copper Country is that no matter how much snow falls or how bad a storm is, within a day or two all the roads are plowed and everyone has their driveway cleaned out.  There is something comforting in that.  We are all in it together and we all know how to deal with it.

Fortunately Dr. Don has a proven cure for the mid-winter blahs.  You begin it in a mixing bowl...

....and then let it bask in the warmth of the parlor stove.

Sprinkle on some raesokeria  (whatever this granular sugar is called in English)

Your cure, fresh out of the oven.   Cut  yourself a thick slice, slather on a layer of butter,  and pour yourself a cup of fresh coffee.  Take your medicine seated by the window with your feet up, and say goodbye to your mid-winter blahs.  Repeat dosage as required.

Weaving a Woolen Rug

We get a lot of colorful wool from our Icelandic sheep and I wanted to see if we could make a rug with it.  The first step was to card it into bats. 

A drum carder has two different sized rollers with metal teeth very similar to those on a dog brush.  The first roller pulls the wool into the carder where it catches on the larger drum.

Periodically I hold a hand carder against the large drum to pack in the wool fibers.

Once the drum was loaded I break off a lock of wool at the edge of the drum.

I thread the wool through a 5/8" hole in a small piece of wool.

As you pull on the wool the top of the drum turns away from you (counterclockwise from this end) and a strip of wool peels off  in a long strip called roving.

I imagine that a good spinner would know how to peel the wool from the drum in a uniformly thick band of roving, but I am just a hack and for our purposes uniformity is not critical, so my roving is very irregular.

But it nevertheless passed inspection by the quality control officer.

This is my spinning wheel, a cordless drill.  

Here is the loose roving.

Here's how it looks as you spin it.

Marja gradually releases the twist into the unspun roving as I backed up with the drill.  I know that this method that would cause a real spinner to blanch, but we had a lot of wool and needed a fast way to spin it into heavy yarn to weave into a carpet.

Spinning is an ancient art and was done with primitive tools for millennia, but whoever first devised it gave mankind one of the greatest technologies ever invented, one that unlike so many others, has been used primarily for peaceful, good purposes.  The loose roving has virtually no tensile strength whatsoever, it can be pulled apart effortlessly; but once spun, it turns into a very strong yarn.

We then looped the single strand around a chair  to double it.

I joined the ends in a half-knot and Marja slowly twisted the double strand in the direction it wanted to twist.

The tension in the twists of the doubled strand cause it to naturally twist into a rope.  Voila, there you have it....

Weft to weave a rug.

Yes, I know it is lumpy and not at all uniform in thickness.

But all those lumps and irregularities can be woven into something beautiful...

....if it is woven with happiness...

...and attention to detail....

...with a good quality control inspector on hand.