Familiar history

Modern Times have their advantages and disadvantages.  It is great that Jennie and Tova Elise will be able to travel to Canada in August, but little one needs a passport.  It must be a Canadian passport as her parents are Canadian and have not been official persons in Sweden long enough for her to get a Swedish passport.  So, as you recall, last week we had the adventure of getting the prescribed photo taken, and on Monday, we headed to a farm south east of Gavle (about 50 km) where the only person who meets the criteria for being able to sign that photo as a guarantor, lives.  This is a lady police person who does multisports and has known Richard and Jennie for the required 2 years.  She recently moved their to live with a coast guard guy -- he being the 5th generation to live on the family farm.

The farm's location is typical of the Swedish landscape -- mostly evergreen forest with cleared fields in which there are usually outcroppings of granite.  Jimmy told me that his parents used to have a mixed farm with cows, pigs, horses and chickens.  The only animals now are the 3 month old puppy (already 20 kg on his way to 40) and the cat who torments him and he chases.  The barns are mostly filled with split wood which heats the house -- not in a direct fire way as in Canada, but using hot water.  Across the driveway from the farmhouse is a building which contains the furnace and boiler, the pipes for heat and hot water run under the driveway into the house.  I knew this was the usual practice in town as Rich and Jenn get their hot water and heating through hot water from the town's boiler and underground pipes, but certainly didn't think that it would be used for individual houses out in the countryside.  Jimmy cuts wood in his forests, pulls the logs to the barn area with his ATV and then cuts and splits before filling about 40 cubic meters of space with firewood.  This last him about 2 years and he rotates between two buildings so that the wood has a chance to dry for a year before it is burned.

So, instead of animals, he has a nice wood workshop in the barn (planer, bandsaw, etc,with vacuum system for dust collection) which is mainly used in his boat restoration.  The main part of the one barn houses a 12 m. wooden boat which he has been working on for about 5 years.  He thinks in about 2 more years he will have it ready to go into the water.  It will sleep 4 or 5 people and be just like a floating cottage.  His main job has been to remove the plastic hull which was put over aging wood below the waterline and replace the old mahogany with new local evergreen boards.  The boat was built in 1948 and has had a history as a party boat for the military and then for a company and its guests.

The buildings with their rock foundations felt very familiar, reminding me of the early buildings which were on the farm where I grew up when we moved there in 1960.  Ours, however, were not the typical Swedish red -- probably because we didn't have iron mines close by where the waste provided a stain/paint which was used to protect the wood of houses, barns, etc.

We had a lovely salad lunch and rhubarb crisp for dessert.  Great Swedish hospitality and the necessary photo was signed.

Tova Elise is showing off how tall she is 56.6 cm and up to 4250 gm.