Vacation from a Vacation

Two weeks ago I headed to Lohja near Helsinki for a 5-day conference for Scandinavian young adults. This was something special for me, since often I Finland frolics at or near the cabin. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark had their fair share of representatives, but I also met some folks from Germany, Spain and even the Philippines (mabuhai!)


Friends from Latvia, the US, Norway, England and the Philippines/Denmark

I came back to the quiet cabin, even quieter now that Katri, Spencer and Waimea went back to New Jersey while I was busy frolicking with folks my age. Routine took over, and I finally got some things done.

Things such as...



... the birdhouses - a total of four of them, all ready to be leased...




... and dismantling the ugly peninsula by the dock (North Korea's next). It had two hefty willow trees and at least a ton of soil and rocks covering these rocks, and came up all the way to the bottom of the picture.

My biggest accomplishment?



I caught the biggest fish in my life. I hit its head maybe a little too hard

It was about 73 centimeters and 3.5 kilograms. Couldn't really weigh it because the device is so old and rusted.

I've caught few fish since. Saimaa is keeping tabs on me, clutching her treasures even tighter.

Only, a few days after I cleaned the monster, it's head turned up on the rock I was going to use to clean some more fish - watching me, waiting for me.

Sauna

Meet Mirva:



(ain't she a cutie?)

She's our sauna stove; a good and faithful sauna stove. She's in the sauna, a wooden sweat room in the central part of the cabin. And she's hot....



(The average temperature, but we like it hotter)

... Literally.

Mirva's always hungry; she must feed and therefore eats a lot,



(birch wood is her favorite)

but always manages to keep the pot belly off. She's still the same stocky stove she was 30 years ago.

Unfortunately Mirva's a messy eater (and we're clumsy feeders), and sitting on the wooden benches sweating makes it stinky, so we have to clean the sauna up every couple of weeks with pine soap and water. Spencer likes to have a water fight afterwards:



On top of Mirva are rocks capable of withstanding high temperatures, which we throw water onto, creating a wave of steam. Sit through several waves until you can't handle it anymore and run to the lake to cool off with a dip and swim:



(going out about 150 meters or so - very unusual due to this year's hot hot summer)

During the winter, some Finns roll in snow instead.



(just about to throw some water on the rocks)

Laundry

Yesterday was a laundry day. Normally I do it at night in between sauna sessions, but yesterday was special - dad went through the effort of boiling water.



This is the washing machine...

Pour some boiled water, some lake water, and a touch of detergent and agitate. Voila

Then you wring the clothes, swish them through the lake, and you've just put your garments through a rinse cycle



... the dryer

Why the swimming trunks, you say? After numerous sauna sessions and lake immersions, they start to smell nasty. Like "lake sweat." All for modesty's sake, since we don't often do sauna natural style.

"LPR"

It had been about a week and a day since I went into town. I was willing to keep on going at the cabin, but despite my flawless record of not cutting off my hand with an axe, etc., I was tied up and carted to Lappeenranta.


Some duckies that wanted to see me off on my way to town

Lappeenranta (LPR) is the 13th largest city of Finland clear on the southeast side of the country, and my dad's hometown; it's ensignia is a caveman dressed in birch leaves holding a club. It used to be super country, back when my dad stole potatoes from the "strange Mormons" as a kid (ironically, he'd become one later in life). Now, super stores dot the land.

Like K-Rauta (K-Iron!), a home improvement store with its own cafe.

Why? "People get hungry," my dad explained simply.

Besides the occasional trip to K-Rauta, we have few variations in our trips.

-The secondhand store flooded by Russians (we're only 200-some-odd kilometers from St. Petersburg) where anything brought out from storage is swamped the second it goes public


Probably the best thing I found at the recycle shop




My uncle's store (means electric channel); one of our regular stops

-Lidl, the German discount outlet that floods Finland with cheap goods from all over Europe (made in China)

-and Prisma, where candy has become one of the 6 food groups

Munching on pastries and 39 cent ice creams, we drive back to the lake and dump everything into the boat, good for another half a week till hunger and thirst strikes again.

Ironic, since we're surrounded by fish and freshwater.

Russian Island

Today was a pancake day. Dad made Finnish pancakes (think of a crepe, but the size of a giant soft taco shell) for the kiddies for breakfast, and then Uncle Jorkku had some waiting for us at his cabin when we came calling. Native method of eating: roll it up with sugar, jam, or strawberries and whipcream, and grab.


Mea eating pancakes

I went kayaking to get away from biting flies and lethargy. It took me about 67 minutes to kayak around this island we're on. Ironically, it's called Russian Island - ironic to name an island after your (kinda) arch nemesis - and it lives up to the name in size if not residents.

Part of the routine of this adventure is to casually glance to either side, enjoying the scenery, only to avert your eyes as some middle-aged man comes sauntering out on his dock, bare as the day he was born. Same instructions when you come across a family fresh from the sauna.


The banana kayak after a hard day of abuse

67 minutes is not bad, but I need to beat 62 to beat my brother Erik, and beat him I will.

While I was out, the fam decided to dump the poo bucket that catches all the magic under the toilet seat. My turn will come and I'll have a heyday with that. In any case we found some bats under the WC. Usually they're in birdhouses, but I guess this chirpy bunch likes honey buckets for their guano just as much as we do. Now they're making a ruckus for anyone answering nature's call. They just might fly out of the toilet seat one day....

Hellepäivä

"Hellepäivä," or hell day. A scorching 25 degree Celsius - 77 degrees Fahrenheit, or room temperature - causes even the most hardened Lordi monster rock fan to give in to perspiration.

Me dad is a sweat machine. If he sits still long enough he can gauge the temperature like a human thermometer. If he spontaneously starts to sweat, you can be certain it's another hell day.

Just to be sure, though, he checks the two thermometers side-by-side that differ from each other by 2 degrees.

"Oh, it's hellepäivä!" he's said every day of this year's trip so far.

Besides making the water warm and pleasant, I don't like hellepäivä. That's when the paarma come out.

P - Perditious
A - Aeronautical
A - Animals
R - Spawned
M - from
A - Satan

Trust my spelling.

They're horseflies that exist solely for your discomfort. You walk out the door they go straight for your face. You try to do something productive outside and they orbit around your head, stalking closer and closer till the right moment. They're always out there, lurking even when you think they're gone.

And that's the moment you jump up and down and flail around like a monkey to get them off of you. Or run to the lake doing the same.

.

Escaping the heat and flesh eaters

Building feathery houses

Today I took on a new project: birdhouses. There's several of them hanging on some trees around the cabin - some rough and some rotting, but all full of poo.

Two had fallen off their trees, probably because of a heavy winter. One was so rotted through that I gave it up for scrap wood and started to dismantle, only to remember too late that this one had been taken over by bats last year. Mmmm, bat guano.

I rummaged around, and in the old storage shed I found 3 shabby small houses, and a huge one, probably for owls... full of old beer bottles. Poor birds must have had a fun night right before eviction.

Another was half done, but a little nailing, attempted roofing, cursings, and improvising finished up the job.

There's one birdhouse literally on the clothesline that has a songbird that sing-songs all day long. I want these little condos to be filled with oodles of such birdies.

I'll even give them a paint job - that should raise the asking price!

Horray for my first pet project!

Intro

A week and a half after America: Finland.

"Finland... hmm, is that somewhere by Iceland?"
Not quite.

Stuck on the Scandinavian peninsula, Finland's the one that looks like a sponge. Rightly so since it's riddled with lakes. In fact, I'm a sitting in the middle of one. Not only did it take a flight through Amsterdam to Helsinki and a three hour drive to the boonies of boonies country, but I had to take a boat as well.

A boat ride to our little playground - a cabin on an island shrouded in birches and pines with all the amenities of rustic life... with a modern and sometimes American flare.