Monday, September 14, 2009

Busy making winter stock

Autumn is in full swing here, in the middle of September, and we are busy making a stock of all kinds of things, for the long winter.

This is when one comes to realize the way we live up north, in the wilderness. We do not pick berries and mushrooms only for pleasure, they are in important part of our lifestyle, of our economy and survival.

With a kennel of the size like ours, a business we are developing, both in the sphere of summer outdoor adventures, acomodation, and internet sled dog shop, and the lifestyle we generaly lead, one keeps busy on a different level, than many imagine.

Here goes a huge and grateful thank you to my and Jachym´s mom, as well as my dad, for helping us get this year´s winter stock done and checked off the list.

First and foremost, thanks for the tremendous help with splitting and stacking of the firewood!

Other jobs included:

Lingonberry picking and cooking of jam (the cooking is always my job, which I totally love)


picking, cleaning, slicing and drying mushrooms - I hate this one, except for the picking :)
We also managed to cut up some fresh ones and put them in the freezer.


This year´s lingonberry (low bush cranberry) crops are enormous!

I also managed to cook some rhubarb chuttney with chilli peppers, from the old rhubarb, left in the veggie garden. Got a supe, old recipe from our vet Cathrine and if I ever find the time, I might post it here one day.

We picked, cleaned and froze a lot of berries, such as red and black currant, lingon and of course lotsa blueberries.
In total, I cooked over 50 jams and marmelades of 6 different kinds, and my mom brought us her delicious, famous strawberry jams and pickles.
We are waiting for a call from our friend Ronny, a skilled hunter, as we have ordered around 50kg of moose meat from him.
And that pretty much rounds up our major winter stock efforts. I believe we´ll survive the winter!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It sure sounds like you had lot to do. Preparing for winter is always a chore that is exhausting and satisfying at the same time in my opinion.