Making squash

I purchased a second hand saft maja (squash maker) and decided to try it out last week.  I have drunk Birch leaf squash recently which was really nice and so I gave it a try.

I collected Birch leaves and put in the maja

The base of the maja you fill with water and put on the cooker to boil. The part to the right of the picture which collects the squash is then placed on top

The next part to go on, is the sieve that holds the Birch leaves & sugar and finally the lid goes on

As the water heats up and boils, the water vapour rises through; in this case birch leaves, but I used Lingon berries also and as they steam, the juices drop down and eventually the juice runs out of the rubber pipe into a bottle.

Here are bottles of Lingon and Birch squash, with Teres’ Sill Torte or Herring cake which is traditionally eaten at mid-summer.

Preserving food

Other work on my cabin has included building a new cupboard for food storage.  You can see how work began in this picture the new cupboard will be to the right of the broom

Here is the cupboard now and it includes a worktop you can pull out when cooking on the stove ad slide back in when you do not require it.  I just need to build doors now

Recently I wrote about collecting berries for the winter and while at the cabin I made some apple and blueberry fruit leather

You can read how I make it in one of my previous posts.

Ingvar caught 21 fish in his net so we decided to smoke them to preserve them.  The fish were gutted and then salted (plus a little sugar added) and left for one day.

The next day we made fire in my smoker and added Juniper and Alder to give flavour to the fish.

Anki smoked the fish for one hour

and they tasted very good.

Food and firelighting

My friend Dirk called me one day last week to say he was sick and to ask if I could act as a guide for the group he had staying.  Of course I agreed.

I took the group to the Polar Circle near to Nattavaara, where I talked about some useful plants for food and medicine, talked a bit about Sami culture and demonstrated making fire without matches and then of course we made coffee

The group were very friendly and keen to learn and have fun

We returned to Dirk’s where I demonstrated a variety of ways to make fire and tinders to use and two people were successful at producing fire with the bow-drill.  We were planning to cook a meal in the ground so we built a large fire and put in rocks to heat them

I prepared a hole into which the hot stones and food would be placed

and after the fire had been burning for two hours the rocks were very hot and ready for cooking the food

The food to be cooked was Salmon, wild mushrooms and berries and herbs from the garden

The Salmon was cut into pieces and wrapped in Birch bark with berries, herbs and mushrooms

The parcels were tied up with Birch twigs

The hot rocks and bark parcels were then placed in the hole and turf put on top

While the parcels were cooking I demonstrated a primitive way of boiling water and cooking using some hot rocks in a Birch bark kettle I had made

After about 50 minutes the parcels were cooked and ready to be removed

and here is the end result

Gathering food

Here’s one prior to my camera stopping working…..

August is the time that the berry collecting season gets underway,

beginning with Clouberry (Hjortron in Swedish).  Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus) is a member of the same family as Blackberry, but grows close to the ground and only bears one fruit.  But not all plants bear fruit as some are male and some are female.

The fruit is orange/yellow in colour and has a distinctive smell which travels for some distance when the fruit are ripe.

This is a typical area where Cloudberry grows.

Once home, the Cloudberries are cleaned and divided up into small bags for use during the long winter.

The Blueberries will be gathered next and shortly after the Cow Berry/Lingon.

We are also harvesting our potatoes now after our first frost last week.  The first ones we harvested were at the cabin

There was a surprisingly good crop from ten plants, which were set in June.

We store the food in a cold store in the cellar.

We found this while out collecting

So thanks to Jonas we now know that this is “gul parasollmossa (Splachnum luteum) which is Norrbottens landskapsmossa”…..Thanks Jonas :>)

Rådjebalges/Gränsleden Guiding Course – Part 7

Hundreds of mosquito’s came into the laavu during the night.  I was fortunate enough to have a piece of insect netting material to put over me, but the others were not.

We awoke at 7am, made fire and cooked breakfast

After breakfast we were soon packed and on the trail again.  Very soon we located an old camp with an old fire site from in a kåta, defined by a ring of stones

The camp site was located in an area surrounded by rock on all sides and so sheltered from the worst of the weather

We also found an old turf kåta and discussed the idea to repair it as shelter for people walking the trail, where they can either sleep or just make fire and cook coffee.

Late morning we encountered a heavy thunderstorm and heavy rain.  The rain continued when we stopped for lunch and so it was challenging conditions to make fire.

Per-Erik demonstrated that a piece of Juniper stem split into quarters and the centre which has a high turpentine content removed

can be ignited very easily, even in the wet.  And it was not long before we had a small fire going

We arrived back in Ritsem at 7pm and for me it was a great relief as I had been suffering with pain in my hip and back.  I am now seeing a chiropractor who found that my pelvis was twisted and had to be re-aligned with my back.  This may unfortunately mean I cannot attend the second week of the course from Norway back to Ritsem…..we shall see.

The soul of my boot also split along the route and so I had to buy new boots when I arrived home.  Per-Erik has used many different makes of boots and his recommendation was a pair of Viking Hunters

At least when I arrived home Teres had some good news for me……..I’m going to be a dad/pappa!!!!!….:>)

June at the cabin – Part 6

I have always wanted to try cooking on a stone, but had never found a large, flat stone (that will not explode or shatter) until out walking last week.  I carried it back to the cabin and set it on bricks and then made a fire underneath.

Once the stone was very hot, I could begin cooking.  For my fist meal I made some dough a baked flat breads, with onions, mushrooms and meatballs

With a baking tray upside down on the top I was able to cook Pizza and I can set the coffee pot on the stone to cook coffee.

One of my trips out while staying at the cabin, was a fishing trip with my friend Tommy (we were using spinners)

We were trying to catch Sea Trout traveling up rive but it was just a little early in the season, but Tommy was determined that I would catch my first fish so we moved to a calmer area of water to try to catch Grayling (Thymallus thymallus).  My luck is unchanged and as you might guess I caught nothing, but fortunately Tommy caught three nice Grayling

one of which he gave to me to take home.

I removed the head, tail and skinned it and then placed it on some Juniper (to give added flavor) on the hot stone

After fifteen minutes it was cooked perfectly and was really good to eat!

15th & 16th May 2010

Yesterday morning I visited the bird tower near Porjus again, where I met some of the local bird watchers.  There had been a heavy thunderstorm the night before and with the temperature at 10am already 16 degrees, there was a thick mist over the river.

It was clear that there was already a greater diversity of birds than when I had been there just over a week ago.  As the mist cleared I could see Bean Geese, Whooper Swans, Cranes, many Spotted Redshanks, Green and Redshanks, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit, Wigeon, Teal, Pintail, Goldeneye, 3 Little Gulls, Many Willow Warblers singing, Whinchat singing, Lapland Bunting, Yellow Wagtail, 1 Cuckoo, 7 Wheatears along the railway line and an Osprey hunting over the river.

At the tower there there is the added bonus of a grill place where you can cook coffee and (yes you’ve guest it Rick) grill sausage

When I got home in the evening there was a Woodcock displaying over the flat.

Today has been 20 degrees and we have been out to the forest.

I devised a simple game as Emma was bored.  I cut a Birch sapling in half so that the piece rooted in the ground was about 0ne and a half metres high.  I split the end of the wood and set a Birch bark cup into the split.

The cups purpose was to hold a pine cone.

Emma pulled back the sapling and when released, the cone would be propelled (in this case up to 10 metres).

I set up a snow shovel as a target to hit with the cones

9th May 2010

Today many Brambling have arrived and now they, Fieldfare and Redwing are singing everywhere.

We were out in the forest today and as we drove along there were many small groups of Reindeer either by the side of the road

(here is a calf)

or on the road

and this one was running along the road

more about “sufguy1 – P1030661.flv“, posted with vodpod

There were Capercaillie in the forest

Can you spot this one?

We made fire and cooked coffee

and grilled sausage

with Chaffinch, Waxwings, Tree Pipit and Redwing calling/singing around us.

Easter weekend – Part 2

We spent the next day at Hasse’s mothers cabin in Sammakko .

Emma and Pontus were playing on the snow

and Sebastian was practicing his fire making skills

and we spent the day enjoying the sun, riding snow mobiles, drinking coffee and grilling sausage

These trees outside the cabin are Lodgepole Pine (Pinus concorta)

it is native to North America/Canada and I can remember Mors Kochanski talking about the introduction of these to Scandinavia when I was working with him.  In America they grow long and straight and have been traditionally used by Native Americans as tepee poles, but here in Scandinavia they have grown very differently and are not good as a harvesting product.

Salted, air dried Reindeer meat

Now is the time when people here are preserving meat (before the flies emerge) to carry with them when in the mountains or forest.

We used Reindeer rump steak for this demonstration.

Firstly fat and sinew are removed from the meat

The meat is then cut into hand sized pieces and laid onto salt

The meat is then also covered with salt

and put in the fridge for one day to allow the salt to penetrate the meat and draw out the moisture

The pieces of meat are then hung up in the loft for 6 – 8 weeks to dry.  These Reindeer hearts have already been in the loft for two weeks

The off-cuts of meat I mixed with garlic and onions

fried them and then added water and reduced the water to make a stock for stews

Some small pieces of meat I dried near the fire in the cabin for 12 hours.