Roots In Sweden

"Garden Knome"*

*We've all seen them. 

Elf-like statuettes. 

Constructed of material that can be out in all kinds of weather, 

and still look cute. 

Seemingly indestructible.

Able to evoke a smile wherever they appear.

That is the perfect description of the above wwoofer, 

Giovanna G.

When everyone else had gone home and the harvest was at our doors, 

we got a request from this diminutive, 

second year medical student from Germany, 

asking if she could come to the farm for a month and "maybe longer".

We had no idea what was coming, 
and we really didn't know that much about her, 

but we felt it was right to say, 

"yes".

(A very good decision on our part.)

She hadn't been with us even one day when she said, 

"Do you have any ironing? I love to iron".

(Excuse me?)

I led her to the ironing basket at the speed of light.

But that was only the beginning......

The garden that Nathan and the gang had weeded so beautifully turned out to be the most prolific in decades.  

We weren't sure if it was because we had tried something new the previous Autumn and dunged it before the winter came so that the manure had the entire cold season to be in the ground, 

or if it was just a great year for gardens.

We didn't know why, 

but we did know that we had garden produce 

coming out our ears!

                                                                              We had multiple rows of fresh herbs,  sweet green pea vines covered with blooms,  trellised bean plants (both green and yellow varieties) with white flowers  all over them, letting us know that there was quite a bean crop coming, (something that is almost unheard of in our part of Sweden), 

cauliflower, broccoli,  and cabbages, all huge, and all seemingly 

more than enough 

to feed Mainland China.

Dill plants that waved in the wind, beets, kale, spinach, onions, parsnips, turnips, carrots, and swiss chard.  
And that was not to mention the multitudes of  berries from the fields and forests that were picked and needed to be cleaned 
and turned into fruit jams, jellies and syrups.
(We're talking blueberries, wild raspberries, lingon, strawberries,  and 31 plants of rhubarb!)

Giovanna cleaning and sorting the fresh blueberries at the kitchen table.

Need I go on?

Even the red sunflowers we had tried for the first time in our short 
but light- drenched growing season, 
(24 hour a day sunlight for week after week)

grew as high as the eaves of the pump house. 

It just never quit.

We harvested and processed, and shelled, and scrubbed, and trimmed, and sliced, and pickled, and boiled, and bottled, 

and chopped,

... and sorted, and blanched, and mixed, and packaged, and vacuum-sealed, and...

the two  us just kept going together
 until it was all done!
(We watched every Jane Austen video we owned 
while we shelled all the peas...)

                                    

It was such a demanding time, but before we knew it we had a beautiful root cellar totally full, brimming freezers, and a 

great friendship!

We worked inside the house...

cleaning, baking breads and cakes,

An oven full of farm bread

Tosca Tårta

and making treats for the men.

Lemon Bliss Cake in an antique mold from 1702

Fluff-top Chocolate Cupcakes

Steamy Kalops - Swedish comfort food

And when the Autumn days began to turn cold, we filled an eight liter cast iron casserole with Kalops, a traditional Swedish dish of meat chunks, carrots, onions and bay leaves, swimming in a rich "kryddpeppar" gravy. 
We knew we would turn around and be into the slaughtering and butchering when there would be no time to cook, so we packaged up the leftovers and put them away in the freezer.

She and Pappa worked together making cheeses in the dairy.

      She brought in the cows from the field in the brisk mornings and cool evenings all by herself,  and we worked together doing milking and mucking in the barn.

We needed her German attention to exactness and detail when we had to move the  heavy cheese-waxing machine into a small space in the tank room.

After that exercise, she asked Pappa for a special favor:

...and she DID!

She had always wanted to drive a tractor

Pappa gave her the tutorial, showing her the gears and the various pedals.  We wondered if she could even reach them!

It was such a glorious Autumn that year, 
with unprecedented beauty in the changing colors .
There had been so much happiness as Pappa, Gustav, Giovanna and I  spent each day side by side on the farm.

The night we took her to the bus to head home to Germany and back to medical school was an emotional experience for all of us.

  She held on to Pappa's hand for just a moment and then boarded the bus and was gone.  

At the breakfast table the next morning no one was saying much. 

Then Pappa got up quietly from his seat, 

walked to the bottom of the stairs that led to where she had slept

and called out: 

"Giovannnnnnnna...

 Come Back! 

We Miss you!"

...and just as we said at the start of this post...
the thought of her and the mere mention of her name 

had the power to evoke a smile
 in all of us!