"Au Revoir Notre Ami!"      

Anthony looking out over the interior of the barn at Lundgren's
 from the fika room/office in the loft above.

     Before Anthony left our farm, there were some other things
we wanted him to see.

     We arranged a visit to the dairy farm of Håkan and Monica Lundgren,

 dear friends  who lived in the small village of Långvattnet on the other side of Junsele, about a half hour away. 

     I met Monica when I first came to Sweden. 
 She had volunteered to teach a Swedish language course and I enrolled
 in company with a couple from the U.K. and a German girl. 

     "I was an innocent child in those days,"

  as my Auntie Ellice used to say.

I had no idea about the demands of daily farm life and it wasn't long until I had to relinguish my teaching sessions at Monica's kitchen table so that I could get up to speed with what was required of me
at home and in the barn.

But the friendship we forged at that time has remained strong.

                                                            When I called Monica she not only invited us to come, but she took the time to give Anthony the grand tour, explaining their "state of the art"  dairying equipment in detail. With the automatic feeding system, rotating brushes that cleaned the cows as they walked by, and even the "touchless" manure removal (no hand shoveling!), it was all a marvel!

                                                                           
Anthony surveyed their electrical and piping setup and was especially interested in the computerized system they had installed where each cow wore a transponder around her neck.  The wireless transponder would send such information as how much she was eating, what her volume of milk output was, etc., to the computer adjacent to the milking parlor.

This good young man who had been such a help to us was raised on a large commercial dairy farm in France.  His time with us gave him an entirely different perspective of a smaller and more intimate family farm where between 16 and 24 cows were milked.  Visiting the Lundgren's was a terrific mid-point experience for him with about 40 to 50 cows, but much more sophisticated equipment.   Also, Lundgren's sell their milk to a large commercial dairy, where we make cheeses on site with our milk.  And that difference alone affects so many aspects of how things are done on the respective farms. 

It was a wealth of information and a
 valuable experience for him.

Another great day was spent "on town" in Örnsköldsvik when Gustav,  his friend Erik, and Anthony took in their skateboards and "cruised Övik", then spent a few hours at the ever-popular Paradisbadet waterslide.

Here the three of them are looking dapper in a boy pose at the start of the day...


...and here they are again several hours later after all the hilarion was accomplished and they were ready for the ride home.

Anthony was with us for nearly a month. He came on an internship through his school in France.  It seemed like he had always been with us and then we turned around and it was time for him to go.   We felt so grateful for all he had done.  We loved his gentle nature with its unexpected spark of fun.  

Taking him to the bus station at Örnsköldsvik and sending him off was bitter sweet to say the least.
We hoped he had enjoyed his stay with us as much as we had enjoyed having him.

Only a few days later we received an e-mail from him.   
It said in part....

"It is realy strange because I miss you and your farm, and I realy will try to come again with you.
 I had a great training on your home,

 and that was maybe the greatest experience of my life!"

The feeling was mutual.

Welcome to the

"BOVINE BILTMORE!"
(Sorry,  NO VACANCY!)

We are in the middle of
Calfing Season!

This year has been like no other...

instead of the calves being born one at a time over a period

 of from four to five weeks,

this year we got...

12 (out of a total of 19) IN 11 DAYS!!
And several times we got 2 in one day!

Since this picture was taken, another arrived on the 29th

 and that made 13 in 12 days which means that 

we only have 6 more left to go.

Everywhere you look, there are: 

 ladies in waiting, 

both standing up and lying down,

mothers licking up their newborn calves just after birth,

not to mention moo-triarchs like these two who have agreed to
"double occupancy"
in the maternity ward,
sharing happily with each other and their two baby girls!

  Because the calves were coming so thick and fast,
 we made the decision to move last year's heifers
 from inside the barn to a sheltered outdoor pen.
We needed even more  room in the barn for the mothers who were calving to be able to have their babies in a safe environment.

We were so glad to have cousin Andrew with us this year and he and Gustav got busy putting the pen together and filling it with a
 deep straw bed
for warmth and comfort.
(That would be the Plaza Suite in the annex...pretty cushy.)

Then it was only to move the heifers out...
Lycka till!
("Good luck" in Swedish)

Gustav and Andy surveyed the situation then Pappa and Gustav worked on getting the first heifer haltered up,

but did she want to go?
Not on your life.
(Check out Gustav hauling with all his might while Andy and Pappa push).

Then there was this one who actually allowed herself to be coaxed into following the tractor out to the pen....

unlike her half sister who fought it tooth and nail
all the way.

But finally with a lot of pushing and pulling
they managed it,

 and all were safely in!

Our Grandpa Stevenson always loved to travel,
 and he absolutely loved hotels.
He used to say that one of the biggest factors in the success of any hotel was it's dining room. 
He felt that anyone could offer a clean bed and a shower, but the hotel that offered extraordinary cuisine would always get the customers.

With that premise in mind,
 no description of calving season would be complete,
  without telling you about
kalvdans.

When a new calf is born
 the first feeding of the mother's milk always goes to the calf.
 After that it drinks freely from it's mother but no calf could ever consume all that is available in the post-partum udder.
So when the second milking after the birth produces a colostrum-rich liquid called
råmjölk
(in Swedish)
it is collected in a milking can.
Even with the new baby all fed, a mother can give six to seven liters of råmjölk.

Mixed only with a tiny bit of sugar, a small stick of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt,
 it is baked in a bain-marie,
 giving a pudding that is rich and smooth and delicious.
 It jiggles when you move the baking dish, something like a little calf dancing, hence the name.

I have come to believe that the calfing experience is like that beautiful pudding.
There are moments of sweetness and moments of spice/sadness.
You love to see the miracle of birth and the love of the mothers for their young, but sometimes you have the sting of losing  a mother or a baby in the process.

When it is all accomplished however, and all the babies have been born,
there is a feeling of contentment and fulfillment,
much like the taste of the kalvdans.

We aren't done yet, but we are close.
As of this writing two more have come
meaning there are only four more to be born now.
Soon our "Bovine Biltmore" will be full for another year,

 and so will our hearts.

"Down for the Count"

(the final episode of taking out the calves - Summer 2011)

Anthony and Gustav opening the gate of the training pen
for the next two calves to be brought out and down to the field
...the calm before the storm!

It turned out that the first two calves were in fact

 the ONLY two

 of the entire bunch that went into the field

 in a somewhat straightforward manner.

All the rest gave the boys a run for their money, up and down and all around in a chase 

that would have made any rodeo manager proud.  

I got there just a few seconds too late to get a picture of this rascal dragging Gustav and Elder Monson down on their knees through the wet and muddy ditch trying to hang on.  Look at the hindquarters of the calf and the pants of the coveralls on the boys...

Twinners. 

 When Gustav finally got it out of the mud he tried to coax it along but it was a fight all the way.  

And THIS ornery beast slipped out of it's lead with one jerk of the head and ran into the neighbor's field with Gustav and Elder Lopp in hot pursuit until they finally caught it.

It took them nearly forty five minutes to run it down and get the lead rope back on, and even then.... 

at this moment it looked like Gustav was pleading to Heaven to "PLEEEEEASE" send down a little divine intervention
so they could get it to it's final destination.

In the end, our two good-natured missionaries sat down

on the steps of the playhouse and baby sat to protect our investment,

(a calf in the hand is worth two in the field),

 while the others worked on bringing in the stragglers.

It had been quite an afternoon and we had some hungry men to feed!

    The main meal of the  day on the farm happens around 3:00-3:30 P.M. Knowing it would be a challenging day, I  had mixed up the filling and cooked and mashed  the potatoes in advance for individual shepherd's pies that could be left to bake in the oven.

It is one of our favorite things to make a hearty and delicious meal and to sit down to it knowing that every single thing in it came from our own labors on the farm...

The beef is from our own cows and so is the broth to make the gravy, rendered from the bounty of bones each year at slaughter time in early Winter.  Carrots and peas and onions go into the filling, all grown in our  kitchen garden, then dug and stored in the root cellar (carrots), picked, shelled, blanched, packaged and preserved in the freezers (peas),  or braided and hung  in a cool, dry place to winter over (onions).  The potatoes are planted each Spring in a large field of their own, carefully tended, weeded, then harvested and bagged in the Autumn to be stored in the root cellar until the new crop comes the next Autumn.  It is an amazing feeling to be sitting down to a meal produced from your own animals and land, from your own efforts and labor and with everything natural.

 Here are the casseroles loaded up, waiting for the fluffy topper....

and "Oven Ready"!



(this is the part where I love myself for doing it all ahead of time...)


Everyone came in, washed up and tidied themselves and we sat down to eat. 
With homemade sourdough bread,  our own cheese, a salad from the very first lettuce that had come up early in the garden, and berry saft (fruit drink from our beries) or water,
 we felt revived again and after a little break to sit and chat at the table,
 we headed out.

Anthony finished up the plowing in Bo and Ebba's big field,

then brought in the cows for the afternoon milking.

Look closely at Anthony's hands in this picture...he did something that was so unique and we were so fascinated by it....

whenever he brought in or took out the cows, if they were stubborn, or wouldn't come along as he wanted, he would raise his hands up and

"thip" his fingers,

  making a clicking noise.

He never said a word, he never prodded them on the back end,

 he just "thipped", 

and it worked every time.

The cows would prick up their ears and follow him instantly.

(Yes, the rest of us all tried to do it too,

 and the cows just looked at us like we were nuts).

While Pappa and I cleaned up in the kitchen and helped in the barn,

 Gustav and the missionaries continued on with the moving of the calves,

 and by later in the evening this was the scene in the front field

 by the water cup.

Over by the feeder was another group and farther over in the soft grass

 a few more. 

 The exodus from training pen to summer field of all seventeen calves

 was complete.

 They were all there in the field where they should be and they were all

lying down.

(playing innocent after their naughtiness...)

Last of all, after a work-filled day on the farm, is the evening tradition of kräm.

And again,

 it is always the same.

The recipe is so simple to remember:

1 liter of water (vatten)

2 liters of fruit (this is strawberry/rhubarb, (jordgubbe/rabarber) - l liter of each, but you can use whatever fruits you like - we also love bluebery/raspberry (blåbar/hallon or "drottning")

3 dl of sugar

4 tablespoons (matsked in Swedish) of potato flour (potatismjöl)

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a large pot, add the fruits and stir to mix, cook for a few minutes to soften the fruit if necessary and bring up the temperature, mix the potato flour with a little cold water so it is liquid, and stir it into the hot fruit mixture.  Return to the boil and it thickens up.  Take it off the heat and pour it into a crock and set it in the fridge to cool completely.

It is always served chilled and ladled into bowls with milk poured over it, and here it is always eaten with a cheese sandwich,

(open faced if you are in Sweden), 

and it is delicious.

We had a lot of jokes about that day. 

 It was one of frustration and accomplishment. 

 It was one of working together and getting it done.

It was one of counting on our friends and having them come through

with flying colors when we needed them.

  One of our daughters called from the States that night and asked:

"What's goin' down?"

 And the answer was:

EVERYTHING GOOD!