"War and Peace"

(with apologies to Mr. Tolstoy)

(Goofing on the kitchen sofa with Gustav)

The time that Lauren was with us was the shortest of any of the wwoofers we have ever had....just two weeks.

But eleven of those fourteen days were the vital period between the blooming of the hägg tree and the blooming of the lilac (syren) bushes.

In northern Sweden everyone understands the incredible pressure that exists "Between the Hägg and the Syren".

The earth is awakening for another season of growing, the lambs and the calves are being born, preparations for the the critical haying time are being made, gardens must be tilled and fields readied for plowing.

No battle field could compare to it for sheer chaos if you aren't focused and efficient.

 

                                                                                                                 
It was Gustav (arguably the most experienced),
 Lauren (ready, willing and able),
 and Me.
   As soon as the cows were milked in the main barn, there were bottles to fill and carry to the small animal barn for the morning and evening feeding of the calves...

and here she was with "the savages" as they were called because they

 RACED

up to the bars every time,

slurping up the warm milk, pushing and shoving and butting each other out of the way.

For the record..you couldn't do this job without simultaneously laughing and gently scolding the calves during each and every session.  It was such a zoo.

  

In the grain room between the large and small animal barn, in an area called the höladsporten,

 the barley had to be crushed and bucketed out to all the animals.  While I was milking and tending to the new mothers, Lauren was holding the fort in the "kornkammare" and doing a terrific job of both crushing and cleaning up.

                                                                                                    

                                                                                                                                                                        And as if there wasn't enough going on......the trucker with an entire year's worth of  chopped wood, arrived and had to have help with the unloading from the main road. So Lauren hitched a ride on the tractor and if you look very closely you can see her out there helping with the transport back and forth.

Did we mention the indoor duties?  It just never ends!

Feeling tired yet?  

Take heart.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

One of the most unexpected things about life on the farm is that there are moments of deep peace that come even during the most demanding of times.

It is a peace that seems to instantly satisfy every need or longing in your soul and it appears just when you think there could not BE any peace with all that is required of you.

These four pictures (two above and two below) are an example of that experience.

I asked Lauren one day if she could get us some flowers for the kitchen table and she went out to the hägg tree, cut an armfull and brought them in the house. It was still quite cold and the air was really nippy.  When she came in with them their scent filled every corner of the kitchen and drifted through the entire home.  Later there was a quiet tranquility as she worked with and cuddled the animals in the barn.

 Gustav says that there are times when he just dreads going to the barn, but once he gets there he always feels good.  It is so true, because that same peace seems to come as you enter the barn even when there is a lot to do. 

Maybe it's because you are working with the animals and that in and of itself has a very calming effect. 

 I'm not sure what it is in total, but I do know  how it feels. 

The great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, is described not as one who wrote

 "a novel"

 but, more importantly, as one who wrote

"a piece of life".

The day Lauren left we talked about how much she had affected our family in such a short space of time.

She worked hard, she participated with us in every kind of dinner table discussion, she had a great sense of humor and a loving heart.

In just fourteen days, she became a very real

 piece of our lives.

 "Track Record"

Calving time is always intense.

By the middle of March, when the worst bite of winter has passed, the bulls and the female "mellankalvar" (heifers that were born the previous year), have to be moved out of their winter stalls in the small animal barn,

to the "gated community" out in the open air 

of the new doorless hay barn.

There they have enough shelter and deep,  fresh, straw in their pens to give them warmth and protection that is more than adequate in the still brisk Spring air.

 Their departure to the great outdoors makes it possible for us to power wash that area of the barn and scrub up all the necessary facilities to make room for the mothers who will be having their babies within a few weeks. 

This year we had done everything we could think of to be prepared but we got hit with an 
unexpected glitch 
that we never could have foreseen.

Normally the process goes like this: 

The mother has her baby in the soft, clean straw in the birthing stall and the two of them stay together by themselves for five days.  During that time the mother feeds her baby and takes care of it.

Then it's time for the baby to be outfitted with an identification eartag.

(SUPER IMPORTANT!)

 The ear tags are the system that allows us to keep track of which calf has come from which mother. That birth record must be submitted to the government since we have pure-bred animals.

 Once it is safely tagged, the baby is taken into a calf box where it is taught to drink milk from a bottle.  For the next five days it will be fed  it's mother's milk from the bottle,  and have access to  fresh water and hay. 

Finally, when it can drink from the bottle well enough it goes to a larger pen with the other new baby calves who have also graduated through the calf-box training process.  

We call that larger pen "Play Group",

 where the calves will continue for eight more weeks to be bottle fed until it is time to go out into the field for the summer.

When the baby goes to the calf box, the mother goes back to the main barn and into the milking line. 

 

We have learned that "5" is the magic number for both mother and baby. 

 If they are separated earlier than that the mother cries and so does her calf, but if they stay together for five full days, they both seem to make the transition just fine.

This year, with the calving in full swing, we discovered that the stash of government-issued ear tags that we had in the drawer of the big storage cabinet of the ladugårdsporten (entry to the barn), were...

SHEEP TAGS!

This was very bad news....After #119, we ran out of CALF TAGS completely. 

 When we called to get the next numbered sequence of tags from the government control office they said,

"Sure...we can have them to you in about three weeks"!

We made a desperate attempt to keep track on the chalkboard in the milkroom.....not working.

Meantime, the untagged calves were adding up in Play Group at an alarming rate and we were beginning to panic.


We tried giving them descriptive names like "Full-Dip" (see the one that looks like it's entire ear was dipped in ink?)  or "Half-Dip" (front and center), or even "Bambi" (that would be the one in the back that is brown and white). 

But there were just too many!

Pappa's good idea in action.

It was Pappa who came up with the idea of taking a close-up picture of each one of them and writing the date of birth, mother's identification number, gender, etc. on the back.  

Brilliant. 

When the tags finally arrived Gustav and Lauren went to work and while she was feeding bottles to one group, Gustav was tagging the others.

It was such a blessing that we had the pictures with all the information.
   We never would have been able to remember without them.

Maxie always says, 

"There is no problem on the farm that can't be solved",

and maybe this proves that he's right.

Look closely at the tag numbers on those fluffy calf ears and you'll see they are.. 

All Done!

"Pouring SALT, 
(Oh wait! - I mean..)  
SUGAR, 
on the Wounds"

Right around the time that Lauren came,  Gustav, to his great delight, became the proud owner of a new
l-o-n-g-b-o-a-r-d.! 

We tried to snap pictures of him speeding along with the wind plastering his hair back from the sheer  force  generated by riding this new and wonderful item,
 but no......
the only shots we could ever  manage were of the multiple wounds he inflicted on himself in his attempts to master the instrument.

The amount of cream, rubs,  gauze bandages,  saunas, and sympathy was  reaching epic proportions, but somehow it didn't seem to be enough.  After a while we weren't sure how to comfort him anymore - each day seemed to bring a new scrape or graze or bruise.

But Lauren knew how.

With her kind heart and deep belief in the old adage

"the way to a banged-up teenage boy's heart is through his stomach",

she baked and cooked up a storm on Gustav's (and the rest of the family's) behalf.  

And she was a formidable force herself in that respect!

Pictured above is a Princesstårta, one of the classics of Swedish baking.

Not only did she make the "from scratch" cake with it's rounded top draped in bright green marzipan, but she  hand-fashioned the pink marzipan flowers that decorated it.


It was deluxe! 

And guess who was first in line to dig in?
You got it....(notice vestiges of wounds on lower forearm).

 She made cream-filled, fruity masterpieces, she made super frothy smoothies,

but her pièce de résistance was unquestionably,

  

The Swedish Pinocchio Cake.

She made so many of them we lost count and every single one was vacuumed up by the family in record time.

A light meringue-y top and bottom housed a luscious billow of sweetened whipped cream in the middle and toasted almonds crunched up the top. 

Flake-A-Riffic!

We loved it all, but even more we loved her kindness and sweetness as she worked away on the treats every day, even with all the other responsibilities she shouldered with us on the farm. 

It is still such a happy memory.