Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

"Til seters, til seters"

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Do you know what a "seter" is? When using google translate I found several words, like mountain farm or shieling.

In old times the farmers needed to let the grass arouns their farms grow for winter use. So cattles, goats, sheep were sent up to "setra" together with at least one of the young maids at the farm, a so called "budeie" (milkmaid), for the summer months.

 

Usually seters were build together, like a tiny little village. Budeiene did not have to stay alone, and it was easier for the menfolks when they came up to gather milk and cheese.

The seter is not in use any more as a dairy summer mountain farm. Too many of the old houses are not taken care of, and are falling down. But luckily many are still loved and used as a place to retreat, a place for solitude, for memories.

Synøve, who has the blog Tingstuo, has a tiny little seter in the middle of a setergrend, a mountain farm village.  
For several weeks now Synøve has invited me to her seter, and finally, yesterday we found the time and possibility to go there.

We had planned to hike up, but too much rain made us use Synøve's car instead.

Synøve had baked fresh pastries, she brought limonade, ham, cheese and homemade rhuburb jam.

She made coffee.....

....she made a fire in the old oven....

.....and we sat down to talk, and talk and talk.

 

I met Synøve through blogging this winter.
Now, a few months later, a deep friendship is developing.

Great Expectations

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Yesterday, before leaving the city, I bought myself a supersoft new duvet, and a new pillow, just the perfect softness to cover my sweet dreams.
So here I am.
Completely refreshed

With great expectation for the day ahead.

Torgeir, our oldest son, is here with us this weekend.
He and Terje will continue with the work we are doing to get two extra room.

Terje and Torgeir have gone to the village to buy materials.
I have promised Torgeir a brunch with pancakes, bacon and blueberry jam when they are back.

Then, after lunch, when my men start working.....

.......I have a date.....

...which I am looking very much forward to..

Great Expectations.

Cherry tree in morning light

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I took a photo with my cell phone this morning and sent it to Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods......at least that's what I thopught I did......sent it to my blog I mean.

We have been away all day (may be a tale for tomorrow), we are back in the cabin and I open my computer to check your comment.....

What do I find?

No cherry tree photo.
No comments, or, well, very few comments on yesterday's post........

 

I don't miss my blog post.....as you see I have already made another one. With more photos of my dear cherry tree.

But I miss you, my always so sweet and supporting readers and commenters?

Where are you?
How can I get you back?

Do you know how to make rømmegrøt?

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Do you know how to make rømmegrøt?  Oh, you don´t even know what rømmegrøt is? Rømme is a sour cream, grøt is porridge.
Rømmegrøt is the taste of Norway. The taste of my childhood.

Grandma Olga used to make the world´s best rømmegrøt, and my mother follows her tradition.
I have learned from them both. 

We have a very simple kitchen at Rastarbo. Simple, but perfect for creating feasts.
This time the goal was a feast for two. 

 And believe me, rømmegrøt is a feast.
For two. For twenty. 

Start with a couple of boxes of rømme. Add white flour, heat and stir.

Stir well!

The combination of the stirring and the heating force the fat out of the cream. The fat is poured over in its own bowl, and will be used on top of the rømmegrøt before eating it.

When you have enough fat, add more white flour, and then milk, a little at a time. Stir well.

Let the porridge boil for at least 10 minutes before serving.

A grøtpinne is always served with the rømmegrøt, salt meat and flatbread, and why not a few sweet tomatoes.

The porridge is served with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and the fat you got from the boiled and stirred rømme.

Dinner is ready!

Growing Dreams

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A bumblebee in the purple primula. A fishing boat attrackting hundreds of seagulls. A squirrel showing us his jumping skills. A green mug of mint and melissa tea. Spring´s first rhuburb soup.

The flower beds have got more fresh soil and fertilizer. Now I am planning a new bed at the corner of the terrace. The digging is hard, so I need Terje´s help. I can´t take my eyes away from his loving hands, his strong arms.
I fill the new bed with compost we´ve collected over the past few years, and cover it with dry pine needles. Later in spring I will plant a climbing rose, Flammentanz, and border it with lavender. Hopefully it will grow fast, offering us burning, red roses.
That´s what I dream, and dreams grow abundantly at Rastarbo.  I cut huge bouquets and decorate every table, every corner, and before going to bed I fill my pillow. 

 

Soon it is time to say goodbye, and drive the two hours back home.
But Terje still has one thing he wants to do.

Make me a sallow flute

 

 

 

Cabin garden awake

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When we left at Easter, the flower beds were covered in more than 50cms of snow. When we came back four weeks later, the daffodils were blooming. 
The first two days I did nothing in the garden, ok, day two rain was pouring down, so there were not much to be done anyway, but on day one I just walked around, loving the ruffy, stubborn garden just as it was.

The old stones carefully put together to make walls for our flower beds, branches fallen from nearby trees, bulbs sprouting through the still cold spring soil, simple melodies of yellow, blue and purple.

Creations of art.
Stilleben by Mother Nature.

 

The flowerbeds share the property with us. I started to make them already the first year the cabin was ours, 13 years ago. Now they lavish us with colours and beauty every spring, summer, autumn.

I have plans for more beds, more primulas, more roses, more herbs........but no hurry. At Rastarbo everything happens in her own time. And nature is so wisely made. When she waits for us to fulfil our plans, she offers her own carpets of colours.

White anemones in early spring.
My childhood's favorite flower.

 

 The beds are all weeded now. And before we lock up the cabin to go back home later today, I will add natural fertilizer and more soil as a farewell for now gift.

 

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We did a long walk last night. Give me a few weeks out here, and I would and up fit as a fiddle, with just as much music in my strings.

The birds are always most active in the morning and at night (I was awake at 3am one night, it was almost dark outside. I lay awake in my bad for a long time listening to the birds symphony) I had been reading Frances Mayes' Bella Tuscany during the rain earlier in the day, and remembered one of her sentences:

Dense ficus trees along a walkway bordering the water are home to thousands of birds singing their evening doxology
(Frances Mayes on Sicily)
I have no idea what doxology means, and google translate could not help me, but the words fitted anyway ;-)

The most beautiful......

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When spring finally arrives, she brings with her all her beauty, all her colours. We woke up to a blue, blue sky, a sparkling sun, a symphony of birds' song, a nature jubilant.

We packed a backpack with coffee and some snacks and walked out to breath it all inn.

Aure, Nord-Møre, western coast of Norway.
The most beautiful part of the world.

There can be no doubt about that.

I do agree though that the world has many most beautiful places.
When I travel I find them, again and again.
Rivers, lakes, laguna, small villages, huge cities, old, new, colours, greyness, mountains, plains, trees, stones, sky.

I have so many "most beautiful" places.

Up The Brenta River from Venice to Padova, down Mekong River in Laos, hiking the hills above Terracina, a village with a very special farm in Austria, Central Park in sparkling autumn, afternoon in a small town in Eritrea watching the street sellers wash their feet after a long, dusty day, my summer village, a botanical garden on Tenerife, morning mist in Tuscany, a hill filled with irises in Florence, Easter in Budapest, ruins in Rome, catching vongole in the laguna.........

But today, here, now.....

.......the most beautiful place is Aure, and its sea, sky, mountains, colours and air.

So tell me, where is your The Most Beautiful place right now?

Toilet in the sun. Water in the forest

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Behind ther cabin is a tiny little house. Our toilet.

The door can be locked. From both sides. 
This is a room where you can find peace :-)

Charming on a sunny morning.
Not as charming on a stormy winter's night.

I know what I am talking about, believe me. For some reason I visit this tiny little house every night ;-)

For water we need to walk to the well, deep into the forest.

Usually with two plastic buckets, one yellow, one orange. The buckets old as the cabin (from 1975). This time we needed only the orange one, as the other was already full.

The well is the old well used by the nearby farm.
The well is never dry, and I am absolutely sure the water is better and purer than the water the farmhouse gets in the pipes nowadays.

Back to the cabin.

Through the forest.

 

 

All this walking makes me thirsty.
The sun is here, the sky is all blue and the raindrops from last night are drying up fast.

Have a blessed Sunday!

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What are your plans for the day?

Our is to do a hike. Yeah!

On a rainy day

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A rainy day never stops us.
Terje dressed properly and went out to chop woods.

I dressed completely different and drove the 15 kilometers from Rastarbo to Tingstuo. In search for green.

I found what I was looking for.

And I found more. I found coffee, fresh cake, and words, wordsgetting to know,  for sharing, for growth of a  newborn friendship.

Where IS spring?

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Four weeks ago we left a cabin and a forest almost invisible because of snow. I had planned to spend Easter praising spring, instead we looked out our windows to watch snow, snow and more snow.

For three loooong and busy weeks at work I have counting days till this weekend. To go to the cabin again, this time for four whole days, not only a too short weekend. And to find spring.

All the snow has now melted. Well, almost all the snow. There are still white patches here and there in the forest behind the cabin. The forsythia has tiny yellow flowers, yellow daffodils and blue muscatis (which we call pearl flowers in Norway) are blooming. One of the flower beds has a beautiful carpet of purple primula flowers and the rhuburb is ready to use.

But spring? Where are you?

It is raining, icy cold drops almost snowdrops. It is blowing. We heard the birds' symphony last night (the sun was here then, and no wind), now the concert has a long break with the musicians hidden, making sure to keep their instruments warm and tuned.

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Spring time at cabin. You never know what you get :-)

 

And while I wait for the sun, there are always things to do, things to enjoy.

Like reading Magnhild Haalke, a Norwegian writer who wrote books just before I was born. Wonderful books with an eye for the beauty of the Norwegian nature. Writing letters, I am back to my "favorite" habit of writing "mother India" a letter a day....to brighten her challenging days the coming months. Sorting through my collection of old paper dolls which I have in a box somewhere out here. Drinking coffee with Terje and reading aload from another Norwegian writer from around the time I was born, Leif Borthen and his En suppe i solen, (A Soup in the Sun), the funniest, yummiest, most colourful food and travel descrciption I've ever read, and believe me, I HAVE READ A LOT!

Or just look at the view, listen to the wind, smelling fresh forest, let myself be cherished by life.