I’ve spent the last few days at Pia‘s house doing a variety of things. One day I weeded the roses and the front walk then harvested beets from the garden and collected nettles for dinner. Pia made fish and a nettle potage to go with it- it was surprisingly good! Another day, I harvested berries…

Didn’t go anywhere on Sunday. I woke up early and saw the sunrise reflected in the church next-door, just beautiful. I spent a good amount of time weeding around the edges of the veggie garden where beans are growing up. Pia mowed the lawn, something that takes over three hours since her yard is huge! …

Today I visited a couple of churches, went to the cheese place in Falkoping, visited Margaretha’s studio again then finished up at an arboretum before heading home to finish some chores before Pia and Giorgia returned from her moms summer home on the coast. I love how small and peaceful the churches are, most don’t…

Yesterday Karin (and her sweet dog Hilma) took me for a drive on the backroads, where we saw lots of poppies at the side of the road. We visited the Abbey at Varnhem, had lunch there (ok sandwich, yummy dessert!) then stopped at Lake Hornborgasjon. She is a fun person to hang out with, we…

Got an earlier start today as I had a 5:30 AM zoom call, I was the only one who had an early morning, everybody else was in the US so it was 8:30 at night for them. I was actually awake earlier, around 3:30, when Donnie needed to go out to pee. He had been…

This morning after my morning chores with the animals I went to a recreated old village with sod roof houses from the 12th century called Asle Ta. On the way there I passed a little roadside picnic table next to a cute little shed that was full of Swedish memorabilia. It’s obviously a spot where…

It’s 7 AM and I am sitting outside outside the front door, listening to the church bells ring next door. It’s slightly cool but very sunny, a few cars have gone past, people on their way to work. While the house is in a rural area it is on a road that connects Floby, the…

Yesterday was berry picking and jelly/jam making day. We picked red and black currant berries, as well as gooseberries from bushes in the backyard. We made the currant berries into jellies. The colors were so gorgeous, the black currant one turned a bright pink to start with then after it cooled became a lovely dark…

During these workaway trips I’ve discovered how much I’ve enjoyed getting to be part of the rhythm of other people‘s lives, especially lives that are very different from my own. It’s now 9:45 at night (or 21:45 as they say in just about every other country in the world!) and I’m standing outside watching one…

What have I been up to the last couple of days? We’ve had a couple of days of lovely sunny weather, apparently this is typical summer weather in this part of Sweden – low to mid 70s, mainly sunny, with occasional rainy days. Besides looking after the animals, I’ve spent time weeding and harvesting arugula.…