To think and to do

Since the norwegian classes started two months ago, I have to admit that the work in the woods and garden has been sadly reduced to practically nothing.

Fortunately, last weekend, Morten and I had in a small cabin in Finnskogen has proved to be, and pardon my language, a kick-ass one !

For months and years, we've been making plans,  projects, giving birth to a lot of ideas, new and old.

But in the end, very few have been actually done (including this blog which I've deserted as soon as something else came in my daily routine).

We could argue that some of our plans, like digging and building an underground-greenhouse, necessitate a considered amount of energy and time. Not everything can be done in one day.

But guess what, it only needs 30 minutes a day. We've almost all been there, haven't we. The classical example would probably be the daily "work-out" that advertised itself as "only 30 minutes, that shouldn't be too hard to find the time every day". And yet…

Never-the-less, fed up with so many small projects that we had wished to do before winter, it's about time to put those ideas into reality straight away.

The first one was the left-over of the wood fire. It might look like the less exciting one, but since autumn started so early, the wood we had already cut, split and put in the shed didn't look enough any more. We had still a pile of the thin trees that the lumberjacks had cut and left there. So, there we went, "only for 30 minutes", under the rain.

It's a interesting thing, those 30 minutes. Because, as soon as the first 10 minutes were past (where you do realize you should indeed exercice more often), the pain and tiredness from the effort flew away. After two hours of continuous work, a whole pile of wood was cut in small logs !

Then, straight after the cabin trip, the second long dreamed project was brought to life : a fire place in the hill behind the house.

Since I've known him, Morten has been talking about it. He had already gathered the poles to make a gapahuk (small shelter). But nothing had started yet, just the idea and half the material. So, you can imagine the joy and happiness of finally building it ! 

So, this is our inspiration from the small cabin in the wood : 

I had personally never seen a fireplace like that and therefore it was close to a revelation ! Simple and practical. I loved it at first sight. It was the kick I needed, or rather that we needed.

Our version is a bit bigger as you can see : 

And, yes, we'll have a view of the lack from that hill !! The stones are from nearby. Initially, the people who lived here long ago removed them from the field. It felt a bit weird to carry those same stone back in the field, although they're more "organized" now.

Now here's the gapahuk, step by step. 

So far it took us one long after noon for the fire place and the walls. We are now waiting for some good weather in order to make the floor and the roof (the same day preferably). We have covered the ground with more stones to limited the grass from growing through. 

We're not engineers, so maybe some of this may look a bit wobbly, but that's not the point. The point is we've finally created what we wanted, and it's moving forward ! 

As a conclusion, I will resume my activities here in this blog as well as outside. 

Winter is coming…