R
RubenBlaedel
Guest
This weekend was very sad to me, my wife and to my children. We went to our little house in the forest in Sweden to check out the damages of the great winter storm the devastated large areas of southern Sweden in January.
It would be too much to go into details of how my house (a "torp" *) is placed in the landscape except that it is behind a very small hill before a rather long hill/slope of about a mile down to a large Lake.
Until the storm a large and very old forest surrounded my property, with beautiful stone fences covered with moss and lichens and trees so big that my little family hardly could reach around them.
It was the kind of forest were you could discover new secret places and were you could sit a summers afternoon in the middle of the forest enjoying the birds, insects and the wonderful scents of flowers, trees and mushrooms, while the rays sun would find its way thru the leaves and paint the fairy like grass and moss with scattered light.
I have known this place as my second home for all most 40 years and both my girls has spend most of the summers since they were born, the oldest even took her first steps/walk on the bumpy grounds out side the house.
For the first time in my life I found it hard to use my camera - even though my house and most of my property had made it thru the storm every were I looked trees were either turned over with root and every thing or the most proud and stubborn trees were simply snapped over like matches. It was so bad we could not find the little road that led up to our house, there are now landmarks left - no secret and fairytale like places left no beauty only a wasteland!
It took much strength to comfort my youngest - she cried - her "smultron ställe"** was gone, her little hill further in the forest were she used to take her dolls and play was gone and even the place were she saw her first Moose looked like someone had turned everything up side down.
It will take 20 years to get the places to look just nice again and it will not look like old forest in my lifetime - but I hope my children will be able to show my their children some of the Sweden I have so dearly - Had it not been for the many birds, some deers and a couple of other "wild" animals curiously looking at us from a safe distance I would not have been able to hold back the tears but their presence gave me comfort that Nature might sometimes be tough on us but life will go on.
For me the loss of 40-50 larges trees on my property means only that I will be chopping fire wood for a very long time, but for some of my neighbours - the nearest is about 5 miles away - it is really bad as the have lost 1000 of sq. metres forest that will get little paid if they can find help to get it "cleaned" up before next winter.
This is a sad postcard with no pictures attached but with an advice to embrace and enjoy places dear to your heart while they are still there - best Ruben
* Torp is a very small house were the poorest people lived - people who did not have enough land to live from it but worked for the large farmers. In 1965 a 97 year old woman died after living in the Torp all her life. She had one cow and she did some sewing and stuff for other people - she never married. Behind the wall paper we found newspaper-wall paper from 1880. In my area it is the last Torp left - two rooms and a very large fireplace/stove - very primitive and very lovely.
** Smultron Ställe = your own place in the forest were the wild small strawberries grow - a ver Swedish thing
It would be too much to go into details of how my house (a "torp" *) is placed in the landscape except that it is behind a very small hill before a rather long hill/slope of about a mile down to a large Lake.
Until the storm a large and very old forest surrounded my property, with beautiful stone fences covered with moss and lichens and trees so big that my little family hardly could reach around them.
It was the kind of forest were you could discover new secret places and were you could sit a summers afternoon in the middle of the forest enjoying the birds, insects and the wonderful scents of flowers, trees and mushrooms, while the rays sun would find its way thru the leaves and paint the fairy like grass and moss with scattered light.
I have known this place as my second home for all most 40 years and both my girls has spend most of the summers since they were born, the oldest even took her first steps/walk on the bumpy grounds out side the house.
For the first time in my life I found it hard to use my camera - even though my house and most of my property had made it thru the storm every were I looked trees were either turned over with root and every thing or the most proud and stubborn trees were simply snapped over like matches. It was so bad we could not find the little road that led up to our house, there are now landmarks left - no secret and fairytale like places left no beauty only a wasteland!
It took much strength to comfort my youngest - she cried - her "smultron ställe"** was gone, her little hill further in the forest were she used to take her dolls and play was gone and even the place were she saw her first Moose looked like someone had turned everything up side down.
It will take 20 years to get the places to look just nice again and it will not look like old forest in my lifetime - but I hope my children will be able to show my their children some of the Sweden I have so dearly - Had it not been for the many birds, some deers and a couple of other "wild" animals curiously looking at us from a safe distance I would not have been able to hold back the tears but their presence gave me comfort that Nature might sometimes be tough on us but life will go on.
For me the loss of 40-50 larges trees on my property means only that I will be chopping fire wood for a very long time, but for some of my neighbours - the nearest is about 5 miles away - it is really bad as the have lost 1000 of sq. metres forest that will get little paid if they can find help to get it "cleaned" up before next winter.
This is a sad postcard with no pictures attached but with an advice to embrace and enjoy places dear to your heart while they are still there - best Ruben
* Torp is a very small house were the poorest people lived - people who did not have enough land to live from it but worked for the large farmers. In 1965 a 97 year old woman died after living in the Torp all her life. She had one cow and she did some sewing and stuff for other people - she never married. Behind the wall paper we found newspaper-wall paper from 1880. In my area it is the last Torp left - two rooms and a very large fireplace/stove - very primitive and very lovely.
** Smultron Ställe = your own place in the forest were the wild small strawberries grow - a ver Swedish thing
