Did I mention the Rhubarb is Ready?

Had to cut flowers twice now!

Cherry Valley in Bloom

This cherry valley is a short walk away. When the trees bloom, they rain white petals on their many admirers that come from afar to see them. I suspected today they were in their full glory, so I proded, cajoled, and ultimately pushed both girls in the stroller up the hill on our walk to go see them, luring them with a promise of more water play.

The Cherry Blossoms

The Valley

Cherry Valley Picnic

Field and Stream

The Catch of the Day- Frogs

He soon got a friend

Trying out the Boots I remembered we had for SwedeBaby, a bit big but they did the trick.

And cute!

Pretty Stream

When the sun comes out in Sweden, you can not imagine it was ever gone.

Violets

Violets!

Iridescent Bug, blue and shiny, and a super quick runner!

The Sounds of the Valley

It was hot today, the kind of hot that stays on your face after you get home. The heat that makes me feel like jumping in a swimming pool, or the nice warm Gulf of Mexico back home in Florida. I am pretty sure if I feel this heat, my inner thermostat has changed since my Florida days! How would I ever live there again now I know that the outdoors can be mild and pleasant in summer!!! And while the sun comes out hot and bright in the day, we still reach for long sleeves and night, and know there is no warm swimming until we defect to Italy later in the summer. It was enough to get me playing Italian Children's music when we got back, and dream of swimming in the Mediterranean in August.

School Family Picnic

Just like last year, we gathered with the other families from SwedeGirl's Waldorf-Steiner School at this lovely valley for a picnic.

We go for a potluck picnic but the real draw for the children is the pond

I forgot to take pictures to show you the food. The fastest going items were hazelnut-nettles croquets, and mini pizzas. I feasted on fresh greens and radishes, and all kinds of quinoa and grain salads. One of the great things about going to a Waldorf school is the picnics have yummy gourmet homemade hippy food! And the desserts....the buffet of sweets was enough to get the kids way from the pond for a moment.
The weather was damp, but the children of Sweden all have rain suits and galoshes, or wellies as the brits call them, which are so novel to me! I have never had a pair in my life, still! The kids were prepared to romp in wet grass and splash at the pond's edge.

They were hunting for Salamaders

Very Successfully, too

The Family

Little copy cat SwedeBaby wanted in on the action, of course!

SwedeGirl, the fisherman

SwedeDaddy found a blood Sucking Leech

And some big currant snails

Heading Home

Stopping to Say Hi to the Baby Lambs

The sheep mamas were protecting the babies, so I never a got a good photo of the sweet little lambs, but the girls got a good look.

A Scanian Tulip Garden

We visited a neighboring village last week, and stopped to admire this really incredible tulip garden. There were tulips of every color in a blanket across the whole front yard, with paths winding through.

The woman who owned the home, the gardener, noticed us and invited us in to look around.

So many colors!

In the summer her garden is full of peonies, she invited us back to see it then too.

These tulips were over 20 years old.

These were SwedeGirl's favorite, pink of course!

What an incredible labor of love.

She fertilizes with bone meal and cow manure fresh from the farmer, and shops discount bulb sales whenever she can!

She has been recognized ofr her talents, and was featured in a Swedish garden magazine

In the back yard, she showed us this Scanian Coffee corner. It is traditional construction for southern Sweden, where it gets very windy (and there are lots of rocks!). A border of stone in a circle, to protect from wind and hold the heat of the sun to create radiant warmth.

So pretty and clever.

She puts a cheap fatty piece of meat up in this old lantern to feed predator birds in the winter. There was a huge beautiful bird when we were in the village, twice as big or beautiful as any hawk I have ever seen around here before. It was so big and regal it made us wonder if it was a condor or eagle or something! I am not sure what it was, but we think this was one of the fellows she feeds.

The stone wall of the coffee corner is hollow and is a root cellar.

I love root cellars, I so want to build one here.

This amazing curly Q wood is called worm Hazel. She got three and a half kilos of hazel nuts from this tree last year. It flowers yellow very early, and looks best in winter when the shape of the branches are most clearly visible. I bet it looks so cool in front of a white snowy background.
The twists of the branches