Bilberries and rain and fulfilling dreams

As most Europeans are suffering extreme heat, we have had a cold week. Last night it was 8C, and during the day it's from 14C to 17C. I think this is way too cold. Hb is content, because he's suffering anytime temperatures rise above 18C - he works in a freezer (literally). I'm suffering now.

But we had our bout of warmth earlier this summer, and for most berries and fruits it was a perfect timing, no frost nights during the time they were blooming, a lot of pollinators buzzing around and dry weather fot those buzzers to fly. And once the blooming was over, there was rain - plants can't make fruits/berries if it's too dry.

I've baked two bilberry pies so far - we call bilberries blueberries (They are original blueberries). D don't eat them, because bilberries make her sick. As do oat, milk, pasta, chicken, too much eggs, most fruits (but not raspberries, which make me  sick), potatoes, rice (but not rice milk), bread, cheese if not cooked, meat in most forms... But anyway, os and ys LOVE bilberry pie.

I told them they will have just as many bilberry pies during the winter as there is berries in the freezer. So far os has been twice picking bilberries with me!!!

Because of the heat wave and this rain, our firewood project is behind our normal schedule. We started cutting and splitting last weekend, and if it's not raining today, we might get more done tonight. Yesterday it was rain on and off whole afternoon.

A bit boring.

Old man decided to build a log cabin/retirement house. He has dreamt of three things in his life: learning to fly (got his license in early twenties), owning a forest (bought first forest in his fifties) and building a log house. Now it's time for him to fulfill his last dream, groundwork is done, just waiting for last signatures for the permit. Yesterday they were digging an old well, it was filled with roots and concrete rings were a bit loose. So all is now nicely clean and sealed, and after a while that water is drinkable. My cousin's digger on the other hand is not ok, it stopped working several times. Oh well, just like it always is, something happens and you just have to fix it.

And as for my mother, she has had her dreams fulfilled: a house of their own in the countryside, work from home, a nice garden.

Heatwave

After really really cold sprin we now have a heatwave. +32C is way too much to my opinion.

I can work outside for maybe an hour in the morning after I have took 'Suma for a walk, with cats, of course. Today it was way too hot by 10am, even though my polytunnel is in the shadow until that.

I have still some salad plants unplanted to their final pots/places.

This year I have a plot, I might have mentioned it before. It's only 1 km walk, in my parents' field, nice smooth sandy soil, which keeps moisture but doesn't get soaked even in constant rain. It's unbelieveable how different it is to grow anything in soil that is so wonderful! The other option is of course my dense clay...

But my corn looks nice, pumpkins and zuccinis are looking proper and beans are ready to climb - they just need the poles! Broad beans and peas for some reason didn't germinate very well. Well, broad beans were old seeds, more than five years, so there's that, but peas on the other hand were new AND expensive seeds! Aaaargh. I sow some carrots, and they badly need weeding - but in this weather I just can't do it - 'Suma keeps following me everywhere and if I'm on the field weeding, she'll sit right next to me and because she's a black dog that's basically lethal.

I got a pay rise (because of my EU tasks). Not much good because I've been on (good) fixed salary since our major organisation shake ten years ago, and that theoritical pay rise is still less than my current salary. I'm not complaining. I've never refused any work task and I've tried to do more than asked just because of that. I've taken tasks no-one else wants to even poke with a ten feet pole. It has it's good side but also not so good side. It's quite common to get a call from my boss (or ever from her boss) "We have no-one who knows about this, but I know you'll manage to find out everything and can do this... Please?" I wish my kids and hb would think I'm that smart and capable, too.

Too many accounts

 I have several user accounts on my phone - it's my work phone, but I'm allowed to use it in personal use also. That requires me to have another accounts.

And I just can't remember passwords. Few days ago I had to change my "main" which I use to log in my work system. And because of that, my ALL work passwords had to changed, too. And by now I have no idea what my new passwords are (each are different, one needs to be at least 20 characters, numbers, capitals etc. One cannot have numbers or any special character and must not be longer than eight characters. I wrote them down, and I can't find the bloody paper anymore. So I need to change each of them again. And none of them cannot be the same than 25 previous ones. My imagination is drained completely by now. (it was our IT security that told everyone just to keep passowrds written in a paper, because no-one can't figure out which password goes where...)

But at least I got my Teams working (my supervisor couldn't do that) and I still have my email working. And my calendar.

If that isn't too much to my long term memory, I have three credit cards which each of course have different pin codes. My vpn needs a pin code. My phone has, not one but two different pin codes, and my net bank has one, too. Adn hb is wondering why I don't want to use out front door, which has an electronic lock which has a pin code.

I hate passwords. I hate pin codes.

Sprouts

I know it's spring everywhere but here. A nice winter storm - I've lost count. We have maybe a two square meters free from snow  otherwise it's snow and ice. And maybe a bit more ice, perhaps?

I've few seeds germinating, I need to check on them tomorrow. I have some peas and sunflower seeds germinating, kids love pea shoots. Maybe I'll need to stop calling them kids, they're all teens. But yes  they'll eat pea shoots, sun flower shoots and corn shoots (grown from popcorn kernels!!!)

I found boxes on mung beans reduced, of course I bought several. I had no idea what to make of them, until I read mung beans are easiest to make sprouts. Ok. First batch is almost eaten, os eats them as they are, but I really like them as a sandwich filler, like cucumbers. But a lot cheaper! Cucumbers are about 5,50€/kg now, that makes one cucumber something like 1,30€, which is way too much I'm happy with.

War on Ukraina has made me even more worried, if I was worried about living costs before, now I'm horrified, of  everything. And I need to worry about what will our crazy neighbour do, if there's going to be another "special operation"? My colleague from Portugal kindly offered to have us as guests if need ever occurrs. Well, I'm not leaving, but I have been poundering what should I do with d... My worries are quite irrelevant now, compared to the sorrow of others.

For now we are safe and as far as I know there's no imminent danger of any military action near this country.  We have briefings only once every fortnight, which is a lot less than it was in the beginning of the pandemic. So, I'm doing what V.P. doesn't want us to be doing - living a normal life. I've donated money and my freetime, money to Ukraine and my freetime for my community. If there's a need, we can house a family of refugees. There's not much else I can do.

Last remains of my family in Russia are not willing to move here.  They could do that, because their children already live here,  but they have their home they built themselves, their life, their friends... They shortly considered moving to Georgia where the husband is from, but it's not safe, either. I know it's hard to see the difference between a country and it's people, or individuals.

And sometimes the people are the country, like now in Ukraine. I don't think President Zelensky ever dreamt (or rather had nightmares) of to be a great military leader to his people, but he has been better leader to his people than any other present day head of state.

It's winter

 If anyone have missed, we all have winter.  Last weekend we got a foot of snow, and next weekend there will be as much. So it looks like a proper winter, but it surely doesn't feel like one. We'be had a one really cold day, -25C or something. You could think this is a real winter.

The truth is we are having abnormally warm winter once more. We used to have long stretches of real frost, like -33C for two weeks and then -27C felt like a three-week heatwave.

I've been busy, or I've been making myself busy. This is second week hb was able to go to work, he's not fully recovered yet, but at least he's able to sit. He's not the only fallen one. F fell down the stairs, but weighing less than half of what hb weighs she got only huge bruises but nothing as bad as hb. Then our electrician slippes on a snow covered piece of plastic and twisted his ankle. He was using crutches only for two weeks...

Hb has excelled himself lately. He got tax return, a nice sum of money, on August, and we agreed he'd use them on a new suit (needed for a wedding and FIL's funeral) and shoes. The rest went to d's school books. And just before new year I found out that this thickhead has used his credit card very freely, because he thought he was using his tax returns now. I mean... I can't even... And he's used twice or trice the money he had in first place.

For two years I've been telling him we need to watch our money because I don't get any extra now while I'm working from home and he's been spending more than ever. I'm considering confiscating his card and give him a lump sum to use, because nothing I say or do has any impact.

Yes, I will sort this out like everything else, but I'm so mad and tired right now.

Work, on the other hand, has been nice. I feel I know what I'm doing and I feel my work has a meaning. It might not be as important as some other jobs, but who cares? We can't all be Elon Musks, nurses, teachers or rocket scientists. 

Last goodbye

 FIL's funeral was few weeks ago. FIL himself told he didn't want to have any fuss, no big gathering, no big flower arrangements... We had a memorial service at the Church, which was attended a lot of people (MIL has a huge family, she had 10 siblings with 9 surviving to adulthood), family, friends, neighbours... 

People were asked to bring just one flower per person/family to lay next to coffin, because FIL would be cremated and all those beautiful arragements would have just gone to waste.  Everyone did as asked - well, there's always first time to everything.

Funeral service is a basically a consentrated mass,  so the priest sings a hymn - this priest can't sing and I got a bit hysterical, you know, he was singing some very touching psalm and so off tune and everything was so sad and he was so off tune I couldn't help laughing and tried to stop laughing and it got just worse and worse. Luckily we were keeping social distance and had masks, so no-one but d noticed. 

We has a smaller gathering after the service, just sandwich cake and cream cake, coffee, tea, cookies etc.  If it wasn't FIL's final wishes and Covid19 we would probably have had gathering closer to 100 people with a real buffet with hot meals... And coffee and cake.

Two weeks after that hb fell on  our slippery driveway and hurt his buttoc and tight big way. He just told me he won't wear his slippers because they are, well, slippery and put his winter boots on. Aaaand down he went. So, for three weeks he has not been able to sit, to drive a car, and for the first week he couldn't even walk, he kind of shuffled.

So, he wasn't able to attend for the laying down his father's ashes. Again there was the same priest,  but luckily we sang only one, very familiar hymn, but I think I was the only one singing with the priest. The grave sits by the lake, it's an old graveyard from the 13th century, and FIL's home  at the narrow headland can be seen, just about 300-400m away. FIL was born on the other side of the lake, just behind that headland, it was an ancient Russian horsefarm, and before that there was a blacksmith. 

Once hb is able to sit in a car I will drive him to the grave, I can drive all the way down to the grave, so there is no risk for him to fall again.

FIL is in peace now, right by his beloved lake.

Time is a-flying when you're having fun

A lot has been happening. Most important, no matter what, is that D finally - finally! went to her prom. And she was lovely I never was that pretty when young. And on the very next day she cut her hair 🙄

Autunm is here in full force.  Leaves are all fallen and ground is yellow, I'm still foraging mushrooms, yellowfoots and chanterelles. I've tacled the 11,5kg pumpkin and now I've been left with 10 litres of aronia berries. Mead? Jam with brandy? Freezers a full to the brim so I need to figure out something that doesn't include adding something in freezers.

I've found myself in my first ever EU position. I've worked in EU projects before, but this is more permanent. I'm just happy that I can't travel for now because of covid. Two years ago I thought my future was somewhere between cow dung and harvesters! But just like Forrest Gump said, life is like a box of chocolates, you'll never know what you'll get. But I DO love cows and harvesters... I have wowed I'll never leave them completely.

But on much much darker note, my father in law is just hours or days away of passing away. He has terminal cancer and is now on palliative care, he still eats a little, but his only medication is strong painkillers, actually he's getting morphine. He's way over 90 and had been poorly over three or four years now, so this is to be expected, but his death will still be a great loss.

Hb's family is one of those families where everything is someone else's fault, and I know that fil's death will cause not only much sorrow and sadness but also a lot of bad words and fighting. I admire my fil, in his own way he is a great man, but I'm also aware of his darker side, which I can't talk about even with hb. Mil has shared those things with me, but hb refuses to see any flaws in his father, which is understandable.

Everything has a season, autunm is a season of death, loss and leaving things behind, giving up. But autunm is also a season to prepare to new seasons, groundwork for spring is done in autunm. Without autunm there will be no winter and no spring. Our next month is actually named month of death.