Island update (long)

Sounds like the way I was raised, our house a little better but not much.
What I wouldn't give just to go to a place like that for awhile. Just to be
isolated from all the stuff that goes on surounds us. Not forever, just
awhile.
"MLB" wrote in message
...
Marina wrote:
MLB skrev:

You refer to your "shack". What is it like and what "facilities" do you
have on the summer island? How is the weather there generally? Would
love to hear about it. MLB

The shack I sleep in is an addition to the old tool shed. My uncle built
it for my cousins to sleep in back when my grandfather was still alive.
Now uncle has moved into granddad's cabin, where all his family can fit
in, so the shack is vacant. I've pretty much taken it over. It's very
elementary, with just thin plank walls and a roof that makes a terrible
racket whenever it rains. It's more like a barrack. I do have a solar
panel on the roof, so I can have a reading lamp by my bed, and I can
charge my laptop, mobile phone, etc.

We don't have electricity or running water. Each cottage has a solar
panel or two on the roof. We bring all our drinking water from the
mainland. We gather rain water in big barrels standing at all the corners
of the houses and use that for washing. If it's a dry summer, we have to
use sea water, but salt water is too 'hard' for washing.

Mum's cabin is more furnished than my shack. There's a gas stove and a
gas fridge with a small freezer compartment. We don't have a WC, but an
outhouse. All in all, it's pretty primitive, but in return, we are very
close to nature here. We had a deer visiting the other day, quite near
Mum's cabin, and just this morning, two swans with their two babies were
swimming around in the bay below Mum's cabin. I watched them through the
window as I was eating my breakfast.

We have had a lovely sauce made from chanterelles that my sister picked
in the forest, as well as lots of bilberries, some wild strawberries and
even some cloudberries. Later there will be wild raspberries, cranberries
and lingonberries, as well as more mushrooms.

The weather is very varied. Yesterday, it was pouring down all day, but
today the sun is shining. It's been a fairly windy summer so far, and the
wind is fairly stiff today, too.

Hope this answers your questions. Please ask if you want to know more.


Thanks for the story . Reminds me of when I took my son (then aged 8) for
a 5 day visit at a "ranch" in Idaho. There was a house that had cold
water only. A wood stove for cooking. Being a city girl, I found going 5
days without a bath very distasteful. Oh, yes, an outhouse! I tried to
cook a pheasant (I"m not much of a cook). That was one tough old bird. I
had never cooked on anything but electric and never anything "wild". As
for scenery m that was the bleakest
ever -- actually just dry fields. My first and last visit there. I
suppose you mush have beautiful scenery there. Best wishes. MLB

Now, that's an earworm that will stay with us all day!!!
"Takayuki" wrote in message
...
Marina wrote:
Caliban still has his strange relationship with Emil. They often touch
noses, and they seem to have a competition about which of them gets to
sniff the other's backside. They've each hissed at the other a few
times, but there's no real aggression. Yesterday, Caliban surprised us
all, and not least Emil, by licking Emil's forehead! Emil was so
surprised that he hissed and swatted at Caliban, who just walked away.

I think that if they had more time together every year at the island,
Emil would become a regular playmate with Miranda and Caliban. I can
picture them going around in circles sniffing each other's butts.

"Granby" wrote in message
...
Sounds like the way I was raised, our house a little better but
not much. What I wouldn't give just to go to a place like that for
awhile. Just to be isolated from all the stuff that goes on
surounds us. Not forever, just awhile.

More than once I've heard family members say they wish we had kept
the little old shack in the hills where my mother was raised.

Two rooms and an outhouse. (As well as a front porch and God's great
outdoors.) But sitting at that kitchen table was the warmest safest
place I ever remember being in my life.

Jo