Midsummer celebrations

Up here in Sweden, we celebrate Midsummer Night. It is the single largest celebration, if we consider the amount of people who are free from work. For centuries, during christian times, it was celebrated on 24 June, the afternoon before St. Johns mass, which was held on 25 June. Before that, it was probably celebrated sometime around the summer solstice (21 June). In these post-christian days, we have shifted to celebrate always on a Friday, and we have agreed to pick the one that comes closest to 21 June.

In the old days, Midsummer was both magical and materially important. It marks the longest day, and it also marks the first fresh food. The springtime was hard, when supplies were running short. Most people who died of starvation died in the spring and early summer. Those who made it to Midsummer usually made it until next Christmas. Something worth celebrating!

The celebration contains traces of an ancient fertility rite, with dancing around a pole with phallic qualities. It was probably good to give birth to young ones around the spring equinox.

This year, we celebrated with friends in Norway - Andrew and Malin - at their amazing place in Hurdal.

We made a "maypole" to dance around.

Before leaving on the midsummer trip to the north, we ate the last apples from last year on 10 June. They were looking a bit tired, but the taste was still good.

The last apples from 2025.

Tripping to Finland

Early June, I got the opportunity to spend a few days talking to Joel Rosenberg and the other amazing enthousiasts of the Finnish Nut Growers' Association in Finland. We drove around looking at nut trees in the Turku area.

Our fantastic host Joel.

On the way up, I passed through Uppsala, to watch the Corylus colurna trees - "Tree hazel".

Tripping in Norway

Our midsummer tour led us further north, to Grue, where we met other friends. They had bought an old farm that was quite well renovated, and were putting new life into the ground. We built a rain harvester on one of the sheds.

Collecting rainwater makes us happy.

We also spent a day with cousin Karin in Horten, walking a lot and talking even more.

Most of Norway is post-card-like.

Värmland tour

We visited Jonas and Maja near Arvika, to hang around and check out their place. Jonas is growing hundreds of nut trees from seed, all over their property. It is still early, but in a few years we will know which trees grow up in the forest landscape of Värmland.

Jonas shows where the trees grow best.

It seems like most nut trees like to start their lives among other trees. They seem to grow poorly out in open grasslands.

Blueberry bushes - not yet ripe

We also visited the artist Maria Vildhjärta Westerberg and Johannes. They are artists and forest wildlife protectors. It was great to walk around their outdoor art gallery in the middle of a forest full of life.

Sculptures everywhere.

Every year, some sculptures wilt away, new ones come.

Nuts

Hazelnuts

In Båstad, we took down two huge hazel bushes last winter, and the stumps are starting to resprout. I will document the recovery of this rejuvenation and monitor how the nut production will restart.

The stump.

I also took some photos of how we sort hazelnuts by size before running them through our electric cracker.

Brother Hugo helped out sorting the nuts.

Steel grids with different slot sizes.

Walnut trees

My friend Marc has a fantastic garden. After three years, the heart nut tree is far taller than him.

Heartnut tree in the rain. It grows 1.5m per year.

Our municipal central park has been improved this winter with three walnut trees - one Japanese walnut and two European ones. The municipal head gardener Anne is great.

New walnut trees in the park.

Farm

I had headaches around our well. The pump controller sometimes indicated "no water" in the well. Water is life and I really want to use the well water for our gardens and the tree nursery. One neighbour had got an empty well last winter and I thought that this would be the end of our well too...

It took me several weeks of thinking, measuring and checking to realize that the water sensor was malfunctioning. One of the three metal elements in the water acts as a galvanic pole and some oxide had been building up on the surface in a thick layer that conducted less and less current.

It was not a water problem, it was a sensor problem.

Now the sensor is cleaned and everything seems to work fine again.

No water alarm.