Saturday 28 August 2010

Autumn Goodies

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The long fingers of autumn are slowly reaching out to us here in Sweden, gently pulling us from the warmth of summer to the cooler sunny days of early Autumn.

To celebrate the season changeover, Mother Nature is sharing her treasures with us. In the forest, the mushrooms and blueberries are awaiting, and in our garden, a feast of redcurrants.

We went mushroom hunting two days before we went to Finland. Maybe to get ourselves into the mood, since the Finns are experts in appreciating the goodies the forest provides. Much to Mr MacOlsson's disappointment, it was his Scottish wife who found this yummy cantarelle mushroom, in a patch under some trees where the wild pigs had been rooting previously.

To me, mushroom picking brings back romantic memories of the weekend we went mushroom picking together for the first time. A few days later we were married. Autumn is a special time of year. It is even more special to share our joy with our 3 little MacOlssons, and smile as they learn forest lore. My husband often picked mushrooms with his Finnish grandmother, and it is special to see that knowledge being passed down to our quarter Finnish MacOlssons.

And as for the redcurrants....well, I picked 14 kilos from 2 bushes! Moominmamma would have been very impressed, so maybe I am becoming more and more like her. This is my basket of rubyred berries.
I used my cordial steamer picked up for a song at a garage sale. My "saftmaja" is basically a double boiler. You put water in the bottom, the berries sit in a colander type basket, and the heated water steams up through the berries and delicious red saft is created. My 14 kilos of redcurrants made 13 1/2 litres of saft, so the MacOlsson family has a treasure chest of ruby red bottles. For those of you who wish to taste, come and visit us!

Newsboy hat

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Well, I am back! Its been a busy old summer, with holidays filled with sea, sand and sun, a trip to Finland and Moominland, with a 40th birthday party for Mr Mrsmacolsson squeezed in there in the middle.

Autumn is slowly sneaking up on us, and the little mrsmacolssons all need new hats, so in my happy surfing moments I came across this blog http://vallieskids.blogspot.com/. Its filled with lovely free patterns, so a big thank you to Valerie for this cute pattern for a brimmed hat.

Miss 4 year old Macolsson requested to be first (goes without saying) so I rummaged in my stash bag and found some cheerful cotton yarn from one of my favourite shops - Lidl! The buttons I found in my button box I took over here from Scotland. I have a feeling they came from an old mohair cardigan I had in the mid 80s....eek!



Anyhow, she is rather happy with it, and now Miss 3 year old Macolsson is patiently waiting for her one, and Mr 2 year Macolsson wants one too, so more updates will follow.