Heippatirallaa, äiskä!
One morning we woke up the winter had come back!
The fields and forests were totally white, and it was raining fleet and little ice balls whole day, but happily it only lasted one day and the next morning the spring came back and everything started to grow.
The birches started to push out tiny, tender new leafs. Oooh they are so cute!
Henna told us to go and find wild vegetables to make soup with!
I found soon young nettles.
They have to be picked in a certain way to avoid burning your paws!
Then I found deer droppings!
I didn´t pick them!
We found many many different vegetables,and Zoe helped us recognizing them if we weren´t quite sure of the species. Luckily Tuli was teaching her well before plunging into the frog orgies.
Here are the soup vegetables we picked. I´ll write you also the Finnish names, since I know you are an ardent student of the Finnish language:
- Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) - siankärsämö
- Sheep´s sorrel (Rumex acetosella) - suolaheinä
- Common wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella ) - ketunleipä
- Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria ) - vuohenputki
- Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea ) - maahumala
- Velvet Lady´s mantle (Alchemilla monticola ) - poimulehti
- Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale ) - voikukka
- Nettle (Urtiga dioica ) - nokkonen
- Cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris ) - koiranputki
Can this be eaten? Do I pick these too?
- Oh no, let them be! They´re Kingcups (Caltha palustris) and they´re
poisonous!
It´s good to have Zoe around, although it is a bit irritating, her snobbing around with the Latin names of the plants..
Can you imagine, mom, when we are eating cucumber-cheese sanwiches, Zoe tells us to "enjoy the bread made of Secale cereale and covered with Cucumis sativus and milk given to us by a female Bos taurus!"
Of course I then tell her to go and spend some quality time with a swarm of Culicidae.
We found the remnants of a lost civilization from the forest. It must be a relic of that period when people were black and white and moved around jerkily and in odd clothes. I have seen that in some old films they left behind before they disappeared.
We sat resting for awhile in the shore of lake Sahajärvi, and then we absconded into a café to have some buns, because we had some doubts about the quality of the soup Henna was going to make with the stuff we had just picked.
Mums mums, we ate approximately six and half buns each.
After thus strengthening ourselves, we returned to the little cottage with our vegetables.
We put all the vegetables into a big kettle.
Henna added there some potatoes, carrots, garlic, water and spices and we put it to boil over the fire on the yard.
In summertime (when it is not raining) we make often food outside over the fire - it is fun and gives the food a bit different taste than when it is done on a electric stove.
Here is our ready soup!
Believe me or not - it was simply delicious!
I was almost regretting the six buns, but not quite.
I wish you could have tasted our soup!
Kisses from your little Wooffy!