A Year at Kannesten

I can't believe it has been a whole year since we moved to Kannesten, but at the same time working and living in London seems ridiculously distant. What an amazing year it has been! Here are some of my highlights.

We started our journey towards self-sufficiency in early spring and for a long time it didn't look like we were getting anywhere. Spring was really cold and things just weren't growing too fast.

Cabbage, tomatoes and strawberries in our veg patch.

Eventually, and much later than we expected, we were able to enjoy some homegrown vegetables. They weren't always the prettiest looking, but we soon got over that, as they were amazingly tasty. We ate the last of our root vegetables in January and we are now planning for the 2016 harvest - fingers crossed, it will be bigger and better. We also spent a fair share of the summer/autumn foraging for blueberries, lingonberries and mushrooms, filling freezers and jam jars for use in the winter. The berries will last us until the next berry season - pure luxury.

They come in all shapes and sizes.

Vegetable patch in all its glory.

The chickens were the first animals on the farm, soon followed by ducks, sheep and cats. Vera had some fluffy chicks in May, then Stina and Sara… and then Vera again. She was a busy girl. We didn't get many eggs though. Turns out that we need a few more hens to sustain our egg-eating habits.

First fuzzy chicks in May.

Our sheep have been an amazing addition to the farm, they are so friendly now. They love a good cuddle and keep us both busy and entertained.

Animal love.

We kicked off our course activities with a few sauerkraut courses and an offal course. It's so inspiring and fun to share our passion for nutritious food with like-minded people.

Everyone getting stuck in at our very first fermentation course.

The year involved some incredibly hard work, but also opportunities for play. And best of all loads of fresh air.

Hard work.

Play.

In such a short time, we have been fortunate to get to know many of our lovely neighbours. They are friendly, hospitable and generous with sharing knowledge and even surplus from their harvests. Loving our village!

Us at the Autumn Market in Simlångsdalen and our contribution to the annual October Fest.

Yoga teacher training kept me busy during the latter part of the year. I certainly improved my physical yoga, but the training also opened my eyes to the philosophical side of yoga. I am encompassing both in my yoga classes in Simlångsdalen and Halmstad.

Us yogis spend a bit of time upside down.

I am grateful for everything I have experienced this year and I bet 2016 has some pretty amazing stuff in store for us all.

Born To Run Workshop

Last weekend I attended the aptly named 'Bulletproof Runner Workshop' organised by Born To Run, in Gothenburg. The course is designed to help improve your running technique, performance and injury prevention and is a stepping stone to Lee Saxby's legendary coaching course.

Those that have read the book Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall will know of the barefoot phenomenon. This influenced the popularity of minimalist running shoes, essentially stripping away your big fat-cushioned, inflexible jogging shoes to something which allows your 200,000 + nerve endings in your feet feel the ground again. I read the book and bought the minimalist shoes, but have always been conscious that I may need to improve and change my running technique to suit. This was the weekend!

Joseph and Gourgen were brilliant hosts and taught us loads over the two days. The first morning we ran through various drills to compare our technique against a 'Bulletproof Runner', these consisted of squatting, hoping, bouncing, uni-ped stances and running drills on a treadmill. These tested our ability of the 3 fundamental skills of Posture,  Rhythm and Relaxation which are all important to improve your running efficiency and reduce injury risk. These 3 skills were the catch-words of the weekend!

Watching yourself in slow-motion.

We were filmed both on the treadmill and outside, running at various speeds so that we could watch back at slow motion and discuss how we could improve our running techniques. It was fascinating to see how you move, break it down to the fundamentals and then rebuild a more efficient style. At the same time we were discussing the theory behind why the drills are so important to build strength through the elasticity and reactive ability of the neuromuscular system.

On day 2, we started early with a group recovery run. I am particularly bad at these and find it hard to go out for low-intensity runs and always end up pushing myself too hard. So, to prevent this happening Joseph gave us all a piece of tape and told us to stick it over our mouths! This essentially makes you solely breathe through your nose, which ensures you only run at a pace which suits your nasal inhalation. If you run too fast you will want to rip the tape off and gasp air in and out through your mouth….fail! The theory behind this is that your body requires a certain amount of CO2 to allow O2 to pass from your red blood cells to your muscle tissue, so by breathing through your nose limits the amount of CO2 you exhale thus allowing O2 to pass to your muscle tissue and aid with recovery. It worked a treat and although you look slightly odd with your mouth taped shut, it does make you concentrate about your breathing and running pace.

Tape makes for a quiet run!

All in all it was a great weekend and I learnt a lot about how to improve my running technique and the theory behind introducing some drills into my daily workouts to help build strength and prevent injury. After meeting so many interesting and inspirational runners during the weekend and in a moment of madness after the event, I signed up for the Hallands Ultra 50km race next June! That should be a good test of my running efficiency!

11th June 2016!

Visit the BTR website for more information on this course and Lee Saxby.

Poor weather for digging

So, just as we started to gain some momentum digging out our new produce garden, bad weather stops play. For the last few days we have had snowfall and freezing conditions almost everyday, not perfect conditions for digging.  We have a huge list of other jobs that require our attention, so it is certainly not tools down, although we did find time to build a snowman!

Hard Labour

So, the first week in Sweden has been pretty energised. Apart from getting used to living in a completely different, even alien environment, we have kept ourselves busy by jumping head first into some essential manual labour. This comes part of the package when you live fairly remotely and have a bit of land to look after.

First job was to cut back and clear any debris, such as twigs, branches and trees from the electric fence that surrounds our property. Presently, this is used to stop unwanted creatures in, i.e. the wild boar! They have been burrowing in one of the fields, so keeping the fence live to prevent entry is key. This job gradually turned into a tree felling exercise, so brandishing a saw we started to remove some of the trees that were too close to the fence. Fun! We still have a way to go but the pile of logs is pretty big and should make for a good Easter bonfire celebration.

Second job was to start thinking about the Produce Garden. This is a key element of our self-sufficiency plans and we want to be ready to transplant the seeds and seedlings come the beginning of April. We agreed on a perfect location; slightly sloping ground facing south and within close distance from the house. We set out the beds in 7.5m x 1.5m bays and started to dig. The actual technical term is 'double digging' but we'll go into more detail on that in another post. Anyway, this turned out to be really hard work, as the top layer, just beneath the surface was littered with large stones and the odd boulder. We persevered and reached halfway along the bed. Unfortunately the weather turned for the worse, so we will be hitting it hard again this coming week when the freezing rain disappears.

All in all a good first week and the sign of times to come, my body has that satisfied achey feeling all over. Bring it on!

Wild Swimming

I love water! When I saw that there was a river close to the castle, I got it into my head that I wanted to go for a swim. The daughter of the house clearly thought I was nuts, but kindly showed me a lovely bend in the river at the bottom of one of the fields on our morning walk. 

To give you an idea of the weather, check out the layers I was wearing before the skinny dip (not even the dogs would join me...):

The complicated undressing in the mud was well worth it though. Betting I will be sleeping well tonight. 

Holiday Workout

Looking for any opportunity to squeeze in a workout, we found a novel way of utilising the infinity pool on our recent trip to the Philippines…..tough I know!

Using the wall of the lower pool, we could jump up and grab hold of the top of the wall (overhand grip) and then complete wide and close arm pull-ups. Obviously, due to being half submerged in water this meant that we were not pulling our full body weight, but increasing the reps and super-setting with 5-10 lengths of swimming between each set, meant a decent workout.

A typical circuit was:

10 x wide arm pull ups;

10 lengths front crawl;

10 x close arm pull ups;

10 x lengths breast stroke;

10 x wide arm pull ups;

10 x length back stroke;

10 x close arm pull ups;

10 lengths front crawl;

Easy swim to warm down

We even managed to get other family members involved in some infinity pool pull-up action!

Post-Christmas Circuits

Our first circuit work-out over the Christmas break was in the nearby woods where there is a small outdoor gym with pull up bars, sit-up table and shoulder press. It was a relatively simple workout focussing on core, leg and a small amount of upper body.

Circuit work-out included:

3km warm up trail run

10 x burpees

10 x overhead weighted squats

10 x box jumps

5 x chest to bar pull ups

AMAYC in 4 mins. We did the workout twice.

Cecilia pushing out some overhead weighted squats

The outdoor gym was perfect and we were able to forage in the forest for a recently cut log to use for the overhead weighted squats (not sure on the weight). We also used a rubber band (Christmas present for Cecilia) to aid with the pull ups.

The heart was racing by the end, but we both felt great afterwards.

Autumnal Benefits

With autumn well and truly underway and the trees shedding their vibrant leaves, last weekend I finally found a spare hour or two to tackle the mounting leaf coverage in our garden.

We have two large Lime trees in our garden, that seem to hold an enormous number of leaves and which come autumn turn a vivid yellow and then promptly fall to the ground. For a short while, this yellow blanket transforms our garden until the rain comes and makes the leaves a slip hazard.

So, I spent Sunday morning sweeping and clearing up these leaves. This made me think about the benefits:

I was outside. It was a brisk morning (5-6ºC), the sun was shining and there was not a cloud in the sky, so this made me feel happy;

I was burning calories. Sweeping and clearing leaves gets heart rate up, so I was keeping fit;

I was tidying the garden. With the leaves gone, the garden is back to looking fairly respectable and the borders are clear;

I was removing the hazard. No-more slip-sliding down the path, especially treacherous when you have a young baby.

In total, I had filled 3 large refuse sacks full of leaves which I left out for refuse collection on the Tuesday. I thought afterwards, there must be a way of using all of these leaves for our benefit. A much better scenario would be, for us to have a composting bin ready for the leaves, so that we could turn them into leaf mould, ready for feeding our garden the following year. 

It goes to show, that even the seemingly most mundane chore of clearing leaves can provide health, well-being and garden benefits. The leaf blanket has returned, so I am sure I will be out in the garden again this weekend!