Christmas feelings / Jul mys

So nice to see the shops in Oslo, all ready Christmas all over the place!
Nice tables, nice pillows and very nice decorations.

Så mysigt att se alla butiker i Oslo, redan Jul varsomhelst!
Skøn borderna, fin kuddar och snygga decorationer.

Dark days before Christmas

28 days to go... Before the days get longer again!

It's getting dark very early now, around 15 o'clock all ready. Time to find good feelings and happiness inside the house. Time to start decorating for Christmas, try out some cooking ideas, reading a book and burn the fireplace.

28 dager till... Innan dagen blir längre igen!

Det ar mörkt ute tidigt, rund klockan tre redan. Tid att finnes god känsla och lycka inomhus. Tid till att börja med Julpynt, prova laga god mat, läsa boken och bränna braskamin.

Beautifull moss and mushrooms

Time to go out again. It has been wet and rainy some days after a dry period so this is the time to collect some mushrooms in the woods. The Pipemoss is very good looking but not eatable. But we found also (even in late October) a very nice eatable Chantarelle. They look very orange and smell like abricots. Finally we hit a lot of Wire Chantarelles, a little more brown and long. Not my favorites but eatable as well.

Nice moss / Pipemoss

Kantarelle / Chantarelle

Trädkantarelle / Wire chantarelle

Energy boost

Sometimes you just get beautiful presents from nature! Today I went out of my house to the lake and I saw this. I really want to keep this view in mind, it gives a lot of energy. But at least I have got the picture...

Någon gånger, du få presenter från naturen! Idag gick jag utomhus till sjön och jag såg det här.
Jag vill gärna behålla denna utsikten i huvuden, det gir mycket energi. Men jag har bilden...

DIY Höstkrans Autumn Wraith

Collect all the autumn stuff you can find

put it on the wraith and wire around again and again...

the result

just because it is such a nice picture

Lot of mushrooms

This is a special year for mushrooms, in my garden. There are so many of them, everywhere. I can see all colours, all flavours and all sizes. Where ever I look I can find them, what a surprise of nature. The best I like is the red one. You can see them change in some days. Like they were just painted, so nice colours. It's a pity they are quit dangerous...

Flowers from Holland

It was really a good idea to take with me all sorts of stuff for flower arrangements and a lot of small plants. It is really expensive here in Sweden. More then three or four double prices. Unfortunately it's not possible to take fresh flowers from Holland as well. Then you have to pay 250% taxes! That's a pity...

Det var en riktig bra ide att ta med mig mycket artikler att laga blomster arrangement och små sticklingar. De är riktig dyr här i Sverige. Mer än tre eller fira dubbelt priser. Tyvår, det ar inte mojligheten att hamta frsik blomster från Nederland. Då må du betala 250% skat! Så synd...

Grandma's plants or Mormorsväxter

Grandma's plants
A long time ago there lived a lady in our house. After it was a school, she came in and lived there for nearly 60 years. She was very fond of plants too, like me. After she left, the garden was not treated that well, it was totally overgrown. But sometimes, I still find small parts of this plants. I should really like to keep them. They get a chance to recover in my nursery!

That made me very conscious about old plants. Sometimes I recognize them from former days, the time my father learned me all about gardening. I learned me the Latin names of plants like they were just normal Dutch...


It would be very nice if I could keep the atmosphere around our house in the old style, like it was in the fifties. It was a special style of common flowers around a Småland house on the countryside in Sweden. I already found out a lot about them. Now it is only hope they will survive and to collect some more of them.

The most famous "old days" plants in Sweden were for example Honeysuckle (Lonicera), Bellflower (Campanula), Peony (Paeonia), Foxglove (Digitalis), (Aquilegia) and (Lysiamachia). They were often used in the countryside. A long time they were not trendy enough, but now they seem to have a coming back. In Sweden they call them gamla torp växter (old farm flowers) or Mormorsvaxter (Grandma's plants).

About living in an old school / Gamla skola Sjöbygget

In the middle of the woods and near the lake Flyxen you will found this building. It is a former school, Stegaryd Sjöbygget west from Vittaryd. We bought it in 2015. It is a very old building. It was build around 1876. The children from the houses and farms in the neighborhood went to this school  from 1876 till around 1950. Sometimes people are looking at our house, looking for memories, because a long time time ago they went to school in this building. It was only a small school, they only had one classroom, for all ages. We know the teacher was living upstairs. That's why you will find an old days woodoven to cook on (på Svenska: "vedspis") and 4 tiled stoves (på Svenska: kakelugnar) to warm the rooms. They are still there 😃

Downstairs the former classroom

The old entrance of the school

Wood oven / Vedspis upstairs

One of the kakelugnar

As far as we know now, the school was closed around 1950, when they build a new school in the middel of Vittaryd. The old school was sold to a lady who lived there for a long time, nearly more than 50 years. . The classroom was kept in the way it was for a long time. As far as we know now they were only living upstairs. We are told she liked to garden. She was always outside in the garden. Today we still can find traces of that times. We found already the old times compost place and some of grandmothers plants. We were told she was also a writer with the name Elsa Lindström. But we are not sure about that. Her husband was creating concrete sculptures. Today we still find three fisher man at the lake, an old man watching the gate, a hair, some flowers and some frogs in the garden.

Around 2008 the building was sold again. From that time the building was completely renovated. They saved some old details, but also some disappeared. They changed the classroom to a living room, made a kitchen downstairs and sleeping rooms upstairs. We, Peter and Brun, bought it in 2015.

We should like to find out more about the history and this building. Like plans, stories or pictures.
So when you know more? Please tell us or send us more information. Thanks!

Creating a new garden

Finally you can see there's coming up something. You can see it is not that wild anymore (read not taken care of at all), though I want it to be a natural garden.
It was grass and trees everywhere, now you can see some borders and paths again. I hope the plants will grow soon and healthy. It looks promishing, it will be even better next year!