...And that day is here! There is so much to report since I arrived at my first host family's farm, called Pikkunuppu, or little flower bud, exactly one week ago. The TL;DR version is that I feel like I am living in a fairy tale, having been humbled by the picturesque land, fields and idyllic Finnish style structures scattered on the property (particularly the sauna). When I arrived, Pjotr, who has ran the farm since the 1980's, and Niina, jumping in to help run the operation in 2010, gave me a tour of the grounds. They live very simply and in tandem with the gifts from the land (this was all a bit worrisome to me when they showed the cellar and I only remembered seeing were root vegetables--potatoes, beets, parsnip, carrots--and wondering what I was
... read more