Shop open

After several months messing about with bits of wood I have accumulated several things that I think could be of interest to other people. I thus created an online shop using the ETSY platform  (shop here) - opened on 15 September 2015. Here you are welcome to look at some of the products I have and I would very much appreciate critical feedback and suggestions. Of course if you fancy anything please feel free to do some shopping :)

The name of the shop is Induku. This is the Zulu word for stick. I started carving sticks into small chess figures while living in an apartment carving sticks. Some of the items (especially the maple pendants) are made from mere sticks that I pick up. I think the name is somewhat appropriate. 

There are several items in the shop and all were made using a scroll saw (more details on how some items are made and about the scroll saw in a future post). Two main groups are books and wooden pendants.

Books

I needed a book a while ago (how to make a denim book), and enjoyed the process quite a lot. I thus made some of the scroll saw pictures into books covers and bound them in a few different ways.

Some of the items may look a bit grim - but that is part of the style...

I decided to make it possible to add a personal touch. 

If your name is on the cover please send me your postal address ;)

Any suggestions on what would be cool on a cover is appreciated

Pendants

Since I had a load of sticks laying in the basement I decided to cut them into discs to be able to cut with the scroll saw. The simple pictures that are possible to cut makes nice pendants.

Most of the pendants currently in stock

A bit of a puzzle

Will someone buy both?

Infamous characters.

Other
As inspiration strikes I will make other things also. Currently I am making a clock face and will have some extra to sell. But I also have a whole book full of ideas (a denim book), and will continue to make all sorts of items.

Some of the other items - these are from alder-wood.

I am not sure if there is any market for the things I made but it is fun to make and I will post more on the process of some of these items. 

R&C

Induku on ETSY

Föräldrar i Sverige igen

During the long summer holidays, my parents came for a second visit to Sweden. Since their first visit in 2010 (see the full account here), many things has changed and this was reflected on the things we did during the vacations. Two major changes were that we moved into a house that are located out of the city and that we now have a car. We therefore spend more time away from the cities (we did much of the tourist things last time), and also traveled a bit more by car to see some of the things Sweden has to offer in the summer.

Below are a few pictures of their visit:

Room for our guests.

Very Local:

We had a few braais at our house.

Braaing some of the sausages that we made ourselves. 

A fire!

 We also spent some time on the river that we have access to.

Outing on the river.

Our house from the river.

When we have guests, we often use them for cheap labour (as we did when my sibling and her husband came to visit). This time I had a project to install a cat door in one of the basement windows. My dad and I thus removed a window, built a platform and a insulated wooden door to fit the window and installed the door into it.

Cat door from the inside.

Access to cat door from outside under the deck. 

(Side note: the cat door is an electronic door that locks during the night and they cannot go out. However they can always enter since it unlocks when the chip in their necks are scanned but this means only our cats can enter. We chose this place - under the deck - since it is a bit more protected from the wind, rain and snow. Also our doors are double and a single cat door becomes tricky to install. In the winter I will build a box onto the platform to keep the opening a bit more covered.)

We also had several long walks from the house enjoying the summer weather.

Local:

Moving a bit further we explored the town and the surrounding areas.

We went to a forest close by to pick mushrooms that we subsequently ate.

Finding the yellow gold.

Cooking the pickings.

Closest cities:

The closest cities to us is Gävle and Uppsala. We went to both for a few interesting activities.

Morning fika in Uppsala

Strolling past the castle

River and Cathedral. 

No visit to Sweden is complete without visiting IKEA. We spent some time strolling through the shop and also had an IKEA lunch. During our visit to IKEA we also visited several of the other shops in the surrounding area.

Lunch at IKEA

We also took a boat trip from Uppsala on Mälaren during one evening.

Departing.

View on the lake.

In Gävle we walked through the streets and enjoyed a street festival.

River running into the sea through Gävle. 

Driving around:

Having a car meant we could drive around an we visited several of the small towns and villages.

Österbybruk during a Sunday drive. 

Sculpture at Östhammar - at the Baltic sea. 

An interesting outing was when we visited Gårdsjö Älgpark. The park is located about an hour's drive from us and got to meet several of the residents (both human and elk). This visit is recommended for anyone who want to have a close encounter with these awesome beasts.

Feeding the small beast.

Female elk up close.

Male elk strolling past. 

The 10 days flew past very quickly and sadly the visit was over.

Next year, Carina's parents plan to come for a second visit (they have also been here while we were still city dwellers) during the summer while at the end of next year my parents plan to brave the Swedish winter. We are looking forward to both these visits and hope that this will inspire more friends and family from abroad to make the trip to us.

We are however already back to the salt mines and hope to surface again a bit during winter...

R&C

Vår trädgård (Our Garden)

Last year, December, we moved into our new house. This is our first proper house (our other homes being apartments). With the house came our first garden. We had very little experience with gardening (except from the odd weeding job in our parents' gardens when we were kids). 

During Swedish winter, everything is covered in snow and there is not much to do in the form of gardening. Thus for the first few months after moving in, we did not do much outside. With the start of spring, however, our garden exploded with a vigor that caught us off guard. Most plant life here have to finish their life cycle in a couple of months, thus when spring starts, everything grows like crazy (weeds included). Most of our spring and summer weekends and some of the evenings after work (in midsummer the sun sets around 11 in the evening), were spent in trying to tame our garden. 

We had some success, see photos below, but we also gave up on some unruly parts, to be attempted again next year. Something we noticed that is very different between Sweden and SA gardening is; in SA the gardens are meticulously maintained all through the year, while in Sweden it is much of a one season attempt. Since everything dies during the winter, each spring is a completely new start. So for things that didn't work out well this year, you have a new chance with next year. Below are some of our successes and projects that we will re-try next year.

We altered our porch a bit, taking down some of the railing, oiling it and building steps (see below). The yellow flowers in the back are blooming now and looks very nice. I don't know what they are called but they are extremely hardy, they die during the winter and these grew from under a pile of dead plant material. There was another bush of these in front of the porch that we had to clear to make place for the stairs - we are still fighting to get rid of some of them though.

Some flowers and a hollyhock we got from our neighbor, Inga-Lil, that we planted in pots on the porch

In the window inside is a small tangerine tree, one of the few plants left from our apartment days. On the lawn, in the distance, a mouse murder is taking place -- the culprit, a serial mouse murderer called Donkie

Three tomato plants I planted on the porch after a batch of spring flowers finished

Dahlias I got from Inga-Lil

The porch steps that Ronnie built and scars where we fought the yellow flower plants and are now trying to regrow grass. There is still some of the yellow plant left but we decided to continue the battle next year. In the back are two vinbär (currant) shrubs. 

A röda vinbär (red currant) and small vita vinbär (white current - a variant of the red current that is a bit sweeter). Interestingly, vinbär translates directly to "wine berry". These berries tastes a bit like I'd imagine undomesticated grapes would taste like and the leaves also looks like grape leaves. I assume they are related in some way.

The vegetable garden from the kitchen door on the porch

A small greenhouse Ronnie and his sister, Cindy, built for me (see details of their visit here)

Some tomato and pepper plants and a bush of herbs (resulting from "seed bombs" that Cindy gave to us)

Lettuce and broccoli in seed boxes - this is working quite well

Cauliflower and nasturtiums - the cauliflower is struggling a bit (something is eating the leaves)

The rest of the garden: Strawberries, carrots, corn, tomatoes, peas, pumpkins and more seed bombs!

Rhubarb, this is the third crop for this season. I already harvested two crops resulting in many rhubarb pies, jams, compotes, smoothies and a whole freezer rack full of frozen rhubarb. 

Rhubarb pie

The herb garden that got a bit out of hand. Will start a better organised one from scratch next year....

Our garden shed - an old smithy dating from the 1700's. Next to the smithy is a flower bed with some nice flowers but, invaded by weeds. Another project for next year...

The inside of the smithy/garden shed

One of our two young prune trees. We tried our hand at pruning four young fruit trees (two prune and two apple trees) and one mature apple tree. Overall it seems to have worked nicely with the mature apple tree and 3 out of the 4 young trees blooming and bearing fruit. This small prune tree suffered a heavy aphid infestation - we will fight harder against these pests next year 

A few apples

Different variety of apple

The mature apple tree in front of the house

Some more nasturtiums and a pattypan in pots at the entrance

Ronnie cut open a path in the bushes with our new trimmer to access the raspberry patch (this was necessary since most of the bushes consists of nettles...)

The raspberry patch

Raspberries in incubation :)

This year was a crash course in gardening for us. Next year we will be ready when spring arrives, to apply the acquired knowledge of one season of Swedish gardening :)

C&R