On Sunday we drove to the cabin. In Finland everything stops in July and a pilgrimage to the cottages begins. Bureaus and offices are usually open but temporary personnel fill in and most things happen at a sleepy pace if at all. Most paperwork sits and waits until August and the return of the permanent […]
Author: Laila Uljas
I've just turned 40 the other year, and to tell you the truth, I like being forty. I'm a mother to nine beautiful children (including one set of twins). Previously I have done product and concept development for coffee shops and bakeries. At the moment, I have been focusing on the wellbeing of our communities. I graduated from the University of Helsinki with a Master's in political science. The welfare of our society and community we live in is something I have always been concerned about ever since I was young. But life sometimes takes you into unplanned and exciting places. Soon we will be returning to our home city of 17 years, Kouvola, Finland after spending nine months on a dairy farm in northern Finland. It has been an experience of a lifetime. I have been telling the story of life on the dairy farm on my youtube channel Jenkkimutsi maalla interspersed with issues that affect our society. Most videos are in Finnish, but a few are in English. Welcome along.
Grampa’s Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins
In Finland the winter is supposed to be snowy and cold. Summers are supposed to full of summer scents (mosquitoes) and birch trees swaying in the wind. It may not always be so hot but it usually is warm. It seems as if the weather is a bit confused. Last winter the American Midwest got an […]
Little Islands at High Seas
A few weeks ago, right after schools were out my husband went on a trip with six other hunters. The male Common Eider or Haahka in Finnish, were migrating back to the south as the females remain in the north to take care of the young. The males leave as soon as the the ducklings […]
Baked under the Midnight Sun
Midsummer is almost here in just a week. The nights are quite light and it is so easy to loose track of time since the kids are not in school. It seems perfectly logical to start washing windows at ten o’clock in the evening as the sun is not telling us to go to bed. […]
The Smell of Flowers in my Kitchen
Gone are the dark November days and the bitter cold of winter, summer has arrived. Everywhere I go there is the perfume of wild flowers that line the roads. The purple or pink Lupine are now in full bloom making the roadside ditches vibrant with color. This is the time to pick a bouquet of […]
Searching for the Skyline
It was a rainy and gray day. Mummu had agreed to take care of the children. As much as I love my children, it’s a fairly rare occasion to have the afternoon just to yourself. So this was a treat. Our mission was to find the city skyline. As my time in Minneapolis was coming […]
Minnehaha Falls
There is something about returning back to where you grew up. It feels safe as somethings seem to never change. The sound of the concrete Highway 100 with it’s rhythmic thump-thump, thump-thump as the car travels over the regular interval of cracks. Of course there are many things that do change as life goes on. […]
Ponyride
Ponyride started in an abandoned building but today the building and initiative is teeming with life. It is located in a previously abandoned building in Corktown, Detroit. On one exterior wall, volunteer graffiti artists have decorated it with color. The main entrance right off the street is rather unassuming but the stories within are everything […]
Hundreds of dewdrops greet the dawn but only one Mother the wide world over
Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn, Hundreds of bees in the purple clover, Hundreds of butterflies in the lawn, But only one mother the wide world over. –George Cooper Not many days have passed when we had the chance to spend a little time together and it always pulls the heart strings to leave. […]
Corktown
Perhaps if my life had taken different turns, I might have become an urbanist. I definitely could imagine it, as I’ve spent my childhood in a city and have always loved the atmosphere of a large city. Everything does not need to be too polished as often the oldest of structures has a story to […]
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