Ordinary summer activities have filled my summer. It was cold and rainy for two months, so my attempts to grow herbs weren’t very successful. But the mini tomatoes in their mini green house gave lots of yummy tomatoes, and some of the garden flowers also liked the “British” weather.

Hubby found a few cloud berries:

 

 

We’re fixing the house on the outside. The old earth paint had worn off, and some of the wood panel had to be replaced. I love to paint, hubby hates it. I can understand why when I sit in my room on the second floor and see him struggling on the ladder:

I paint the lower parts, and I love how it looks! It looks even better after I’ve painted the white parts also. Here they’re still in the old paint:

I spun in public a couple of times, and had friends visiting. Here’s Carina with her carders at Stundars, and I’m spinning.

Later in July I taught a wool class for an Estonian group:

In August I visited Carina in Sweden, and saw her lovely Dalapäls sheep, one of the Swedish native sheep breeds:

I met old and new spinning friends. Three nationalities in Carina’s kitchen: Carina and her daughters, Britt-Marie and Ingrid from Sweden, Natalie from UK, and me behind the camera from Finland:

Natalie’s Turkish spindles:

Scandinavians see European elks every now and then out in the wild, but we seldom see them as close as we could see them in Älgens hus, a park with elks you can actually touch! We loved it, and Natalie was excited, as she’s been out in the woods twice in Sweden trying to see an elk without succeeding. A note: European elk is a different animal than the American moose. You often see “moose” used for the European elk, but if you want to be precise,  call it “European Elk”. More on Wikipedia.

They are impressive! I’m so happy I had the opportunity to see them like this!

We wouldn’t be spinners if we didn’t think about spinning elk hair – but it’s not very tempting when you see it close. The guard hair is stiff and wiry, and the wool hair is shorter than short:

My trip in Sweden continued with two spin ins and one Spin in Public. I’ll show pics in another post, so I finish this post with the gorgeous young elk bull: