Through All Seasons, The Trees Still Stand.

A half a year has passed and seasons have changed. Truly. Majestically. At the moment it feels like a half of life-time has been squeezed into these short months of my life and what has emerged reminds very little of what was there before. In April we packed up our flat, left London and moved up to West Yorkshire with my son, settled as an expanded family in a small arty Northern town and started a new life here, surrounded by hills and forests of green. I can already breathe better, even though my heart is still adjusting to all the changes, as is my son's.

My baby daughter, Pinja (Finnish for pine tree), was born three weeks ago - she emerged finally - after spending eight extra days in my womb - happily, still inside her watery home, into another one, that of the birthing pool and then - my loving arms. Pinja, the pine tree of my soul, was here with us.

I kept her placenta and part of the sac she entered this world in, to be taken to Finland next month. Just like when my son was born, I took his placenta to Finland, dug it into the ground at my parents house and planted a cherry tree there. So now I want to do the same with my daughter's membrane. But this placenta will go next to my cottage and a little pine seedling will be planted there, on the top of the membrane, which connected her to me, me to her and both of us to the great cycle of life. Feeding, nurturing, protecting. Just like Mother Nature does to us and has done to me, while I was building my cottage.

I saw my cottage in real life in February when I visited Finland for a short time. The house was frozen but beautiful, it hadn't suffered that much from the Winter winds, but of course it was hard to tell how gently the Spring thaw would treat the little elven house. This is what I was most worried about; possible frost heaving, cracking, bending. Luckily, there has been very little damage to the cottage so far and at least from the photos that my parents have taken, my Elaman Puu looks as lovable as when I left it in last September. I am so very happy about this, because it confirms my belief that work made with love is strong and durable and also that our relationship with nature is of the utmost importance; if I appreciate it and work with it, it will make all the difference. Seasons will come and go but hopefully my little cottage will stand the test of time and remain part of my life and the landscape it so easily blends into and was born from. If it bends, breaks, or survives, then it will do all these alongside the nature that surrounds it.

Here is a photo sequence of my cottage in all Finnish seasons:

Autumn 2012

Winter 2013

Spring 2013

Summer 2013

After my daughter's passport gets ordered and organised, I am hoping that in about a month's time, I will be standing there, looking at the view in the last photo and listening to the fluttering of the birch leaves (and my heart) near-by. Three weeks is all I have but I am hoping to achieve a lot in this time. Lime-plastering of external walls, earthen plastering and sculpting of internal walls, making an earthen floor, building a sleeping platform, trimming and finalising the green roof, filling in cracks, setting up a solar panel for electricity, firing the pizza oven. And - starting on a composting toilet behind the cottage with the left-over strawbales and some roundwood that my father has yet again kindly cut down from the forest and left to dry for me in the Spring time. It does sound like a lot to do, particularly with a 2-month old baby who grants me very little time and sleep, but then again, time is only a concept - and also, time constraints only exists through one's mindset, and my decision with this cottage is to work with love and natural time. That is the lesson I learnt from last Summer: you can't rush nature as it does what it pleases - and once you surrender to your work, it will take the time it needs to take. If necessary I will continue the work next year, and the next, and the next. This project, like my life, is an evolving one... :)

If you want, I will be happy to take you on another part of this journey with me next month, when I get my hands stuck in the mud (and maybe my baby's hands too). I will be there and you will be here, but hopefully as a little glimpse of inspiration, I can share a part of my love for the Nature and natural building through these pages and photos. Until then,

let the Summer winds carry you...... x

Life in the Trees

Time to think. There is much of that in the Winter time, when the days are short and the darkness is such a frequent visitor. It is easy to lose hope of ever seeing the sun again, when the clouds have gathered and rain is pouring down outside and filling the London street gutters with brown water. But in my heart there is love for my little place called Finland and even a littler place called 'Elaman Puu' :).

When I started building my little dwelling, I always wanted it to be a homage to the nature and trees that saw me grew up and of which some are now standing inside my cottage. Even though they lost their precious lives, from now on they will always be greeted by smiles and most likely even warm hugs when entering this sweet little space. But even in the midst of cold and snow, my cottage looks like it belongs to the earth and to its surroundings, it is a building of nature, from nature, in nature, regardless of the season.

 

My Elaman Puu in a snowy, Finnish landscape.

It has been snowing a lot in Finland, there is about 50cm snow on the ground by now. This is what my mother tells me, and what I can see from the photos my brother sent me just before Christmas. My tiny cottage has a thick snow hat on and the forest floor is covered in pure white. Everything seems frozen still. Yet, when I look at the photo, I feel such warmth inside. Almost like one of the Moomins, hibernating over the Winter, my cottage is waiting for me, yet it lives in nature's time, as part of nature, patiently watching life and seasons, day by day. I so miss that place, even though there is nothing as in way of work I could be currently doing there, it is far too cold for that. But of course I would love nothing better than sit inside, to listen to the sounds of the cottage and nature outside, feel how different it all is from when I last set my foot inside.

Apart from few vertical cracks that have appeared in the cob walls, I hear the cottage is doing well. Although that is just judging the exterior, as no one has been inside for several weeks, as the front door has swollen shut. We'll see what happens when I go to Finland in about six weeks and try to get in - will the cottage grant me entry? Or will I only be able to peep through the door hole to my elven nest?

What a difference three months makes in this climate.

Candles on the window sill.

I must be patient, just like nature is. It knows no constraints of time, it hurries nowhere. The only existence it has is the existence of now, and in that now everything is perfect. My 10-year old son sometimes asks me: 'Mum, why is life so hard?' And I say to him, life is not hard, but we make it seem that way. We worry, get anxious, overwhelmed, stressed, angry - mostly unnecessarily. And when I say we, I mean me as well. The past year has been such an incredible journey in my life, and it seems it will continue as an incredible journey still. There are moments when I think I have just grasped it, seen the meaning and felt the purpose why I am on this planet. Then, life gently kicks you in the backside and makes you return to a state of not knowing, uncertainty and confusion. I know I have the best advice for any situation within me - so close, yet at times it seems so far away from reach. I keep saying: Trust life to carry you Heidi. Trust life. It has gotten you this far, and as long as you live by your heart, it will keep on carrying you. Yet, in my weak moments I sometimes  falter....

A new calendar year is just around the corner. Of course it is only a concept that we have given our human existence, to somehow be able to deal with it better, in more understandable chunks. I am thinking of all the things that will take place this year that we are about to enter. Wow they are big things, much bigger than I could have ever imagined. In fact if I could have ever imagined all that has happened in the last twelve months, I think I would have curled up in my bed, pulled the blanket over my head and stayed in, abandoning all hope. One needs courage to embrace the unknown, despite of all the fear, but finding that courage makes life worth living, and the experiences that follow cannot be found under the cover of one's cozy blanket. So I tell myself......

In the meantime I will let you in a secret, just like I sometimes do with my precious trees...

The Tree of Life, the spirit of love and nature, has started a life of its own within me. In February when I return to cottage, I will be carrying a precious nature spirit inside of me - and in the Summer she will see the cottage with her own baby eyes. It will be a while longer until she can take part in the building work - but I know that from the very first moments of her life, this cottage will be a part of her, just as it is part of me. X

Autumn Winds

Whilst November rain is licking the windowpanes of my chilly London flat, I think about my little cottage by the edge of woods, wondering how the Autumn winds and freezing Finnish nights are treating my earthen baby. Even though the Fall in UK has been busy for me, making all kinds of crafts to stock up my Etsy shop TaikaEarth, my curiosity and longing to see a glimpse of 'Elaman Puu' has grown each and every day. Last week while I was talking to my mother I couldn't wait any longer, so I asked her to take a few pictures and send them to me. Here is what I received...

My cottage in the beginning of November. The seasons have changed but it's still as beautiful as ever.

Sleeping Baby Dragon - she is hibernating over the Winter to be re-awakened next Summer.

The last weeks and months of my life have been quite tough and emotionally draining, but when I saw the photos of my cottage, the biggest pixie smile imaginable on this side of our galaxy appeared on my face. Ah! I LOVE this place with all my heart ❤  I wish I could have teleported myself next to it and given it a big squeeze. And after that pursue to squeeze all the trees in the forest. And the mosses. And the rocks. And you get the point.

The next time I see my cottage in person will be in the middle of snowy, freezing Winter. I can already picture the view in my head, the green roof covered by a thick snow hat and the baby dragon patiently waiting. I am hoping I can spend some time inside of my tiny house regardless of the cold, and recharge my emotional and physical batteries. As I will be needing them later on in the year. Not only because of my plans to finish the cottage but also because of... something else that will require a lot of focus, love and courage. But I can't tell you yet, I promised the tree I will keep it as a secret.

When I reflect back on the past Summer, in many ways I feel it was a dream. Not a dream I slept through but which I actively participated in. However, the end result is the same; an enchanting, personal story that is somewhat surreal but totally magical. And of course like the best of stories and life itself, it is not finished yet. The trees of my life have many more stories to tell.... maybe even some secrets... ❤

A Labour of Love

Approaching the last few days of my stay in Finland, a loud, annoying clock started ticking in my head, making me realise just how surreal this build and in fact the whole Summer had been. When I started, I had NO idea how long it would take to build a cottage like this. When I started, I had NO idea how to build a cottage like this... So, realising I had gotten to the point of: two more days and 'almost finished', I started to get a little bit nervous amidst gentle exhilaration.

It somehow felt worse to have almost completely finished the cottage, rather than almost completely not finished it... And SO little to do... ahem... that was the loud mental mutter to myself, although of course, in reality there was still so much to do. Then again, I had often said to people asking that I would have been mad to count the hours that have gone into this build. Not only because it would be insane - but also because it wasn't a job I needed to force myself to do - it was a labour of love. Who counts the hours one is in love?

When I say love, I mean it. I have had less than five days in total during whole summer, when I haven't 'felt like' doing it. And those five days have been mostly affected by illness and physical exhaustion. And even those days, it hasn't been days, but hours - maybe 30 minutes when I have thought about giving up. I scream a little, cry a little, throw a short childish tantrum - and continue. And the smile returns. Every time.

There is magic in the earth, of the Earth. :)

Me with the almost finished Elaman Puu cottage before my return to London on Sunday.

 On Friday night, we had few celebratory drinks inside the cottage with my parents and our neighbour Jani (and his wife and daughter), who has been so wonderfully helpful throughout this build. After midnight, when everyone else had gone to bed, I went back to the cottage and sat down on one of the chairs, in this dim, candle-lit space. I realised it was the first time I was seeing and particulary, feeling, this space properly. And what an amazing feeling, to run my eyes along the rough, organic forms of the cob, smooth textures of the wood, rough spiky straw protruding out of the plaster on the strawbale wall. I could smell the earth, straw, wood and tar.

I felt completely covered by Mother Earth, like sitting inside a soft, natural womb of a kind. And there I had thought, that I had given birth to this cottage. Whereas in reality, it had probably just as much given birth to me...

Soft whisperings of nature. Raindrops on the roof window. Wind blowing through some gaps in the still unfinished top of the cob wall. And the warmth of the night inside this wee house of mine. There aren't many words to describe that feeling - that suddenly everything I had worked on for over 2 months, on almost every day, was there, around me, to be experienced. I had dreamed this cottage into reality, just like I had thought would happen. And why? And how? With a lot of help from one's friends, and more particularly, my tirelessly loving parents and our neighbour, who selflessly worked on my cottage, when we needed it most. Plus all the other friends and people, who found it worthwhile and interesting to come and lend a hand. I am grateful and moved beyond mere words. You know you are in my heart (I hope) - and in my cottage. :)

Previously happened:

My friend, Michelle, arrived from London to rescue me from a total forest lunacy after a day alone working on the cottage. Which was as well, because I realised that a joint energy is a good energy, as long as the joint energy is good energy haha. There were some sillyness, some drunkenness, some sogginess - but also steady progress every day, probably much more than I could have mustered on my own alone. Once in a while, Jani, our neighbour, popped round to fit the door he was working on and help me to get some more sand and rocks from the nearby sandpit. Forever grateful to him, I don't think Jani realised quite how much he helped by 'not having a clue about what he was doing', as he himself put it. :)

Jani fitting door he was building into my very asymmetrical doorway.

Michelle plastering the strawbale wall with earthen (cob) plaster.

Bored of stacking up the last remaining cob wall, I also continued some cob sculpture over the doorway and over to the 'dragon wall'

Michelle in the clay pond, scraping the bottom of the near bottomless pit... :)

Jani balancing on the roof top with the skylight.

Many muddy days later, I had built up a fair amount of the last remaining cob wall, Michelle had finished plastering the exterior strawbale wall with the first coat and moved indoors to continue work there. My parents eventually returned from their summer house and my father started to install pieces of windboard and insect netting in the gap between the strawbale wall and the roof. My mum was mixing cob, I started lime/clay plastering the exterior wall and just in time, Jani arrived to help to fit the skylight window on the roof. As luck would have it, Jani happened to have an experience of installing similar roof domes as a job at some point in his life, so we were in for a chance...! On one Wednesday evening we started work on it after a lot of wandering and wondering by myself, my father and our neighbour. First we stripped off the tarp off the roof, laid some old rugs, cardboard and underlay down, to cover the wooden, at times sharp, planks from piercing the waterproof layer (pond liner) that would go on next.

Me, my father and Jani wondering what to do and how to do it.

Me and Jani spreading out the huge (8x8m) pond liner onto the roof, over a underlay. What a job!

After what ended up being hours, during which the sun set and mosquitos woke up, we struggled to spread out the liner and danced on a very slippy surface, trying not to damage the expensive piece of plastic. Then Jani set out to install the roof window onto a wooden frame he had previously made, to fit the skylight. With sharp pair of scissors in my hand, I cut a hole into the middle of the plastic, for where the window would go. No turning back now...

Jani installing the skylight.

While I kept looking away while Jani was balancing barefeet on the windowframe with a gaping hole underneath him, he kept on steadily working, swinging an electric screwdriver in his hand. A beautiful sunset by the way.... eventually it was all done, we retreated off the roof and went to check the results of the work inside - amazing - even though the sun had set, the remains of the light entered the cottage through this wonderful dome - making it into a very different, more open space - a success!

In the next few days I was lime-plastering the walls, the front-door was finalised and fitted, gaps filled and finally, also the last cob wall reached the ceiling height. Not perfect, not even fully level or built, it was good enough - I could now even light my cob dragon oven, without having to worry about the smoke coming indoors over that gap in the wall. And that I did...

The last thing I wanted to start before going home, was the green roof. I wanted it to be as natural and forest-like as the rest of the cottage. I bought some blocks of turf from the shop and went scavenging for moss and berry plants (including bilberry and lingonberry) in the woods near-by. Slowly, lifting the pieces of forest floor onto the roof, it started taking shape. Would need an awful lot more trips to the woods to fill the almost 50m2 of roof space, much more than I had time left to do. But luckily, my parents, my brother and even Jani said they could do that in my absence. Which is really wonderful, and necessary, for the protection of the tarp (from UV rays) as well as the integrity of the roof itself.

The beginnings of a green roof

I am not at all sure if the forest, the way I would like it, wants to live on top of my roof. I love the plants that are there, because they remind me of my childhood and trips to the forest. How I used to lie on the mossy bed and watch the ants trail. Eat and pick bilberries and grin at the taste of sour lingonberries. But, we will see, only time will tell - such is the story of this cottage it seems...

So, I am back in London, with a slightly heavy heart, knowing there are still cracks in the walls, gaps in the cob, unplastered strawbales, final lime plaster missing, internal floor undone, green roof unfinished etc etc. Yet, at the same time, my heart is also heavy with love, because I feel immensely happy that I managed the build even to this point, fumbling in the dark, in the unknown, in the mystery of leap of faith.

To inspire and to be inspired, one of the fundamental riches of being a human. I am so very inspired by nature, in everything I do I try to bring out and express that love. I am moved by people's comments when they say they are inspired by my story and my cottage - because in a way, that creates a full circle. From nature back to nature. The same loves resonates through people; the smells, the shapes, the organic forms of nature. The joy. The beauty. The playfulness within. It gives me hope that people can learn to re-connect with the same nature in a way, which makes them think. How precious it is. How we need to preserve it, in order to enjoy it. We are all part of it regardless.

I may be lucky enough to return to Finland in a month to finish few more jobs before the harsh winter begins. It would make me feel more at ease. I worry about my baby, like any mother would. On the other hand, it is not my baby and it seems a bit preposterous to assume nature couldn't take care of its own better than I do. I know the cottage isn't going anywhere, but of course the winter winds may treat it unkindly and scar its pretty face. Perhaps I just need to accept this and continue where and how the nature leaves my cottage next Spring. All I know is that however it all goes, this is one of the best things I ever set out to make. And probably like all mothers, I will love this child as long as it lives....

Thank you for following my journey - I leave you with a dream... xxx

A Dragon In The Belly

The rain is pouring down, then eases into drizzle, then picks up strength again - and I listen to the drops hitting the roof of my parents' house, making nature's music. There hasn't been many days this summer I have heard that song, fortunately, the clouds have often parted or disappeared altogether and the sun has said a friendly hello to me and the other people working on the cottage. In fact while everyone else in Finland has been complaining about the awful summer weather, for most days I have been basking in the sun in this forest corner of my childhood landscape. For that I am thankful.

My son flew back to London last Friday, along with few of my tears in his blonde hair. It was lovely to have him around while I was building, to share the experience with his child's eyes and heart. For him to see how much this place and this cottage I am building means to me. A seed of love planted in his heart, for trees, nature, Finland, Earth and universe itself. Next time we return, I am hoping we can already sleep inside the cottage and see the stars through the roof window. Or at least have a nice cup of hot chocolate in there, which is more likely if it's below -20C and Winter...

Before my son left for UK, I had also a class of local primary school (same where I used to go as a child) children visiting the site and cottage. Their teacher, Teija, had visited the place earlier and so I had planned and organised some natural building activities for the 11-12 year old children, including digging the clay pit, mixing cob and building with it. Those children not wanting to get muddy, I put out paints and brushes to paint some stones and pebbles, to integrate into my cottage, possibly as part of my dragon, inside the external wall surface. Even though the group of children were girls by majority (19/4), most of them were very keen to jump straight into whatever was offered to them, some spent most of their time in the very muddy pond, or excitedly jumping on the cob mix, after screaming: yuk, disgusting! :) Some of the children were so keen on the activities that they didn't want to leave, and a few asked if they could come back again. All in all a good day - and I hope that another couple of seeds of Earth love were planted inside small big hearts x

On Saturday my volunteer Beez (Carla) left also, so suddenly it was quiet again. My mother tried to fill Beez's boots by making some cob mixes for me and my father was working on the strawbale wall and the top plate, trying to get it ready for plastering, which should really be done as soon as possible. On top of all that, my parents were going away for their summer house, so it was going to be only me, myself and I working on this project for several days... But, just as the sun and luck has so often shone on this little cottage, on Sunday my lovely London friend, Michelle, asked if I needed any help with the building work. Did I? Well, just maybe perhaps. So, Michelle is arriving to Helsinki tonight... :)

Last week while Beez was working on the cob side of things, I was re-stringing bales and building the wall up with my father. Here are some photos of the progress.

My father made a square window frame for my round window frame (as it is easier to secure and install than a round frame.)

Internal view, with the top plate in place. However, since there was so much space at many places on top, we managed to put full or half bales on top of most of the plate. My father then secured them with long stakes from the very top (he had to temporarily remove some roof planks) to the rest of the wall.

As luck would have it, my father found a round, thick glass from his shed, which had been sitting there for ten years at least. Our neighbour Jani, cut the glass to size for my window and voila! My father then fixed the round window into the square frame and yesterday I filled the gaps up with bundles of straw and cob.

The cottage seen from NE with completed strawbale wall and the cob oven and gap in the wall above and around it, which still needs to cobbed to the ceiling height before I leave.

Once the balewall was standing, I needed to start cobbing the remaining wall next to it, including the cob oven; which I thought would become a dragon's head. My very first experience of cob - was building an oven in Kate Edward's workshop in Norfolk almost a year ago. Now armed with the snippets of information (oh how we forget!) remaining in my brain and Kiko Denzer's great book: Build Your Own Earth Oven, I set out to work, to finally wake up my dragon....

Sometimes, when I work with clay (or other natural materials), I have very little idea of what I am doing. I may have a seed of an idea, I may even know what I would like to do, but what the clay in fact becomes, is very much up to organic process, intuition, if you will. So, I started making the oven form with sand and strawless cob and realised that this form cannot make a head, because it just isn't meant to be a head. What could it be? And when I run my fingers on the shape, almost as if blind, I realise it is becoming a wing. Well, dragons do have wings, so...

The whole process of building the oven is too lengthy to describe in detail here, but I am happy to say the work was successful and I have since then lit few small fires inside the oven, to help it dry out. Since the oven is on the North-East side of the cottage and only gets limited sunlight, it is quite useful to speed up the drying in that way, before I leave for the Winter. I was even hoping to get a pizza fired in it before next weekend, but that may be wishful thinking, as I don't want a proper fire lit inside the oven, before the dry strawbale walls are plastered securely....

Yesterday, working alone on the cottage, with only music as company, I continued sculpting the rest of the dragon, including her head, to which I formed nostrils and to them, just as a curious test, pierced few narrow channels all the way through to the fire pit. I then lit up the oven and waited anxiously - and suddenly - and ever so gently, few swirls of smoke started flowing out of my baby - a dragon is born!

Sculpting the rest of the dragon is still under way but judging by size, it is a baby dragon. In a way this is quite apt; since this cottage IS my baby and I am a baby of this forest. I took my first steps within about 20m radius of this cottage and in many ways my own dragon came from this forest. In fact we all have baby dragons inside of us, just waiting to be born, awakened and breathe fire. The magic within... :)

I am here only for another 1.5 weeks and there is plenty to do. Strawbale walls need to be (lime) plastered, green roof set up (well, at least covered properly), cob walls built, front door finished and fitted (our neighbour Jani is working on that), wind boards installed and stone facade continued. This is only the exterior work and I am not even considering the interior work here, as I am assuming I have no time left to finish it this time around. But we'll see... now that the dragon has awakened, anything is possible!

Until next time -