Hello stranger! Or friend, you anyway!
I am Heini, 32 years old fulltime dreamer living in the woodlands of Finland. More or less in the middle of nowhere if you ask people. 14 km to the nearest foodstore, 45 km to the nearest town and 70 km to the nearest city.
We, our happy little family including my boyfriend, me, our five dogs and two cats, live on a small farm built in the early 1950's. There are many places like this everywhere in Finland, simple two floor house, old cowhouse, a shed, some fields and maybe a little patch of forest. Enough for a family back in the days. Unlike many places, this remains nearly in the same condition as it was when just built. Cowhouse, sauna and shed are built on the 1960's and very litthe has changed since.
There's not really any modern luxuries around here. House is very simple and quite small, heated only with wood - we have traditional old school baking oven, wood stove for cooking and three small fireplaces - and we have no running water (well, on summer time we have cold water running to sauna, but during winters it's all carried from the well with buckets). Because of that we have no indoor shower or such, we only have a very simple outhouse and old sauna at the cowhouse. Sauna, like water for washing and laundry is heated with wood. Needless to say that at the moment we also do our laundry and wash dishes by hand. A lot to do here, with firewood, water and all those small daily tasks, but it keeps your hands busy and your life simple.
At the moment we only have our dogs and cats, but I have some plans about rabbits, chickens and sheeps and small kitchen garden is something I wish I'll finally have time to focus on this coming summer.
Big renovations are waiting us in the future, and something is about to happen this summer. My big plan for this year is to start my own small handcraft business and that means I'll need my own studio, my own creative place and work space. So renovating a room for that is one thing. Fixing our old well is second. And downstairs floors! Those floors are screaming for some new paint! List is long and there's only certain time window for some projects in a year, so this is more like a way of life than some project with a starting date and deadline.
As the title says, I am sort of a craftsy person. At the moment my days are filled with knitworks, especially custom sweaters knitted from Icelandic wool. In the future I hope there will be also some hand dyed yarns, some simple jewelry from natural materials, such as bone, antler, leather and so on, not to forget silver, copper and such. We'll see what the future holds! So many things I want to do and learn to do!
Our dogs I might introduce better later, but they are three years old golden retriever Taika, adopted a bit under two years ago, four years old Blegian shepherd Tervueren/Dutch shepherd mix Pommi, five years old Siberian husky Hilla and both six years old husky mix Routa and Finnish Lapphund/Lapponian herder/border collie mix Mosku that came to us from my sister. Both our cats are adopted and found as very young orphaned kittens.
Those who follow me on Instagram already know how much nature and simple way of life means to me. Nature, and deep love and respect towards it plays a big role in my life, not just because I enjoy spending time out in the woods but because we live so close to it. We are not just surrounded by it, but it also defines the cycle of our every year.
This blog will be a sweet mess of everything I find interesting, important and worth writing about. This will be about our life here on the homestead, about my crafts, dogs, outdoors, nature and all those beautiful and maybe even less beautiful things in life.
I hope you'll enjoy following our story!
I am Heini, 32 years old fulltime dreamer living in the woodlands of Finland. More or less in the middle of nowhere if you ask people. 14 km to the nearest foodstore, 45 km to the nearest town and 70 km to the nearest city.
We, our happy little family including my boyfriend, me, our five dogs and two cats, live on a small farm built in the early 1950's. There are many places like this everywhere in Finland, simple two floor house, old cowhouse, a shed, some fields and maybe a little patch of forest. Enough for a family back in the days. Unlike many places, this remains nearly in the same condition as it was when just built. Cowhouse, sauna and shed are built on the 1960's and very litthe has changed since.
There's not really any modern luxuries around here. House is very simple and quite small, heated only with wood - we have traditional old school baking oven, wood stove for cooking and three small fireplaces - and we have no running water (well, on summer time we have cold water running to sauna, but during winters it's all carried from the well with buckets). Because of that we have no indoor shower or such, we only have a very simple outhouse and old sauna at the cowhouse. Sauna, like water for washing and laundry is heated with wood. Needless to say that at the moment we also do our laundry and wash dishes by hand. A lot to do here, with firewood, water and all those small daily tasks, but it keeps your hands busy and your life simple.
At the moment we only have our dogs and cats, but I have some plans about rabbits, chickens and sheeps and small kitchen garden is something I wish I'll finally have time to focus on this coming summer.
Big renovations are waiting us in the future, and something is about to happen this summer. My big plan for this year is to start my own small handcraft business and that means I'll need my own studio, my own creative place and work space. So renovating a room for that is one thing. Fixing our old well is second. And downstairs floors! Those floors are screaming for some new paint! List is long and there's only certain time window for some projects in a year, so this is more like a way of life than some project with a starting date and deadline.
As the title says, I am sort of a craftsy person. At the moment my days are filled with knitworks, especially custom sweaters knitted from Icelandic wool. In the future I hope there will be also some hand dyed yarns, some simple jewelry from natural materials, such as bone, antler, leather and so on, not to forget silver, copper and such. We'll see what the future holds! So many things I want to do and learn to do!
Our dogs I might introduce better later, but they are three years old golden retriever Taika, adopted a bit under two years ago, four years old Blegian shepherd Tervueren/Dutch shepherd mix Pommi, five years old Siberian husky Hilla and both six years old husky mix Routa and Finnish Lapphund/Lapponian herder/border collie mix Mosku that came to us from my sister. Both our cats are adopted and found as very young orphaned kittens.
Those who follow me on Instagram already know how much nature and simple way of life means to me. Nature, and deep love and respect towards it plays a big role in my life, not just because I enjoy spending time out in the woods but because we live so close to it. We are not just surrounded by it, but it also defines the cycle of our every year.
This blog will be a sweet mess of everything I find interesting, important and worth writing about. This will be about our life here on the homestead, about my crafts, dogs, outdoors, nature and all those beautiful and maybe even less beautiful things in life.
I hope you'll enjoy following our story!
Glad I discovered your space here and on IG. There aren't too many people living with that many dogs - at one time we had 8 in the house, now we're down to "just" 4 (plus 2 cats, indoor rabbit, and chickens). Animals, knitting, and appreciating nature - similar to my life, yet in a very different location. I look forward to hearing more.
ReplyDeleteHi! And thank you for your comment :) 8 dogs is already quite a pack to live with! We have so little space that five (big ones) is enough at least for now, although you never know when we get a call about the next homeless soul we decide to adopt... Now we've been talking about horses quite a lot, but the truth is that project has to wait for some years.
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