Saturday, July 19

Irma and I were at the market by 8:10, and had our traditional market coffee and egg and anchovy sandwich. Then I wandered over to Camilla’s stall, where she and Mika were laying out their vegetables in a bright display. This is what they look like when the display is almost complete. There are also little mountains of different potatoes, out of view.

I will drive home to get Naa at 10:00 and she will be helping sell these vegetables by 10:30. The sun will be out, and it will remain very hot and sunny for the entire day.

In the afternoon we will join the large hay-work gang for what might be the final hay-work ever at Sundö. Mika is going to replace the current baling machine, which is very old, with a more efficient one that makes 250 kilo bales. These will be wrapped automatically and can be left outside. They will require a crane, or something similar, to get them from the field to the barn, and so the days of people gathering bales and throwing them into a trailer will probably disappear soon.

Today we will do the large fields near Brännas, and then a smaller field near Benita’s, and that will be all the hay for this year. The fields at Brännas will be filled with extremely large and fierce paarma, huge and tenacious flying things which give very nasty bites. At the very end of the whole day, as the final load is being reversed up the slope to the barn doors, a front tyre will burst on a tractor, casting a gloomy shadow over the evening.

We will go swimming to get all the sharp bits of hay off us, and then we will join the others at Mika and Camilla’s for a celebratory meal of sandwiches and beer. The three of us will be tired from sunburn and work, and we will all be in bed and asleep by 22:45.