Good Schools - Strong Community

In Põlvamaa, the county we live, education has always been an important topic to locals. Most of our schools are strong and child friendly and parents are interested in their children's education. A famous old time Estonian teacher and school innovator Johannes Käis was born in Rosma. In the exact building where currently is located a Waldorf kinderkarten 'Täheke' ('Starlet'). Next to it is located an alternative Waldorf School (based on Rudolf Steiner's idealogy) called Johhannese Kool. To those who have not heard about Steiner, I refer a web page http://www.steinerwaldorf.org.uk/whatissteinereducation.html, where Steiner Education is nicely described.

Steiner education...

◦Works for all children irrespective of academic ability, class, ethnicity or religion;
◦Takes account of the needs of the whole child – academic, physical, emotional and spiritual;
◦Is based on an understanding of the relevance of the different phases of child development;
◦Develops a love of learning and an enthusiasm for school;
◦Sees artistic activity and the development of the imagination as integral to learning;
◦Is tried and tested and is part of state funded, mainstream provision in most European countries;
◦Is respected worldwide for its ability to produce very able young people who have a strong sense of self and diverse capacities that enable them to become socially and economically responsible citizens.

Already third year in May Johannese Kool is organizing an alternative educational conference 'Good Choices in Education'. It is a place with great vibes, good energy and powerful thoughts. People from all over Estonia are coming together, lots of parents from the same Joahannese school and other families from vicinity. All families are welcomed, as there are activities for parents and children. The catering has always been an art like experience in its own: health food, clean tasting and full of energy. This year it was provided by a little company called Setu Sõsarõ consisting of three Setu sisters. Setu is a different cultural region, part of Põlvamaa, but they have different religion and traditions.

Viluste Kool, the elementary and middle shool of our town where our children go, is also a very good school. It is an old school, founded in 1769 as part of many Räpina Parish schools which were founded that year. In 2001 a new school building was finished and it looks and acts beautifully. The teachers are active and ignite the students to participate in all kinds of after school actuvities. They have a drama group, several folk dancing groups, two choirs and a boys ansamble, art club and declamation club. Several times in a year school puts on grand concerts. The annual spring concert just happened, lasting the usual two hours and most of the students on the stage several times taking part in different activities. I really appreciate the energy our teachers are putting into getting the students to be active. Thank you!

Veriora Flea Market

Already second time in May a market or a fair took place in Veriora center. Last year there was also a fall market day, so one can easily say that fairs happen in Veriora. They are all organized by a voluntary citizens group called Veriora Mõttekoda, which unites active and outgoing people in the east side of Veriora town. There is a very active village in the west side of the town as well, in Leevi.
The point of the spring market day is to create a opportunity for locals and visitors to sell, buy and exchnahge unused items in their households. Also give local small businesses chance to show others what they do and sell their production.
Last year was blessed with a sunny warm weather. This year we were not that lucky - day stayed chilly and windy, sun was out for a glimps. I might have felt better if I had dressed myself wizer, but the chill attacked me by surprise.
You never know how many visitors event like that would attract. We had decent amount of sellers, luckily even more buyers.
Our family arrived early to help setting up the cafe. Around 8:30 AM the first sellers started to arrive. The market was not even officially open when I made my first and only big purchase. An older dude (standing in the center on the picture) was selling his own welded hand plow and that is exactly what I have been missing and eyeing already for couple of years to buy. But nobbody seems to sell those anymore, so I was very happy that I was there at the right time to make my offer.
Lots of kids were selling pastries, one girl was selling home made spruce needle scented soap her family is making. There were different plant sellers - tomatoes, straberrys, cabbage, all kind of summer flowers etc. Some sold home made bread and beer, some lamb meat. There was a woman, who has her own wool mill, selling her yarn and socks. Some of her yarn was died with different plants and the shades were just breath takingly beautiful.
There was also a little harmonica band playing and a second hand clothes fashion show.
People had good time and hang out even after the crowds were gone.

Beautiful Pine Grove

We live in a village of Männisalu, which translates into Pine Grove. Our forests are full of different kind of trees, pine is defenitely one of them. We also have oaks, spruces, maples, birches, willows, aldens, mountain ashes and few others. There is lots of forest in the area where we live. Some has been cut, but luckily they also plant a lot of trees every year.

As I was driving kids home one day I noticed how beautiful the short 5 mile trip really is. Especially right now when Estonia's trees and meadows are in a very nice shade of green - a bright fresh green of new leaves and grass blades. Then I decided to take some photos of the sights I pass by as I am heading home from Viluste School.

The first farm house in our village is habitated only during summer month, as the owner is a high school chemistry teacher in Northern Estonia and during the school year she only comes for weekends. Her brother, also our villager, helps her to keep it in order. She is a passionate bee keeper. The rest of the farms in our village are full year around.

There is nice little birch grove around the next curve, which is currently being thinned. There are always so many anemones in spring time, the bottom of the forest floor looks like it is covered with a white carpet.

Next three farms are very close to each other. The reason for that is that originally their lands belonged to the same family and were divided up between the heirs quite recently. So they are also all relatives in those three farms.

One of them is rising cows. The milk truck comes every day and few villagers, who don't have a cow but still like farm fresh milk, collect their daily milk from them as well.

The other is rising sheep. They are also local veterinarians and very helpful neighbours. They inherited 8 sheeps from his father. By now, they have 120 sheeps. It is their life style. They still make hey and rake it together by hand, they let it dry on the meadow and when they are done bringing it in to their barn, the barn smells like heaven. And they enjoy it!
Everything in their property is in a perfect order. Some of the firewood for kitchen range is axed so thin, that you don't even need a paper to ignite a fire. And it will be a fierce and hot one, perfect for cooking.

Next household is our mail box holder. All the village mail boxes are in one place to make mailman's job little easier. The distances are so big between farms and as the weather during most of the year is rather tough, it just makes sence.

Our closest neighbours are a retired couple. Their grown up children are living away from childhood home. One of the daughters is a forestry teacher in a vocational school and she helped her parents to plan and plant a new future forest between us on an unused field.

And this is how we approach our residence, the beautiful Leppoja farm in the end of the driveway.

Pictures by KJ

A New Start - Co-op Rules!

Our house welcomed us in a friendly way: roof was on it, water had not done any damage what so ever. Doors and windows were all on and in one piece. It was so nice to see the red tip of our home visible already far away as we appraoched it.

The garden did not greet us in the same peaceful and orderly way. As soon as one could see into our court yard, actually even before, in the other side of the gate as well - all lawn was destroyed. It was done very properly and evenly by wild bores, from edge to edge, without touching flower beds. Thank God for that, all the flowers are OK and some are even blooming.

It was sad. I have worked eagerly and passionately for three summers to get it into the condition I left it. It probably took them few hours to turn it up side down. Well, it was an easy access to earth warms and other goodies, nobody there to destract them. I think neighbours let some hunters know about the attack, so some of the hunters came and did some shooting. After that they have not seen new damage, so it might have scared them little bit.
What's next? I simply cannot live like that, but I also realized that my own power is so tiny to do all that cleaning up before grass starts growing again.

So I decided to call for help. I posted an invitation to Facebook for my friends to come and help out on May 7th. As it was day before Mothers' Day, many of my far away friends from the Capital area could not make it, but local friends were really ready to jump in and to it together. As the area is close to 2 acres, I badly needed mechanized help as well. My good neighbours, local veterinarians, offered their older model tractor. I also asked another friend, a local farmer and folk dancer, who has more modern and powerful tractor. Although it is a very busy spring farming season, he had mercy on me and my hopeless situation, and also came on Saturday and did the most of the tractor work. That was enourmous help, as it made it easier for rakers to even the soil and get the grass residue out of the ground.

Going back little bit in time, when I first posted the invitation, I was very happy that so many people responded positively. First ones to back me up were my folk dancing buddies. Even few city friends were coming at first, but later on different things came up and we actualy did not see anybody on Saturday further than 30 miles from us.
My high school class-mate with her husband offered me to rent a portable lawn cutter and they brought it here with their truck. That was a good thing to have for edges and hard to get to with a tractor places. He worked on it all day, such a great help, thank you!

My class-mate herself and a good friend from gardening school era, a well known landscaping teacher were a good pair on how to do it properly. Participants were at first little doubtful, but as soon as everybody saw first results of well groomed new soil, nobody had any doubts left and the final result was amazing. Later on the neighbour's tractor was harnessed behind a big cargo base (??) and that served then as a final flattener and smoother for the raked area, before the seed could go in the ground.

To make things perfect, even old kids play shack was moved to a different location. Old stumps were moved and rotten fence postd were torn out.

During lunch hour soup, cucumber salad and cake was served. Good workers deserved even better meal, but I must admit that the spaghetti dish I tried to make, failed and I had to activate plan B and serve ready made soup. Evening ended with sauna, although everytbody was so tired that could hardly enjoy it - wash up and go to bed.

So much work got done, I cannot even belive my eyes when I go out and see the beauty back around me. I have more to do, but they gave me back hope. Thank you, Veriora, Räpina and Võru!

My sad boar disaster

Now, when I am writing this posting, I already know how much better it will look like, but when I took those photos of my house and garden, I was devastated and overwhelmed with work to be done. So I will not talk here too much about the damage, as there will be another posting shortly following about the happy day of united voluntary work -bee - on our yard.
There was one good side in this wild nature attack toward the human culturization (is that even a word?): none of the flower beds were touched. Did they consider flowers poisonous or are the earth worms not living in the flower beds? Good questions, who knows.

1. Very happy that the main house is in one piece:









2. The clothe rack is also standing, although rather rough underneith:









3. 'Plowed' passage between sauna and the big stable:

4. Proper and even work in the orchard:

5. Oh, Lord, sad view of the non existing lawn with the roofless barn on the background:

Farewell, Woolworks!

My dear friends on the other side of Atlantic! I am back home and starting to settle down a little. There are many things to clean and arrange, so its been few days I have not done anything but organizing to feel good. Mess makes me nervous. Anyway, now it is a good time to let you know how my travels went. Smoothly, very smoothly, indeed.
We started nice and early on Friday morning, as all the bags and suitcases were packed well ahead af time by somebody very diligent, ahahahaa! Josh's father prepared us a nice breakfast, although we were little too anxious to eat too much.
Grand Mercury, also known as Creamsicle, was jam packed. Both front and back row had a bag in the center of the sofa seats to allocate the weight more evenly. The big boat was really going heavy. But hey ... we got there. We took Merrit parkway and Tappanzee bridge and Graden State Parkway and arrived to Newark International Airport nice and early.
Our six suitcases and 4 really heavy carryon items would have required few carts, but Josh had to park the car too. So we ended up hiring a local helper who carted all our belongings directly to the check-in gate. As there were nobody there yet we chatted with the workers "to clear the air" for the upcoming luggage overweigth. I had no money, but they asked me to start loading the bags on the scale anyway. After parking the car, Josh would pay them. Well, nobody paid much attention to the reading on the scale, as some of the suitcases were rather hefty. I guess all that sweet talk in the beginning paid off - we were charged only $150 insead of 180 EUR. Thank you, Scandinavian Airlines!
Next thing we hear is a firealarm. Bot nobody was going anywere, so we also just kept going and finally it just stopped. The line were Josh could not come any further came quite quickly, so we had to say our good byes. He was worried about my crazy heavy carry-on suitcase, but I had good feeling about it and some back-up plans, so we just continued with three of us into the fun custom's "play area". Luckily I had not heard about those indecent searching procedures, and probably because of that innocence, nothing really happened. Nobody touched us, just the bags, nothing was taken away, just searched and re-searched.
There was still 30 minutes left before boarding when we got to the gate. Kids could look at the planes and we had little snack. Then the boarding people called for passangers how needed help, who were travelling with babies and ect. I looked at Zoe and decided that she would qualify as a small child and we took our stuff and headed to the plane. We were welcomed to board first and we had all the time to settle in, put the luggage into the overhead compartments, and take a seat. Then I felt so relieved and happy that we made it that I hugged and kissed the kids, told them how wonderful they have been and that it is already so easy to travel with them. It was just so smooth!
Plane arrived to Stockhom 45 minutes ahead of the schedule. There were movies and games on everyones seat, so kids were fully entertained. We were served dinner and a promise of a chocolate after the meal made sure that it was also eaten. Around 8PM Zoe crawled up on the floor and fell asleep. Janek stayed on the seat and snoozed there. Around midnight, when I felt for the first time that I could take a little nap, lights were turned on again and breakfast was served. Well ... were did all that long flight time go I don't know, but we were there and it was time to get up. Janek was fully awake and ready to rock, Zoe was slightly disturbed by the wake up.
We were last to leave the plane ( I just let Zoe to sleep as long as I could), so there was nobody in the terminal. When we went through the Swedish security, I was first time patted over my body. They even confiscated my toothpaste, which made me question. I tryed to explain them that I came from America, not going there, but they did not care and were very eager to search everything.
It was time to climb up into a tiny little Estonian Air propeller aircraft for our last leg of the journey. The plane was so small that they even took care of my carry-on suitcase. And the flight began ..... no turbulance, sunshine, snacks on board and extremely friendly steward Valeri. When we saw land again through the windows, kids cried out loud: "I see Estonia, Estonian is here!" and we all felt good and warm to be back on familiar homeland.