Külli lugu - "Meie inimesed" ETV's 20. mail 2013 kell 20:35

Ajakirjanik Neeme Raud käis meil ETV võttegrupiga külas ja pani kokku saate "Meie inimesed" meie elust ja tegemistest Leppoja talus Veriora vallas. Vt tutvustust siit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDAX8tmi8Iw

"Tallinna tüdrukul Küllil läks tee päris oma koduni jõudmiseks läbi New Yorgi. Koos seal kohatud abikaasa ja kahe lapsega elatakse nüüd Vana-Võrumaa ja Setomaa piiril Leppoja talus.
Matemaatiku ja majandusteadlase haridusega Külli juhib sealt oma asutatud firmat „Kagu Kudujad” ning müüb kõrgetasemelist käsitööd ka väljapoole Eestit. Värska Gümnaasiumis õpetab ta aga matemaatikat. Siin, selles Eesti elus, mille ise enesele lõin, olengi õnnelik, ütleb Külli."

Neeme Raud
saate autor ja toimetaja

P.S. Seda saadet saab järelvaadata siit: http://etv.err.ee/arhiiv.php?id=138647

Nagu seeni pärast vihma ...

Küll nüüd lisandub ajaveebe ja kodulehti sellise hooga, et ei ole kindel kas neile kõigile ka lugejaskonda leidub. Ettevõte OÜ Kagu Kudujad saab varsti kahekuuseks ja teavitamaks üldsust lõngaalastest tegemistest lõin uue ajaveebi http://kagukudujad.blogspot.com/ Kutsun lugema!

Kel on FB huvi ning pole põhimõtteliselt selle liikumise vastane, need leiavad www.facebook.com/KaguKudujad ka infot ning pilte. Endiselt on lehel www.facebook.com/EstonianMittens kõige rohkem kirikinnaste pilte, aga oma veebipoe avan varsti aadressil http://www.nordicknitters.com/

Olge terved ja nautige värviküllast sügist! Käsitöölistele soovin loomingulisi kõrghetki ja kohalikele peatse kohtumiseni Kagu Kudujate töötoas Uus tn 7-20 Veriora alevikus.

Kududa ja maailma parandada

Veriora Valla Vaatlejas ilmus täna, 16. septembril 2011 minu artikkel. Kes seda meie kohaliku elu kuulutajat lugema ei trehva, see saab seda teha siin:

"Minu keskiga on kätte jõudnud ning ilmselt paljuski just seetõttu olen juba tükk aega mõtteid mõlgutanud selle üle, et välja mõelda mis on see asi, mida ma ülekõige teha sooviksin. Kuskilt on kõrvu kumisema jäänud ütlemine, et kes oma hobiga leiba teenib, see ei tööta ühtegi päeva oma elus. See annab töö tegemisele küll pisut kohustuse laadi varjundi, aga minu jaoks just rõhutab seda kui mõnus võib olla sellise töö tegemine, mille tegemist üdini naudid.

Kudumine ja heegeldamine on mind varajasest lapsepõlvest peale ümbritsenud. Nii ema kui ka vanaema olid kõvad käsitöötegijad ja see tuntus pisikesele minule nii vahva tegevus, et veel enne kooli minekut kudumise selgeks õppisin. Mulle ei meenu, kelle abiga sai ostetud, aga mul oli üks tohutu suur tokk hästi kärtsu sünteetilist rohelist lõnga, ja sellega ma oma esimesed ja ka rohked järgmised katsed korda saatsin. Seda jätkus kõikidele nukkudele hilpudeks ja pajalappideks. Seda briljantrohelist lõnga oli kohe nii palju, et veel aastaid hiljem oli selle jääke kõikvõimalikest kohtadest leida.

Vanaema Liisa oli väga hea kuduja; ta varustas kogu meie peret sokkide ja kinnastega, ta müüs neid oma sõbrannadele, tuttavatele ja turu pealgi. Mu ema Ivi oli samuti väga hea kuduja kuid targa naisena ei hakanud oma ämmaga võistlema. Seega spetsialiseerus ta hoopis oma kahele tütrele kampsikute, kleidikeste ja pluuside kudumisele ning need olid tõepoolest kaunid ja pitsilised. Ema Ivi viitsis nokitseda ja uusi huvitavaid mustreid ning lõikeid proovida. Need vardad, mida ma praegu kasutan, on vanaema pärandus mulle ja nende igapäevane käes ja töös hoidmine teeb mu meele alati pisut magushärdaks, kui selle peale mõtlen. See on just see järjepidevus, mida ma kalliks pean ja hoida tahan.

Seega olen kudunud kogu oma elu ja pealkirja esimene pool on ära seletatud. Paar talve tagasi juhtusid mulle Räpina raamatupoes silma Aino Praakli kirikinnaste vihikud ja miski sundis mind neid ostma. Kuigi me elamine on endiselt enam kui poole ulatuses kastidesse pakitud ja ootab maja täielikku valmimist, siis vardad on mul kindlalt ja teada peaaegu et padja all, et oleks igal hetkel käepärased võtta. Proua Praakli kogutud mustrid ees, valisin kohe koju jõudes lõngakorvist välja mehe kampsunist ülejäänud pruuni ja punase lõnga ning asusin silmi üles looma. Ilus kinnas tuli! Lapsed olid ka uudistades ümber ja kiitsid kena mustrit ning värve. Nüüd tahtsid ka nemad endale omavalitud mustri ja värvidega kirikindaid.

Sellest paari talve tagusest ajast saadik on nii jäänud, et olen palju kirikindaid kudunud ja nendega paljude kiitusi ära teeninud. Viisin neid näha Veriora käsitööringi prouadele ja võtsin kaasa Ameerikasse, kui saatus meid sinna eelmisel aastal päris mitmeks kuuks elama viis.

Läks nii, et Ameerikas ma tööd teha ei tohtinud – selleks puudus luba. Nii jäid minu ülesanneteks laste kodu ja kooli vahet sõidutamine, perele söögi tegemine ja muud kodutööd ning kudumine. Kuu aja möödudes teatas pereisa kurblikult, et minu valmistatud road on küll äärmiselt keerukad ja maitsed suurpärased, aga toidueelarve on lõhki mis lõhki. Peale seda kulus toidutegemisele palju vähem aega ja raha, sellevõrra jäi jälle rohkem aega kududa. Ühel hetkel said lõngavarud otsa ja tuli kohalike lõngamüüjatega tutvust teha. See läks kergesti, sest õnneks oli üpsris laste kooli lähedal üks kena väike lõngapood. Sealne müüja imetles mu kätetööd ja kutsus õhtuse kudumisringiga liituma. Tema ise, Dorothy on ta nimi, ei teagi kui saatuslikuks ja määravaks minu edaspidises ettevõtja elus too kutse sai. Seal kudumisringis kohtusin paljude toredate kohalikega, veetsin mitme kuu jooksul kümneid tunde ja sain innustust selleks, mida mu hing ihkab ja mis hästi välja tuleb. Seal koos teistega kududes sain aimu sellest kui oluline ja vahva on koos teistega kududa ja maailma ning iseenese probleeme lahata ja arutada. Seda sama mõnusat ja vaba õhkkonda, täis loomingut ja loomist, kus käed käivad ja suu käib, tahan ma ka Veriorale tuua. Nii vahva kokkusattumus oli minu jaoks sel samal talvel Veriora Perenaiste Selti taaselustamine. See on ju samalaadse filosoofiaga ettevõtmine. Ilmselt on paljude naiste loomuses, et käed käivad nobedamalt ja rõõmsamalt, kui ka suu saab sinna kõrvale jahvatada.

Nii ma siis olen oma elu suure muutuse lävel, kus olen otsustanud oma enese tööandjaks hakata. Ja mitte ainult ... soovin ka teisi kunstkudujaid palgata, et kaunis ja maagiline Eesti kirikinda kunst talveunest äratada ja laia maailma paisata. Just nagu proua Aino Praakli on juba algust teinud ja mustrid sinna teele saatnud. Sinna juurde soovin huvilistele käsitöötegijatele pakkuda müügiks villast lõnga, mida hangin Eesti erinevatelt tegijatelt.

Vanasti tehti ikka pikkadel ja pimedatel talveõhtutel palju käsitööd. See hoidis vaimu virge ja koos tehes lahutas kindlasti ka hästi meelt. Lubage mul soovida meie kandi tegusatele naistele ja meestele kena saabuvat talvist käsitööhooaega ja kohtumiseni minu kontoris, kus loodan, et nii mõnigi probleem leiab üheskoos lahenduse ja maailmast saab parem paik. Infot käsitöö koostegemise aja ja koha kohta saab telefonilt 50 34 386 või kirjutades kulli.jacobson@gmail.com."

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!