Swedish summer swimming

[Matthew Storrs]

Some from my last visit. The house was my father in laws country house (now sadly sold). That sold for £70k with 1.5 acre garden and a large barn also ground source heat pump etc. Kick myself we didn’t buy it but does take 4hrs driving to get there from his home town.

[Vedhoggar]

Thanks for sharing experience, summers are generally really nice in Sweden, more of a continental climate but it was so hot and dry last time that there were forest fires in places further north and tarmac was melting on roads in the very south. Looks like a crayfish you caught there? 

[josharb87]

Where’s that @Matthew Storrs? 
 

here’s some of the places I’ve been swimming at recently, a fair bit north of you Jonathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vedhoggar]

Looks a bit like Höga Kusten, the High Coast of Sweden?

[josharb87]

10 minutes ago, Vedhoggar said:

Looks a bit like Höga Kusten, the High Coast of Sweden?

Yep!

 

Luckily that’s where my partners summer house is, and where she’s from. Shame it’s all under snow 6months a year, still beautiful but work possibilities aren’t that great

[agg221]

On 13/07/2021 at 21:54, Canal Navvy said:

A sensible guess would be Cambodia so it'll Rutland water or similar 😁

It's actually Lake Tarapoto, next to the Amazon in Colombia. The temperature was rather similar to that Big J was describing in Sweden but that's all year round and the humidity is 100%. Quite an experience though.

 

Alec

[Big J]

9 hours ago, monkeybusiness said:

Looks an amazing place and way of life!

Is that 6000 cube on your own or with employees? I know nothing about timber harvesting but can’t help but think that sounds like quite a lot of skinny trees for one man to produce…

 

It works out at about 20-25 cube a day, cut and extract. 400-500 trees. The machines can consistently do 80 an hour or so. 

 

9 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

Fair play J. Takes a bit of gumption to make a move like that- particularly as you have kids at school etc. How is your Swedish coming along? It’s an idea I often think about too- strangely I’m more keen to move there than my Swedish wife is. She reckons the long winters and early darks can take there toll a bit. But by my reckoning the summers make up for it and yes the winters might be cold and dark but they’re probably far drier and less depressing than the continuous rain and dampness we get in this part of the world over winter…

 

I hadn't realised that you had that Swedish connection! You should do it man. The east is especially dry and precipitation in the winter usually falls as snow anyway. The days aren't that short in the south in winter. You'd have the same issue as me though that you'd be up against lots of skilled machine operators, but I'm sure there is work to go around.

 

Capitalise on all the English wanting to move to Devon and buy a palace in Sweden 😎

 

8 hours ago, Vedhoggar said:

Thanks for sharing experience, summers are generally really nice in Sweden, more of a continental climate but it was so hot and dry last time that there were forest fires in places further north and tarmac was melting on roads in the very south. Looks like a crayfish you caught there? 

 

I've been keeping an eye out for kräftor (crayfish) but that's the only one I've caught so far.

 

Had a wonderful day today, invited to a new friend's farm and forest. I toured 110 hectares of beautiful forest, saw his stunning house, swam at the family swimming beach with his family and had 'waffle fika' with his extended family, who all live nearby. 

 

A real treat and made for the best day of the trip so far. Here are a few photos from today. The Mule belongs to the boys (11 and 😎 which they use themselves around the farm and to go swimming. Unsupervised too. 

 

 

[Big J]

30 minutes ago, agg221 said:

It's actually Lake Tarapoto, next to the Amazon in Colombia. The temperature was rather similar to that Big J was describing in Sweden but that's all year round and the humidity is 100%. Quite an experience though.

 

Alec

 

Well I wouldn't have guessed that! 100% humidity would kill me.

1 hour ago, josharb87 said:

Where’s that @Matthew Storrs? 
 

here’s some of the places I’ve been swimming at recently, a fair bit north of you Jonathan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The high coast is high on my list of places to go, but it'll have to wait until we're here.

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Big J said:

12 hours ago, monkeybusiness said:

Looks an amazing place and way of life!

Is that 6000 cube on your own or with employees? I know nothing about timber harvesting but can’t help but think that sounds like quite a lot of skinny trees for one man to produce…

 

It works out at about 20-25 cube a day, cut and extract. 400-500 trees. The machines can consistently do 80 an hour or so. 

That's a politician's method of not answering a quetion

[Big J]

2 hours ago, openspaceman said:

That's a politician's method of not answering a quetion

Haha - sorry for the vagueness. In my defense, it's been over 30c for 4 days now and my brain is toast.

It'll most likely just be me. No manual work - just machine work. A harvester can process the timber far, far more rapidly than any manual work. There isn't much motor manual work in forestry in Sweden really. 

 

Unrelated to the swimming, but I was taken out at dusk on the lake by a very kindly local and caught my first ever zander whilst trolling. He said it was the largest zander he's known of caught by rod and line on the lake and he's a life long local and lives on the shore. My zander fishing can only go downhill from here on out 😄

 

81cm and 5kg (11lb) exactly. It was also completely empty, save for one small bait fish. A fuller belly would have put another 0.5 - 1kg on it.