The end of summer

Every year in August there's another of those numerous Swedish traditional occurrences: the kräftskiva or crayfish party. Since I enjoy the crayfish, I've never missed eating them in August. But unlike the earlier years - I've been in Sweden since 1998 - I no longer attend parties in which large quantities of brännvin or aquavit are consumed and the requisite drinking songs are sung. Mostly now I just down a kilo of crayfish with a friend or two.

Since crayfish eating happens at the end of August, it also signifies the end of summer. However, there are still the apples and pears to pick from the trees and the blackberries are ripe now, so it's not quite over yet. Tomas and Ariana will be over this weekend to help put the Åkerö apples in the food cellar. They should store well there and be edible until Christmas. Good thing it's loaded with spiders to keep the flies away.

I've also been watching the weather to see if it's time to transfer my 16 cubic meters of wood to the wood shed. When it's time, I'll have have a few people over for a wood stacking party. If it's anything like previous years, my friends do all the wood stacking and I make the food, an arrangement that seems to have been fairly satisfactory in past years.

And then, brrrr, darkness and cold settle in to stay.