The Urban Farm, Part 1: Lumberjack in Town

My friends Rob and Megan are incredibly brave. They bought an old tractor, a piece of undeveloped land and an old house next to it, and started a farm in Baltimore City. Since I am a big fan of this project I thought I'll do a few blogs through out this year to cover the work going on there. This Marther Luther King weekend me and Trevor went out to help Rob cut down trees that they need to build a fens around their field. They hope it will keep the local whitetail deer population (the city is crawling with them believe it or not) from eating their crop including a substantial investment in garlic. We took on the challenge lumberjack style with a fury of chainsaw action, log lifting and some cross bow shooting to top it off... A good reminder that for all the physical exercise I have put myself through lately it is but a speck of what it takes to work a day as a farmer. 

We need a horse!

I am quite certain that my Grandpa Torgny, looking down from his cloud, would be less impressed that I had to spend the rest of the weekend resting from my half day of "real work".  Half a century ago they spend their winter days working the forest with a two-man saw, axes and horses. Those where the days! I salvaged some images from a digitally converted super 8 film my Grandpa did 1952-1955 showing some images from the work they did. Thanks for reminding me how it should be done grandpa 

The way things were done 65 years ago (Grandpa bought his first chainsaw around 1955)

A good days work back in the day. Gnestad Gård, Sweden, 1952

We ended the day on the farm with some good old archery...

The last week winter has returned to town, its been snowing quite a bit and it is cold and beautiful. The real perk is that everything shuts down here, schools, work you name it (so far I have not yet had the pleasure to skip work or school due to a snowstorm in Sweden) so this week I had two good days working form home, with the occasional mountain bike or trail running playtime in the snow. It is nice with a proper winter here for a change

Celebrating Lauras birthday with a hike in the Catactin mountains.
There was supposed to be more people joining but they were smart enough to stay home
in the windy and numbing cold conditions (all except the Swedish couple...)

Best spot for my bike to dry off from riding in the snow. We just got 15 cm of fresh snow!

Magic cold and dry snow filling the air

I found out running with barefoot shoes was, as I expected, a great idea in the dry powder snow.
Perfect grip and your feet stay nice and ventilated.