Little houses on the hillside…

As promised I have a couple of leftover stories from our weekend visit to the Swedish countryside. They both involve little outdoor houses.

The first little outdoor house was very intriguing to the 5 year old. As you can well imagine, country houses might have limited “services” available to them strictly due to their remoteness. I’m not talking about internet or television service, but the restroom services. Yes, the first little outdoor house of today's blog entry is the outhouse. The stuga itself was quite old and rustic and apparently the opportunity to add on to it had never involved indoor plumbing. When we got there we got the whole outhouse lesson, in case we weren’t sure of the procedure. This was the kid’s first experience with the outhouse and likely their last. That ought to make them appreciative right?

The second little house story is much more interesting to me because I spend a lot of time thinking to myself..”That would never happen back home”. This is certainly one of those instances. We have seen many signs for produce during our travels to Norway, Holland, Belgium as we passed through towns and country sides, but I had never figured out the process by which many of these things are sold. I now have the scoop. Located behind the farmhouse with the sign for potatoes was a little shed. Inside this shed was various produce items, a refrigerator, and a table. On the table was a notebook and a metal box. Here is the process. Poke around someone's unlocked shed full of produce. Pick the things you would like. Put money in the box to pay for the things you are taking and make change with whatever money you need from the box. I think the notebook was simply the ledger for the transactions, but it is the least interesting to me since I was already running through the reasons why this would be a disaster back home. We purchased some potatoes, but there was honey, eggs, and some other mysterious items in bottles. Even in the most trustworthy communities in the states I think this system is a stretch. Run this through your head and see if you can make it work. Maybe I’m too cynical.

Here are the rabbits that were guarding the produce hut.