Grandmother's old book of wisdom

It is usually a bit early to worry about changing the wheels of the car from winter to summer wheels. But after this rather mild winter, where south Finland has hardly had any snow at all people are already wondering if we have seen the last of the snow. Even the experts on the television are advising people that as long as they are not driving north, it is time to change the wheels. But the old boys who can be often found sitting outside the village shop, will shake their heads with their woodbine dipping on their lips, "Not yet, winter has not finished with us".

The road near our summer residence, no snow in site

The old boys, as I affectionately call them are always there whenever we visit the village situated a few kilometres from our summer residence. Always dressed in the same clothes and an average age of about 80, they are old farmhands, tilling the land since they were boys. Each year there is one less, my favourite, a lovely old boy of about 95 is unfortunately no longer with us, worked on the land all his life and proudly stated whenever he could that he had never been further than Helsinki. He did not have to, he ha all he wanted here! He also told that he never had a television, "Don't need one", just a radio, which he never changed the channel, "Might never get my channel back again!"

But they were all skilled farm workers, never called each other anything but by their surnames and often described each other simply by their abilities, "Ploughs like a demon", "Can dig a ditch in a day". One of the most impressive things for me is their knowledge of the local area, every tree or bush, does not seem to miss their attention. We had a tree near our land which in my opinion was leaning dangerously towards the road. One of the old boys lived not too far from our land and i asked him if we should cut it down. "That old tree has been like that for years, but if your so worried we will have it down for you next week" It was only after I had left them that I remembered that I had given no indication about where the tree I was talking about was and it was too late to go back. The next week on the way to the shop, there was the tree neatly cut down and made into a pile of logs. "How did you know which one to cut?" I asked as I met them, "Had to have been that one, we've been talking about it for years!" Came the matter of fact reply.

No longer a problem

So what about these wheels that need to be changed? I decided to look up Grandmother's old book of wisdom, a large old book full of old Finnish sayings and folklore for everyday of the year. Looking up April, I came across these old sayings;

"If it is a hot sunny April, it will be a cold summer" (not so hot, but sunny)

"If there are clear star lit nights in April, it will be a rainy summer" (many starry nights)

"If a cold April and a rainy May, the hay barns will be full in Autumn" (It is cold and sunny)

"A windy April, means a good summer" (Very windy today)

"April is the time to fix the fishing nets, then you will get a good catch"

Fixing the fishing nets in the traditional way

 "Only a fool sows his fields in April" (Only a fool would change the wheels so early, I think I'll leave it for a couple of weeks).

It coud look like this next week!