Forest stories

Birgitta Kindeskog Sturve and
Christina Kindeskog Andersson

Growing up at Kjettestorp, we spent a lot of time in the forest, walking through it down the path to go to school, driving through it on the wagon to go to church, going around picking berries and things, playing out among the trees. There is one very old tree with a hole in the middle that's big enough to stand in. In my albums there are several pictures of  different kids standing in that tree.

Most of the income for our farm, I think, probably came from forest products. They felled trees almost every year, but the farmer couldn’t go out and fell any trees he wanted to. They had something like a forest ranger who came out and marked which trees should be felled and which ones should stay. One year Dad hired two young men to do the felling of the trees. Henning i Storängen was going to drive one of Dad’s horses. While they were doing this, I would walk down to where they were with lunch every day and when Bernt and Lennart

Top to bottom-- Magnus Boberg, Jim Moore,

Elizabeth Moore Powell, Henrik Boberg

were out of school for a day or two, they would go with me. One day when I came down there by myself, I heard a cry for help from the direction of the young men who were felling trees. Henning and Papa rushed over there to find that one of them had cut himself with an ax right on the knee, and it was bleeding terribly. Dad pulled off his own shirt and tied it around tight so then it didn’t seem life threatening but he couldn’t walk home the way it was. They loaded him on one of the forest sleds, and I was supposed to drive him home and have Mama call an ambulance or taxicab or whatever to see that he got to the hospital. Then I took the horse back down again to Dad again.

Amanda and Mom in a hollow tree in 1990

Another year, Dad got hurt. He hurt a hand on a rusty nail. It got infected and carried his arm in a sling. He had to go to the doctor every few days and have the wound cleaned because they were afraid of blood infection. Well, Sara and I were supposed to be barnmaids that year, but then we had to do the stable too so we had to get up extra early. Sara got the hay down for the cows, and I got the hay down for the horses. The horses had to be fed and watered, and they needed a feedbag packed for each one of them, and they had to be brushed. It all had to be done by 7 am before Axel i Herrefall came to get the horses. He had some other man with him – I don’t remember who it was to drive one horse – because Dad couldn’t drive that winter. Once Axel had come to get the horses, then I went into the barn to help Sara milk. So we were busy that winter, Sara and I.

And did you know that out in the forest you can sing to your heart's content and nobody cares whether you can carry a tune or not? One time Dad was down på Gropedalen which is halfway down to the schoolhouse. He was cutting grass and I was going down the hill to rake it up into patches so it could dry. I had my rubber boots in one hand and the rake in the other and I went singing down the lane. It felt so good walking in that loose dirt and grass

Amanda and Elizabeth in 1990

in my bare feet. Then all of a sudden one foot smashed and slid on something that felt yucky. I jumped and looked behind me and there lay a viper in the lane. I had stepped on a viper! I put my boots on and then I killed the snake with my rake. When I went on down to Dad and told him, he didn't believe me. "You can't step on a viper and not get bitten!" Well, I took him up there to show him. Looking at the snake, he figured out that the viper must have heard me coming and gotten ready to strike. They feel the vibrations in the ground and they roll up and put their heads in the middle, and I must've stepped right on the head. It must've been just a bit too cold for the snake to move quickly.