The Slow Way Through the Bog

cozy time on the bog and cranberry picking

A couple weeks ago I went to the bog with my three children. The idea was to spend some lazy time: the children could play and I could read and drink coffee. We spend time outdoors much, and sometimes we just hang out as the forest or the bog is our living room. This was exactly that sort of day. So we packed a Swiss roll, and headed to the bog nearby.

When arriving, we came across a couple, who had been out picking mushrooms in the forest. They had found black trumpets, and we got to have a look at what they look like. I’ve only found them very, very rarely myself, and as the couple said, they are out there, but they can be really difficult to spot. It was nice to show the mushrooms to children — maybe they will spot them now when they have seen some.

We went to the shore of the bog pond. I couldn’t resist admiring the slowly emerging autumn colors. I have new pink Finnish-designed rubber boots, which I got a while ago when my ten-year-old ones had started to leak. On the bog, rubber boots are a must — the ground is so wet.

The shore of the pond is a thick floating mat of peat, and if you step close enough to the edge, it wobbles. This pond really knows how to look so different on different days and at different times of day. Take a look at what it looked like on a July evening.↓

What Happens on the Bog at Night?

The first hints of ruska are starting to appear here too. Ruska is a Finnish word for the beautiful colors of autumn. In Finnish, autumn is syksy.

After we had eaten, the children soon continued playing, they got completely absorbed in their play. They built little homes on the bog for the little figures they had brought along, which I let them take with them just for this purpose. They often make their own little figures from pine cones or acorns too, but sometimes it’s fun to bring something ready-made along. These are small things, but but they can mean a lot to children.

I watched the children playing. It’s really interesting to watch what these little people I brought into the world come up with. How well they (most of the time) take each other into account, and how wonderful their ideas are.

A few goldeneyes flew over us. Goldeneyes are a familiar sight on this pond, but this time they just flew over a few times, making their funny calls. In the water, they are usually completely silent.

I leaned against a little mound and continued reading my book. The title of my book happened to be Lakkasuo (Cloudberry Bog), which was quite fitting. I got an e-reader a while ago, and I’ve been reading more than I have in years because it’s so easy to carry with me.

Then it was time to head back to the cottage. We had already been out for a couple of hours. We took a different route back, across the bog. I thought we could pick some cranberries along the way.

My sense of time and ability to plan are pretty much nonexistent, and sure enough, we were still out on the bog picking berries an hour later.

We picked a whole bagful of them. The children picked them into their own camping cups, while I used my kuksa. Whenever a cup was full, we poured the berries into the bag.

One of us sat at the edge of a hummock and picked it completely empty before moving on to the next one. Another moved from one hummock to another, depending on where the biggest and ripest berries seemed to be. And one lay against the edge of a mound, picking slowly and enjoying it. The only sound was plop plop as the berries dropped into the tin cups.

I also took some macro photos of the surface of the bog. It might be the most interesting place in the world. If I were an insect, I would definitely want to live on the bog, press my tiny insect feet into the surface of the sphagnum and take a bite of a cranberry like it was a giant sour apple.

Sphagnum moss has different colors in different spots: orange, red, green, yellow… And now in autumn, the colors deepen. In some places the moss layer is dense, while in others it is loose and soft and mushy. You could also see tiny little empty spore capsules here and there, but only if you look very closely.

We slowly made our way towards the other side of the bog, picking cranberries along the way. The vegetation was different from what it had been by the pond, and the children would have liked to stop and play again, but lunchtime had been over for quite a while and I stood my ground: we had to get back to the cottage.

Just then, we heard the sound of an ice cream truck! We were completely amazed: how could we hear an ice cream truck out on the bog? We continued on as normal and finally reached the edge of the bog. We made our way through the trees surrounding the bog, picking some blueberries to take with us, and suddenly we were on a forest road.

And there it was, the ice cream truck. A few other groups were buying ice cream. We showed up with our rubber boots on, blueberry-stained fingers, hair full of bits of nature, and trouser legs smelling of Labrador tea. So, we bought a couple of boxes of ice cream to put in the freezer.

All in all, the whole trip took four hours, and we didn’t have lunch until 5 p.m. Luckily, life has room for wild and unusual days like this, when schedules are forgotten and four hours can turn into playing, reading, picking cranberries, and even a surprise visit from an ice cream truck.

Sometimes the best thing about having children is that you have a good excuse to spend too many hours wandering around the bog, picking cranberries and ending up at an ice cream truck.

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