Trip Tale: A visit to a farm museum and artist

On Friday we visited a living farm museum. "Located in the village of Lyytikkälä at Suomenniemi, near Highway 13, the Lyytikkälä Museum Farm comprises one of South Karelia’s best preserved complete farming estates. A former 18th century “augment” or a farm which paid its land tax to a rustholli estate (a larger farm under obligation to equip a cavalryman), Lyytikkälä Farm was purchased as an independent hereditary estate in 1859. It remained with the same family for well over 250 years." Check site here.

We walked through stables, with walls about 5' thick with fir branches on the floor to drain the urine and manure into a pit and to keep the animals warm. The ovens in the house could bake 17 loaves of rye bread.

On Saturday morning we ate warm Karelian pies for breakfast, a wheat pastry with rice filling, and then we visited artist Pirjo Lindberg, watercolorist. She and her husband have a small farm/country house. He raises bees and she paints and invites other artists to show with her.