Richard organized a trip to Glaskogen nature reserve for the group of interns. We packed up and left the farm right after breakfast on Monday for a two day trip. Packed with lot’s of food and a couple of fishing rods we headed out stopping for gas and at a supermarket along the way.
It was strange to be in a supermarket after two weeks of living on the farm with abundance of great produce all around. Seeing everything packed up and sorted in shelves seemed disconnected in a way. Most of us just bought lot’s of chocolate and off we went.

The house was really sweet with a mowed lawn in front and typically Swedish painted in red with white around the windows and doors. Richard hung around for another half an hour fishing in the lake near the house before he went back to the farm.
After everyone got settled in Paco, Kevin, Tim, TJ and I headed toward a part of the lake that was a little further in the woods. We hung out around the lake listening to music and trying our luck fishing but caught nothing. At some point I climbed a little up the steep hillside nearby and wandered for myself enjoying the cool fresh air and the springy moss under my feet. I got to the top which was about 20 meters above the lake and everything just seemed perfect, I had my speaker with me and danced for a while looking far across the land made up of Spruce forest on rolling hills with patches of lake in between. I felt light and alive.

Richard had given us all a task for these two days. We would write down our life with key points, people, books that influenced us, etc. so that when we got back from the trip we could share it with the group to really get to know each other. Furthermore we wrote down our areas of interest, skills and expectations of the internship.
Going on this trip with this task I realized a very interesting stage the group was still in and a transition that will take place in the coming days. After two weeks of living together we got to know each other on the surface but it was hard to go deeper for a couple of reasons. There was always a lot of people around in our group of eleven so more serious matters which one would normally just share with a few people at a time didn’t really get a space. And it felt like people where hovering around holding on to that dynamic because trust was not built yet.
It felt like are all standing around the rabbit whole of unknown possibilities in learning together and creating deep relationships and everyone was to afraid to make the first step and jump into the unknown. And if someone did try to jump, by bringing up a more serious touching matter, it someone would not be on the same page and still talk more superficially which would keep everything superficial. As if when someone wanted to dive in the others said: „no, no, no, you can*t just go without us“ But then no one would actually follow.
I expect that to change dramatically in the next days, when we really get to know everyone better and how they ended up here. And I am very excited to see how deep we can go down this rabbit hole and where we will end up.

On Tuesday we did a nice 6 hour hike through the forest and ended the day by roasting a shoulder of lamb over the open fire pit for 3-4 hours which ended up tasting amazing, having taken on the smokey flavor of birch wood.