ORGANIC DAIRY FARMING IN SWEDEN

Happy Tuesday, and, “Hello from Halmstad, Sweden.”

I arrived safe and sound in Copenhagen and was greeted by Madeleine Blomberg, daughter of Lennart and Gunnila Blomberg, owners of Eleiko. Eleiko Barbell Company are our CHEK Swedish distributors and I’m here to teach courses at their sports institute.

Our drive to Halmstad, Sweden took about 3 hours instead of the normal two hours because we were held up in an LA style traffic jam due to road construction.

Once I arrived and put my things away, I needed to go for a walk after so much sitting in a jet and car.

This is a photo I took of the beautiful walking trail right across the street from the Blomberg’s home where I’m staying. I’m right next to the sea here and it’s quite beautiful.

I barely slept at all last night because we are almost at the longest day of the year here, which is LONG! The sun didn’t set until about 11:00 PM last night.

Then, I woke up thinking I’d had a nice long sleep because the sun was coming up. I looked at my clock and it was 3:29 AM! It was as bright as it is at home at 6:30 AM. Needless to say, I couldn’t get to sleep again no matter what trick I tried.

Yesterday, after I took a walk, Madeleine offered to take me to the organic dairy farm where she gets her much cherished raw milk. I was interested to see how a Swedish organic dairy farm is run so I went for the ride.

Here you can see me with the milking cows. These cows have been wounded or have some kind of health problem and are in a special pen to be monitored. Madeleine and I gave them some love.

This is the lovely lady who owns the organic dairy farm with her husband, and children, who also play a big working role on the farm. I saw them all busy at work herding cows and tending to their needs.

These are some of the little ones. They get two of the buckets of milk you can see in front of them each day and they sure look forward to it when it arrives!

Here you can see Madeleine’s fingers being used as a surrogate nipple. They want to suck milk from everything they can put in their mouths.

This is Madeline Blomberg, my friend and daughter of Lennart and Gunnila, owners of Eleiko Barbell Co. here in Sweden.

She is trained as a dog trainer and loves all animals. You get to see healthy Swedish cows and the kind of healthy Swedish woman they help create too!

The poppies are in bloom here and they are quite stunning. I drew a piece of art last night that was inspired by this photo. I’ll share it another day.

Most of you know that I grew up on a sheep farm on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. We had boarder collies too. They are amazingly fast, intelligent dogs. It was fun to watch them at work herding the cows. You can see the farmer’s dog in action in this video clip.

I finished my day today by getting a massage with Katarina Wickstrom at Spa Harmoni here in Halmstad. This girl did a fantastic job. She worked me deep, yet was skilled with her hands.

I slept through most of the treatment because I’ve been very tired. I was jet lagged when I got here due to the six hour time difference with NYC, where I was for a week; I’d just begun to recover from NYC when I had to come here!

To top it all off, they are close to having their longest day of the year here. The sun didn’t set until about 11:00 PM last night, and tonight, and this morning, I woke up thinking it was about 6:00 AM and the sun was already up. I looked at my clock and it was 3:29 AM. I’ve never seen anything like it. It has a very strange effect on your body and mind!

I’m going to teach my “Equal But Not The Same” workshop tomorrow, and then my one-day workshop on weight training the next day.

We have a great turnout with 42 for tomorrow and 50 the next day, which is a sell-out because we can’t effectively have more than that in the sports center and run the course effectively. The Swedish people are committed learners so it should be a fun day for me both days.

I hope you are enjoying your life each day where ever you are.

If you are having a challenging time for any reason, just remember to look back on your life and you will see that every other challenging day came to pass and, you’ve forgotten about most of them.

Don’t make your day any more challenging than it needs to be because if that becomes a habit, it will ride around with you like skunk-stink ☺.

If you can go to bed at night and forget about it, it’s probably not worth making a fuss about. Our pains teach us how to love ourselves and others better, and after all, what else is there for love to do?

Love and chi,
Over and Out from Sweden,
Paul Chek