December 2017 – Owlnature

The last day of the year, flowers, a book…

Today is the last day of the year 2017. The New Year is here! About the weather again; on Wednesday morning we had again a bit more fresh snow and the sun was shining in the daytime. Thursday and Friday were cloudy days and it was a bit warmer. Yesterday there was a bit more light out there, even some sunlight and it was snowing and the sun was shining by turns in the daytime. Today there was a bit of sunlight again. So, there’s been snow on the ground for three weeks now! 🙂

My hyacinths…

The scent!

As charming as ever…

I bought this amaryllis after Christmas, for half the price. This is my second ever amaryllis plant. The first amaryllis plant I had… exists no more. – The trouble with the bulb plants inside the house… (?) 😮 So, now I’m expecting this plant to just flower for me. 🙂 A bud has begun to open.

And the viola plant is still there in our garden. And it still has fresh flowers! – A few fresh flowers like this one in the pic. This must be sorcery! ;D

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I have started reading this book now, in Finnish. I am finally reading this book. – I have been interested in this book ever since I first read about it somewhere. A fascinating theme, fascinating nature. “What They Feel, How They Communicate. Discoveries from a Secret World.” – From the English book cover.

A bit of sunlight today, on the last day of the year 2017. Happy New Year! 🙂

-Leena

Christmas

Now something about Christmas and some pictures I have taken over the past few days. So, the snow is still on the ground. We’ve had snow on the ground for over two weeks now. – I haven’t stopped believing in magic. 😉 We had sunshine and temperatures below zero degrees Celsius on Sunday and yesterday, on Monday. On Sunday we also had bright stars in the sky at night, but last night, at night, it was a bit warmer again and some water was dripping, but it didn’t melt the snow, not yet. And now, in the daytime, it’s a bit colder again and we even have a tiny, a very tiny bit of fresh snow.

In our living room… from where I watch television. 🙂 Yesterday, for example, I watched two films, both of them for the first time; Beauty and the Beast from this year and The Revenant from the year 2015. Two different films, both to my liking.

So, in short, having good food (or more like feasting…), eating chocolate, watching television, going to a candlelit sauna – some of the nice Christmas traditions…

And having coffee… This was my morning coffee yesterday.

Our little drummer this Christmas has been a woodpecker who’s been drumming somewhere near in the daytime every day now.

The sky was changing fast for some minutes there yesterday, it had some interesting features… I was trying to capture at least something…

And having some more glögi… This, too, was yesterday. I was waiting for my hyacinths to open their flowers. 🙂

Happening today, some of the flowers have begun to open…

-Leena

The shortest day of the year

It is happening now, the shortest day of the year is here. – It starts to get lighter again tomorrow! – As in we have more light again tomorrow! 🙂 Today, here where I’m living the sun rose at 9.44 am and the sun sets at 15.13 pm – the length of the day is 5 h 29 min.

It has been a bit warmer again, and yesterday and at night it even rained a bit, but luckily we had so much snow that it has not all melted yet. – We still have about eight centimetres of snow on the ground. Christmas is just around the corner, and they say that before Christmas we’ll have some light and sunshine, and that it will even snow a bit. So, this year we ought to have at least some snow out there at Christmas, whoa!

Now today’s pics…

First there was almost like some light in the sky… and almost like some blue sky…

Drip, drip…

Almost like some light…

Light, more light…

Still foggy, but lighter, brighter…

As low as it gets… the sun! – Sunshine on the darkest day of the year! There was mist flowing around me in the sunshine. This day was just mistical – light and foggy, misty, magical… Who’s afraid of the dark? 😉

-Leena

Over 20 centimetres of snow & sunshine

This is what happened today: we had temperatures below zero degrees Celsius, sunshine, over 20 centimetres of snow (and still have it) and I took the carpets outside and hoovered the house. – Never stop believing in fairy tales. 😉

Now I just publish these three pictures that I took today while cleaning up the house…..

That shameless sun…

Low…

An efficient day. 🙂

-Leena

Snow, garden birds, swans calling in the darkness, the shortness of the day…

It started to snow here where I’m living late in the evening on Saturday, and on Sunday we had many separate snowfalls. It was a surprise, a very pleasant one, because the snow that we had on Independence Day had already melted away earlier. But it wasn’t that cold – around 0 degrees Celsius and -1 degrees Celsius at the lowest. Yesterday, on Monday, we had eight centimetres of snow and it was a bit colder. Today it has been as cold as yesterday and we have pretty heavy snowfall, as promised. 🙂 It has been snowing all day.

The first four pictures I took yesterday.

A snow cat it was.

One of our rose bushes still had some leaves yesterday. The sun was shining low…

About the length of the day… or about the shortness… Today, here where I’m living, the sun rose at 9.35 AM and the sun sets at 15.14 PM – the length of the day is 5 h 39 min. It starts to get lighter again on Friday next week. 🙂

Now we have two feeding spots for wild birds in our garden. This is the new one. We’ve had great tits, blue tits, sparrows, a couple of blackbirds and a great spotted woodpecker.

I’ve heard swans calling many times lately – I’ve been standing in our garden, in the darkness, and I’ve heard the sounds of swans – they’ve been flying somewhere near and some swans have been honking by/on the lake, I think.

It’s the glögi season again! My glögi last night in the pic above. I’ve already drunk some litres of it this season. It’s delicious and nicely warming.

What is glögi? – I wrote this a year ago: Glögi is a traditional, hot and spiced drink. It’s mainly a Christmas (and pre-Christmas) drink in Finland. It can be translated as mulled wine. However, not all the glögi drinks are like wine – alcoholic drinks – some are, but, actually, we drink a lot of juice glögi in Finland, so… glögi is… glögi in Finland. As a non-alcoholic drink it’s some fruit or berry juice, hot and spiced. This one that I’m having is grape, blackcurrant and blueberry juice, spiced with cinnamon, bitter orange peel, cloves, cardamom and ginger – all the traditional Christmas or winter spices. Glögi can be bought ready-made – that’s probably why the juice glögi is so popular.

The rest of the pictures I took today.

Just love, lovely. A wish for Christmas.

This is some wintry December now, but we do have these changing weather conditions here in the southern part of Finland, so, let’s just enjoy this, for now, for a while… 🙂

At the moment we have almost 20 centimetres of snow on the ground, it definitely is the snow record for this season here where I’m living. And last winter, no, no, we didn’t have this much snow, no… So, “go, go… go outside!”, I must say to myself today. Still more snow coming down all the time now.

-Leena

A blast from the past IV – Writing about nature

Finland is 100 years old today. And I have another blog post for this Independence Day.

It’s December again, so it’s time to do something crazy… 🙂 A year ago I published here in my blog some of my old writings, three of them. They were all creative writing and poems. Now I publish one more text, the name of the text is just simply “Writing about nature“. – About nature, Finnish nature and my home.

The two pictures in this blog post I took in our garden today. The sun was shining so low and bright, warming my face nicely.

So, this was written by me in spring 2002:

Writing about nature

I am highly grateful that I was born near the countryside even though I must admit that I’m occasionally cursing the fact. In the end, I believe it may be some kind of advantage all the same. Living between wheat and rye fields is a peaceful place for being lost in one’s thoughts, which is an essential thing for me. Nonetheless, too much of anything always is too much, no matter how much I love the sense of mud beside the roads around here.

My words probably are not adequate for describing how much I value the four seasons and Finnish nature. Variation between the weather conditions and the colours of nature are something a human being couldn’t live without, in my point of view. When it comes to religious devotion within nature, in a way, nature truly is divine. I find nature a sacred and splendid thing that is the basis of everything.

I go in for walking out-of-doors every day. Walking in the drizzling darkness of autumn or on a starry, wintry evening in January or on a slightly warm late-summer evening are all equally stimulating and relaxing, by natural turns. Nature is the most ideal place to be when trying to listen to oneself and heal one’s peace of mind. Nature loves a human being if one loves her in return.

-Leena

Finland 100 years old tomorrow, a few December pictures…

Tomorrow, on the 6th of December, is the Independence Day and our Finland, our Suomi is 100 years old. Congratulations Finland and thank you! – Onnea Suomi ja kiitos! 🙂

The December full moon, the supermoon on Sunday. Not a perfect picture, but kind of fascinating. The moon was so bright, magical. It lit up our garden. It was so nice that the sky wasn’t all clouds.

The second part of November was a bit more grey, rainy, dark… the fifth season… But we had a bit of sunshine as well. And some snow, too, for the second time this season, but the snow, of course, melted away again after two days.

Sunshine, viola and her pearls, frozen water droplets, in the garden yesterday. This is a strong plant! It still has several flowers like this one in the picture. Never before have we had fresh flowers in the garden in December…

Today again, some snow on viola… It started to snow a bit last night and it has snowed a bit today, they say that it will snow some more tonight and they say that tomorrow we should have some sunshine again, too, but after that… water again, as one might guess… But the most important thing is that we have snow now. 🙂

Hawthorn berries.

And our strawberry patch.

-Leena