Miscellaneous – to one’s heart’s content – Page 10

Nice days

There was no snow at Christmas – it was raining! – Water! Christmas Eve really was the only day that’s been a rainy day lately, but… yeah, well, there’s nothing unusual about that – we are actually accustomed to exactly that kind of a situation in southern Finland and on the west coast… In the central parts of the country, and naturally, in Lapland, they usually have snow at Christmas, and this year was no exception. Okay, in northern Finland and in Lapland they always have snow at Christmas and in winter. 🙂 Yeah, but, the weather here didn’t affect the Christmas spirit! I must admit that I actually stayed inside the whole Christmas Eve… because it’s what’s inside that counts… 😉

Okay, this was today, this is actually already the second day that we have snow here now – it started to snow right after the Boxing Day – how convenient! (Yes, that’s happened before as well…) But okay, we’ve had some sunshine lately, before today, too. It’s warming nicely, a bit. And the days are getting longer all the time now!

Aaand now some flower power! – There’s no Christmas without it!

We, too, have a poinsettia – the traditional and well-loved Christmas flower or plant.

My favourite colour of poinsettias is red – the traditional and Christmassy red… cosy – the favourite colour of these flowers has always been red in my family. 🙂

And even more Christmas flowers…

…my first ever Amaryllis is opening her bud! Hopefully I get to take more pics of this plant…

—

“I don’t think I’m able to, and I don’t believe I’m, like, ready, to do it now, right now… But… if you just bear with me for a moment…” :

“…it will happen… soon… any minute now… wait for it, juuust wait for it…!”

“Okay, the ball’s in your court now. Noticed?”

🙂

-Leena

Hyacinths – favourite flowers this time of the year & have some glögi

Hyacinths are traditional, popular and well-loved Christmas plants or flowers in Finland. And they have been my favourites ever since my childhood.

It’s the scent! The lovely and nostalgic scent of the Christmastime! The hyacinth in these pics is my first hyacinth for this year. The adorable scent started to appear on Tuesday. 🙂

Naturally the look of hyacinths is charming and lovable, too…

…many tiny flowers, and some colour yellow as well! 🙂

The flowers speak for themselves…

And it’s the time for glögi! :

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. 🙂

I think there will be still more glögi and hyacinths in my blog and on my Instagram over the next few weeks… 🙂

-Leena

December’s here and today Finland 99 years – thank you!

About the weather lately… 🙂 It’s been rather interesting… On Friday 25th November we had snow the whole day, then at night… water… on Saturday 26th, no snow, but again on Sunday 27th, snow on the ground the whole day. And after that, many snowy days – a little bit of snow, not like heaps of it… Buuut again yesterday, on Monday 5th December, and today as well, no snow. But it’s cold!

This was on Saturday. There’s been many sunny days, too, the last days of November were sunny as well, so bye bye fifth season! 🙂

By the way, I’ve been using our, mine and Owlnature’s, Instagram (owlnatureleena) – my intention is to take more pics to my Instagram – I mean, more often than I’ve taken before. I’ll still have everything important (and less important) here in Owlnature, but some additional fun (? :)), too, on Instagram…

This was yesterday…

Coffee owl… my morning coffee today. Happy Independence Day! – Today, on 6th December, is the Independence Day in Finland. – 99 years! Thank you! 🙂

A sunny day today! When I was taking these four pics, the sun was already on the treetops.

Morning coffee magic…

“Okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do everything, every thing, but, you know… :

…one mustn’t rush these things… or to be more specific; one mustn’t rush a thing… Did you know…?”

🙂

-Leena

No-snow November – it’s what’s inside…

There’s no snow out there anymore. All melted… came as no surprise. It’s the fifth season now – November.

The first two pics I took on our regular walk on Tuesday this week.

Going down… loving the spruce trees and all.

By the lake Pyhäjärvi… the lake is not that frozen anymore. It was already getting a bit dark as I took this pic, and it was so foggy that one was not able to quite see…

…yeah, that’s November – sometimes one just can’t see… or what one sees, is all the shades of grey or brown… This is the season in which one needs all the candles and campfires, and Christmas or winter lights that one possibly can have. But what’s the most crucial thing; one has to have the light within oneself… what truly matters is one’s heart, soul, mind… The mind is everything!

This pic I took before the walk. I was sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling some rye bread.

Some bright November moss in our garden. Moss. Magic.

What is that? – Some natural light and blue sky in sight? Today. That was fast. But it happened. 😀

Yes, some natural light outside is very nice indeed, but… you know…

“Eeevery little hamster…”

“…knows that it’s what’s inside…”

“…that counts.”

? 🙂

-Leena

Take it spooky or take it easy…

October is turning into November… it’s spooky time! I love spooky. I love horror films, and so on, and I love the darkness and silence here in the countryside… in the dead of night – it can feel creepy when you are alone out there… 🙂

Time to scare your own ghosts… 😉 I came across these kind of tissue ghosts on We Heart It and thought that they would be just perfect ones to make for this time of the year, for Halloween time. Just string, tissues and a pen – everything readily available at home. These ghosts are now hanging on our kitchen window.

We have had a couple of delightful, sunny days lately, on Saturday and today. The following pics I took on Saturday.

The white viola flower still there. 🙂

It’s still warm in the sunshine. I took this pic as I was sitting on the garden bench… first I had my morning coffee there, then, a bit later, my breakfast, and again, a bit later, I had my camera with me there.

Already waiting for snow, a bit. 🙂

A lantern outside again, late in the evening.

Frost in the morning, today.

“Follow the spiders.” ( – If you want to find anything… in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. )

We found some fluffy balls and wires in the grocery store, for making some spiders. 🙂

What happened…?

“Just take it easy, will you?”:

“I hope she understood what I was trying to say… Zzz…”:

-Leena

Dark & cold, cosy fires & lights, and creating dream home

The campfire owl here again… 🙂 We’ve had already many campfires in our garden this autumn, too, but I usually just relax and enjoy them without my camera or my phone, but on Friday, late in the evening, I had the inspiration for taking some pics, too. (A pic on my Instagram (owlnatureleena) as well.)

Campfires in the garden are a part of my, our, dream home…

So, we have lived in this house for almost two and a half years now. But I still had one part of my belongings in Turku – as I was going on and on here in my blog last summer. 🙂 But since the end of August it has been only this, our country home, for me… and I love it! But this has been quite far from my (or our) dream home; almost everything, every thing, is in the wrong place here inside our home, only like the bookshelf and drawers are in the right spots, there are many untidy and disorganized spots in our home, and partly, naturally, because I brought so many things and pieces of furniture from Turku as well, and so on, and so on… Creating our dream home here now is not about renovating (we have done that, too – more about it later, in some other blog posts, too) and creating our dream home is not, heaven forbid, about buying anything, oh dear… yes, maybe buying some new candles and even more houseplants, but nothing more now… Creating our dream home is now about organizing, tidying up and cleaning up our home – it’s “a bit” of chaos here now… and almost all of our large windows still are without curtains, just window blinds are there… But yes, the only way to start the project for me was, first emptying, then cleaning and organizing, our garage, which definitely is not a place for our car, but for other useful things. 😉

And when we had some room for big items in the garage after rearranging, we removed a big pile of long wooden boards from the middle of our kitchen – they were taking over one third of the floor space there, so we didn’t have a kitchen table and chairs there for a year and a half, or so. (We were renovating some ceilings and walls…)

I now have a tag creating dream home here in my blog, so I’ll be posting, with pics, too, about the project here and there…

Morning coffee yesterday. And a satsuma! It’s the season of Spanish satsumas again! So juicy and delicious, and cheap. 🙂

Under the oak tree…

The strawflowers again! 😀 And they are still opening and closing their rustling petals, with the days and nights…

Yesterday evening, now this was in my dream kitchen. 😉 – Finally the big pile of long wooden boards is out and the kitchen table and the chairs are there! And the table and the chairs are the ones I had already in Turku. 🙂 I’ve been dreaming of candlelights in the dark evenings in the kitchen… warm and cosy… And the light of the warm oven can be seen in the pic, too – I was waiting for home-made thin and crisp barley breads to become ready.

Living candlelights in lanterns outside in the dark… and this lantern can also be seen from the kitchen window when sitting at the table. 🙂

One more pic of the Friday evening’s campfire to end this blog post… and to celebrate the dark and cold, bewitching evenings and nights! 😉

-Leena

October, October, October

I was eagerly waiting for October already at the beginning of September this autumn. – I was just so ready for everything autumnal; for colourful leaves, and… no leaves at all, dark evenings, campfires, cold nights, (campfires), the cool, crisp air on a sunny autumn day, raking, steaming hot coffee, tea, hot chocolate, glögi… outside in the crisp air, gloves, scarves and knit hats or pipos as we call knit hats in Finnish, I love the Finnish word pipo – it’s just perfect for the item. 🙂 And I was ready to start creating our dream home, here, in our home. – About this project more later, and some pics, too, when anything is ready… ;D

October 1st. I tried to make a flower crown with the natural spring and summer flowers that still were blooming in our garden, there were not that many of them anymore… 🙂 After taking this pic 12 swans flew over me, honking as they went.

October 2nd, pic above and pic below. A foggy morning. In the pic above our big Norway Maple.

This was at around 10 AM and after a moment it started to clear up… and all of a sudden the sun was shining in the clear blue sky!

Oh my… Oh, my new rubber boots! And the old ones, too! 😀 I took this pic as I was wearing my new rubber boots for the first time on Thursday last week. I just finally had to buy new rubber boots as my old ones had been leaking, both of them, already for over a year, now they are almost completely cracked – I’ve been storing them with care, but I’ve been wearing them A LOT here in countryside, even in sunny weather, because they are so comfortable. 🙂

The next eight pics are from Friday last week.

Our Norway Maple in sunshine.

Whatever happened to our sunflowers? Well, our biggest sunflower for this year is in the pic above… and I love it! 😀 And the tiny spider was feeling the same way! Okay, this year we know that the pre-growing of sunflowers has to be started earlier. 🙂

And these… I still don’t remember what these flowers are called. They are summer flowers grown from seed in summer. Very tough flowers – they are still there in our garden today – cosmos flowers already got frostbitten, badly. EDIT: This flower is clarkia or godetia, silkkikukka in Finnish. Thanks for the answer, A! 🙂

Pot marigolds or calendulas are sturdy autumn flowers as well. Still there.

In our backyard, a smaller Norway Maple and its friends: three pine trees, a rowan and two junipers.

On a bridge above the Kauttuankoski rapids, going for a walk, at around 7 PM, it was about to get dark soon.

The bridge down there, in the pic above. The lamp posts were already lit. And the lovely scent of dry leaves around everywhere…

In our front yard today. Who’s raking? – Me! When the time is right. 😉

And the strawflowers are still standing there with their rustling petals today!

-Leena