The first butterflies and a ladybird in March (and other stories)

April

You just never hear the end of it.

April
April

So what it´s been for many weeks now: First everything was normal, and then… The shit and the fan and toilet paper, don´t-wanna-go-to-the-library, washing the skin off your hands, social distancing, self-isolation, sleet and hail, too much news, anxiety, sunshine and pretty warm weather, coltsfoot flowers, snow and sleet, too much news, plants growing, cold weather, snow, anxiety and fear, flies, must-go-to-the-grocery-store-anxiety, washing the skin off your hands, stress, butterflies, a ladybug and bumble bees, hope, snow and too much news, sleet, wind, hail, sunshine, hope, Very windy weather every day, pretty warm weather for two days, sunshine, hailing like crazy (every day), sunshine, The fear of False Hope…

April

So the crocus leaves, daffodil leaves and tulip leaves started to emerge in March, usually we see them later in April and in May. We did not have permanent snow cover this year…..

April

Crocus flower buds in April. By the way, I haven´t been taking too many pictures lately, but there´s at least some snapshots in this blog post now anyway.

And so, just for the record: I saw the first butterflies, brimstone butterflies, on March 25th, the first coltsfoot flowers on April 6th, the first hepatica flowers on April 17th and the first wood anemone flowers on April 28th.

April

April snows…

March

The first ladybird here this year, outside our greenhouse in late March when we had some warmer days. We usually see the first butterflies and bumble bees here later in April and ladybirds maybe in May.

April

A squirrel it was in April. We have seen the busy guy here many times. 🙂

April

´Gaining ground´… We both did this, and I couldn´t raise my hands for a while after using this machine. Those muscles. 😀 (And those solar panels work for the garden shed.)

April

I had sunglasses on me, it was nice and warm, it was not windy, it was pretty silent, only birds were singing, butterflies were flying in the woods – it looked like a fairy tale, I was sitting on the garden bench and I was leaning against the wall of our house, I felt like I was in another planet… And then it occurred to me: “This must be the feeling… So many people go to a foreign country… to feel this…” …

April

I started washing the greenhouse. It was great fun!

April

Well, lots of things to do at home, Everything in the house and outside, in the garden, in the greenhouse, the yard, the garden shed… By the way, the last time I posted something on my Instagram was on December 6th, I think. – Just saying this to myself…

The greenest guy in the house, the green huntsman spider again, this was in our living room in late March. We saw him often!

Pics today:

April

We have and have had pretty many crocus flowers this year, a bit hear and there in the garden, it was so cold that these were not open yet at the time of my morning coffee in the middle of the day. It was sleeting a bit again yesterday.

Okay, my boyfriend just said: “It just sleeted again, but now the sun is shining.” So it sleeted today again, I didn´t notice, I don´t have time for everything. 😀 Wait… now I see it… or something – it´s hailing, and the sun is shining at the same time. Springy!

April

The first daffodil flowers…

April

by the woods… 🙂

April

And of course we have these glory of the snow… flowers.

Leena

Heard the blackbird sing

It is a sign of spring! – We heard the blackbird sing for the first time this year here on Monday evening this week. It sounded like magic. 🙂

Swans, too, have been loud, by the lake, lately. We usually hear them in the evening and/or at night. Yesterday for example they were quiet in the evening, but at around 2 am then, they were very loud again.

The first five pics on Thursday:

March

Morning! It had been snowing / sleeting just a bit again…

March
March

That did not last long, it was +5 degrees Celsius again in the afternoon:

March

The little oak tree still has some of its leaves.

March

Yesterday, on Friday:

March

No snow good morning!

March

But it was windy again in the daytime.

March

Garden campfire in the evening. We have had campfires in the garden lately as we have been building the garden shed…

March

And late in the evening it suddenly started to snow when I was standing by the fire. It was Real cold winter snow, and for a while it came down like here in the pic above.

Today:

March

It´s still -1 degrees Celsius, and it´s (enough) windy again as well.

garden shed

The shed. Plank by plank… We have been building this garden shed, now there´s the roof and the walls. This has been a lot of work and fun. 🙂

March
March
March

Snow, eww… 😉

March

Little birds are singing loud everywhere…

March
  • Leena

Snow again

It snowed yesterday evening and at night. So this is ‘the second snow’ for this season here where I’m living. But they say that it will Rain tomorrow… and on Sunday… Well, because taking pics is a good and an efficient way to enjoy snow now, I took pics in our garden today:

November

Coffee and contemplation… (-I’m a big fan of Stranger Things, too…) I saw this pic and it made me wonder why our terrace fence is sh*tty… 🙂

November

Well, this was yesterday evening here in our home village, it had already been snowing a bit.

November

Snowed…

"Oh no, not again!"

“Oh no, not again!” ? 🙂

November

Juhannusruusu – ‘Finnish Midsummer rose‘ bush.

November

And books I just started reading… The House at Pooh Corner and Visit Sunny Chernobyl: And Other Adventures in the World’s Most Polluted Places. Interesting things…

November

Summer’s flowers, winter beauties…

November
November

Raspberry leaves.

November

The House at Pooh Corner‘ occurred to me because… We are building this garden shed in one corner of our garden, hmm…

November

Tiny oak trees… Now we can really see them. 🙂 They grew from acorns in the summer this year.

  • Leena

Tomatoes, a pumpkin, sweet corn, building a garden shed, KonMari (don’t ask…;))

The first four pics I took today:

October

An autumnal sunflower bowing beside our porch. Dignified, charming…

October

A bit bleak today.

October
October

There are still a few small marigold flowers in the summer flower bed.

Hello!

Harvestman…? That’s funny. 🙂 This guy was waiting for us beside our front door when we came back from grocery store yesterday.

October harvest

This picture I took today. I emptied our greenhouse yesterday evening. The things we can eat… Tomatoes, tomatoes, and some of them are still ripening here in our kitchen now. When we planted the tomato plants we used seeds from Finnish greenhouse tomatoes that we bought in grocery store last winter. And The Pumpkin, our only pumpkin this year. I already had a picture of it on my Instagram (owlnatureleena)…

sweet corn sweet

This was a bit over two weeks ago. We harvested our sweet corn. Well, we get some seeds for next year again. 🙂 We also ate a good amount of ‘baby corns’ raw out there while harvesting, they tasted so… sweet!

The next two pics I took today:

October

Some sweet corn plant decoration in the garden now.

October

Purple coneflower in October… I love this colour, too!

hmm

This was last week. We are building a garden shed.

The rest of the pics I took today:

love painting

I love painting! This is the floor of the shed.

October

I honestly still don’t know what this bush is called…

So KonMari, the method of tidying up. Up! I read the book (had already a pic of the book here in my blog…) and I watched the Netflix series, and I liked them both a lot, and I like her. So it was time to start organizing The Mess. 😀 Here in our house. We just finally need to organize and tidy our home up, also for some empty spaces, and some places here need to be more reachable, so to speak, and so on. And just simply… for cleaning up. Now I’ve already done my clothes and our bookshelf. I find the KonMari method very helpful and inspiring. 🙂

A bit of our bookshelf now… Finally it’s presentable! More pics later…? ;D

October

It’s our big Norway Maple

October
Who’s raking?

Things and stuff to do, these among other things. What’s enough? Hmm…

  • Leena