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Hear the blackbird sing – spring-like days

On Monday the sun was shining delightfully, it was warm. On Tuesday it was cloudy. And it was already very windy when we were taking our regular walk in the forest trail in the evening. The darkness fell and it started to sleet heavily when we were in the forest. And we naturally couldn’t feel the wind that hard there in the shelter of the forest, but when we came out of the forest, by the lake Pyhäjärvi, the wind felt already so fierce that it was almost incredible. It was a blast! ;D And the wet snow flakes were so huge for a while… Yesterday and today the sun’s been shining again, but it has been windy.

The pictures here I took today in our garden.

I noticed on Monday that one strawflower flower still opens its petals on a sunny day! 🙂 And closes them in the evening. I took this pic at around 8.15am today. And at 10.00 the petals were opening…

After I had taken the pic above, I started to really listen to the singing of birds, they were singing everywhere… Suddenly I recognized the distinctive voice of the blackbird! It is an enchanting sound of spring here in Finland!

Hmm…

The strawflower flower opened by 12.30pm. How beautiful! 🙂

The snow’s been melting all the time now…

Under our biggest pine tree.

It’s 4 degrees Celsius in the shade, but they say that it feels like -2, and it does – the wind is cold. But in the sunshine, it’s wonderfully warm there…

-Leena

It is coming! – Spring is almost here…

It’s March… quite nice, almost incredible! Lately we’ve had snow and sunshine, grey days, temperatures below freezing and wet snow… everything. And we just may have been hit by the biggest snowfall for this winter earlier this week as well – here in southern Finland we sometimes have this too-much-snow-too-late-it-should-have-been-at-Christmas -thing… But yes, this week’s snow, too, has already been melting. No one’s stopping spring! 🙂

The first 13 pictures I took today, the last two are from last night.

Moss magic at the summer flower bed…

Backyard pine trees.

A clover flower…

A strawflower flower… power. 😉

An annual mallow flower…

…and another…

…a few more…

Perhaps I should plant annual mallow seeds, too, in many places in the garden this spring – then there would be some lace all around the garden in wintertime, how nice would that be? 😀

Double sun… 😉

An Egyptian friend…

At the potato field…

Even though the days may be warm, the nights can be a bit cold:

“I adjusted the thermostat so that it will be a bit warmer in here… is that okay…?”

“Purr… nice! I’m telling you…”
Our radiator tiger. 🙂

-Leena

Snowy, snowy – a wintry month…

It’s already March next week! But, there’s still some time to enjoy snow and… ahem, some winter pics. 🙂

The first five pics I took yesterday.

It’s been a nice winter week. First we had one night of raining… WATER, but it didn’t melt all the snow, and after that night it started to snow, and now it’s been snowing with the temperatures being moderate and nice winter temperatures; between 0 and about -10 degrees Celsius, and some days the sun has been shining delightfully as well. And the sun is warming a bit, loving us…

But no, we haven’t had, like, heaps of snow this winter – we’ve just had freaking cold weather at times. So, in these pics here now is to be seen our snow record for this winter… Yeah well, it’s been snowing a bit today as well, but… you get the picture, I believe. 🙂

Okay, still some time to take winter coffee pics…

The sturdy clarkia or godetia flowers, too, still standing. I’ll plant clarkia seeds this spring as well, but this time, in many places in the garden.

Blue sky, love…

The next two pics I took on the day before yesterday.

One of those snowfalls it was. And this was at 17:45 PM – a huge increase in the number of daylight hours: on the 16th of December I wrote that the sunset was at 15:12 PM here where I’m living, and the length of the day was 5 hours 31 minutes. Today the sun sets at 17:47 PM and the length of the day is 10 hours 5 minutes – twice the energy already! 🙂

And the rest of the pics are again from yesterday.

Taller than the trees…? 😉

At the strawflowers again…

And this pic I took through a car window as we were travelling to Turku. This was at about 16:30 PM – not long ago it was completely dark at that hour! 🙂

-Leena

Amaryllis blooming again

My amaryllis today:

She really did it! 🙂

The bud was so thin that I thought that there would be only one flower and I believed that the flower would be tiny and poor, but… wow! There’s already two big flowers, and too new buds as well.

I wonder if this now is the last time my amaryllis has flowers… 😮 And it had three leaves growing, but one of them (the shortest one) has now turned brown, and it’s not even dry, just rotten… As I said before; I’m not at all confident…

But yes, this now… As majestic as ever…

It’s been freezing cold again and there’s still snow. But the sun’s been shining and it truly is warming nicely during the daytime! And it’s so bright…

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2017 in Finland – Pihabongaus 2017

I took part in the national birdwatch 2017, Pihabongaus 2017, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January. It’s not a competition and anyone can do it – the idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. We are just identifying birds, counting them and enjoying ourselves. It takes one hour. And it doesn’t matter if one doesn’t see any birds or if one only hears them – that’s interesting, too. Only hearing the birds is delightful – that’s my experience. 🙂 Last winter 18 000 people took part in the event, it’s interesting to hear how many people this winter.

Okay, I was enjoying myself and I was freezing! 😀 The sun was shining but the wind was cold. I was thinking about my cardigan before I went outside, but I didn’t take it with me. But my toes were soon freezing too, and I had woollen socks…

Yes, but, my actual results… I heard a concert! 😀 Birds were singing all around me as they always do in and around our garden, but I didn’t see the singers. I recognized the voices of magpies, great tits and blue tits. There were also some other tiny birds singing, but I didn’t recognize them. But yes, I actually saw a couple of ravens! They flew above me, croaking as they went. 🙂

We have this feeding spot for birds, hanging from a garden lamp post. We’ve seen many great tits and blue tits there, but not today…
And it’s occasionally been so warm lately that the snow’s been melting fast…

“So, you count the birds once a year? Cool! I do it every day.”

And this happened yesterday. The pine trees were steaming. It always looks rather interesting. 🙂 Yeah, with the temperatures going up and down constantly lately it’s good to let some steam off…

-Leena

Waiting for spring…

…aren’t we all…? In my opinion, all the four seasons are amazing and phenomenal. I’m equally excited about them all! That’s how I feel. 🙂 They all come and go… Beautiful, different… power…!

The first four pics I took today.

We’ve had delightful sunny days! But at one point it was a bit too warm… here in the southern part of Finland it was warmer than in many parts in Spain – in wintertime, in the middle of the night! 😮 But we’ve had snow all the time now.

Some days water is dripping… some days birds are singing – spring really is drawing near!

Dreaming of expanding our growing field again…

Okay, it was on January 2nd that I started planning it all… spring… garden… I didn’t do it on purpose on that day, so it was a bit funny to notice what I already was thinking about.

And the strawflowers are still there! Standing, and with their petals. They are so tough. I’ll plant strawflower seeds everywhere in our garden this year! 😀

An ice lantern again, a week ago was this. We’ve had four or five ice lanterns this winter, clear or pink as this, too, again was.

Ice light… And by now the daylight has increased wonderfully! 🙂

-Leena

It’s been winter

When it’s freezing cold, the sun is shining. When the temperature goes up, there will be clouds. It’s -3 degrees Celsius today, and was already yesterday, when I took these pics.

By the frozen lake Pyhäjärvi…

On the ice, there was a cool breeze…

Don’t you worry… it’s only winter here now, like… in Moominvalley…? 🙂

This tiger of ours likes to warm himself up beside a warm radiator in our living room. He sleeps there beside the radiator, or looks out of the window warming up his front paws. His sister doesn’t do that.

“I’ll just have my ass on it… If anyone tries to turn down the thermostat, I’ll have the time to have my say…”

Making magic, when it’s freezing cold – an ice lantern! – Below freezing temperatures, a bucket and water. And, for example, some beetroot water (from a beetroot jar), too, if you wish to have a pink ice lantern, like this one in our garden now. 🙂

-Leena