~November reign

November, the fifth season, has been grey, brown, black… And then it started to really rain. But yesterday finally: SNOW! (The ‘third snow’ for this season.)

So now some November snapshots:

And then I was like...
And then I was like…

This was three weeks ago, after our ‘second snow’ for this season had melted. I truly loved our Jack-O’-Lantern, he was a very expressive guy. 😀

November

Still learning archery… I lost one of my arrows last summer. I shot it towards the woods and it got lost in the greenery. I think that the guy who cut the many tiny rowan trees there the other week found it and… this is how I found the arrow. Thanks! 🙂

November

By the lake Pyhäjärvi near our home on Wednesday this week. Well, that’s kinda light blue…

On Thursday:

November

Umm, our greenhouse in November. So I love all the seasons. But… meh now already… And it has been a bit difficult to get up in the morning lately. This late November thing…

November
Winter is coming
Winter is coming.

This was three weeks ago, almost right after my previous blog post. I looked out the window and saw this tiny insect flying outside and jumping on the snow there. Winter came for the tiny creature…

November

Yesterday morning, this was a lovely surprise – I heard the rain still pour down at night! And they say that the weather will now stay a bit wintry at least for a while…

November

Yesterday afternoon.

November

I’m reading Moominvalley in November for the second time. I read it for the first time many years ago when I still lived in Turku. The book was a bit odd experience to me – I was reading it and all the time I was waiting for the book to begin, so to speak, and… then I suddenly had just read the whole book. I don’t know what it was, but all the Moomin books are just great, I have now read them all and I love them, and I did like the November book already earlier, I love the language and so on, but something ‘made me waiting’… So now I must read this November book again so that I can see if I now get the nuances a bit better, or something, because I’m altogether a better person now. Well, no… But Now that I’m reading it again, I can say that I follow the book a bit better. And of course I like it a lot, and I like RuttuvaariGrandpa Grumble. 🙂

Today:

November

A pleasant morning…

November

Also because… I was watching cross-country skiing again. The Cross-Country World Cup started for this season already yesterday, here in Finland, in Northern Finland, in Ruka, in Kuusamo, one of my favourite places in the world. 🙂

November

And then sunshine! And our juhannusruusu – ‘Finnish Midsummer rose‘ bush again. This bush was loaded with white flowers in summer, but I don’t think I have any pictures of it, oh dear oh dear…

November
November

Blue sky! Haven’t seen that for a while.

The day is short; the length of the day today, here where I’m living, is 6 h 13 min.

November

A hare it was.

November

The sun was gently warming my face…

November
  • 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

Autumn? And pears, grapes, flowers…

So it’s officially autumn in Finland. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

I was travelling in Eastern Finland with my boyfriend for two weeks, and I will have some pics from there here in my blog a bit later. I have most of the pics on my phone (and there are for example pics of our plums on my phone, too) and I have to find a way to get all the pics to my computer (I have no idea what I’m doing… ;D ) But I did post a few pictures on my Instagram (owlnatureleena). We even saw a tiny bit of Russia. 😀 – Where the country begins, so to speak.

hill Kipari, lake Keyritty, Rautavaara, Northern Savonia, Finland

So now only one pic from the trip. This was on a hill Kipari in the municipality of Rautavaara, in the region of Northern SavoniaPohjois-Savo. The name of the lake is Keyritty. We stayed in Rautavaara. Such a lovely place.

pears

The first ever pears from our garden! I didn’t have time to take pics of our small pear tree when it had all the pears, but I took a pic of the pears on a plate – all the pears had fallen down from the tree during our trip, they were ripe, and I just picked them from the ground. They were delicious! I made jam.

grapes

This year we have grapes, too! I took all these pictures of our grapes yesterday. We had a very little amount of grapes two years ago, but now we have quite a lot, well, relatively lot. They, too, taste so sweet…

grapes
grapes
grapes
grapes
grape vine

The grape vine itself.

The rest of the pictures I took today:

I’m still very much immersed in my reading hobby. Now I’m even reading how to get organized, so this is getting pretty serious. ;p

sunflowers

We have a small patch of lovely little sunflowers. They are grown from our last winter’s bird seeds.

sunflowers
purple coneflower

And echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower charm…

purple coneflower

This is my “I’m about to finish this blog post” coffee in our greenhouse, with some tomatoes. 🙂

Hmm, in general, I feel like I have tons of things to do now, but it’s just nice, I guess… 😀

summer flower bed in September

The summer flower bed…

summer flowers in September
  • Leena

Cherries, cucumbers, one bat, flowers (& friends)…

Just making some lists… :p

Okay, this is the first time ever that we have cherries in our garden.

cherries

The small cherry tree had 11 flowers and a few cherries. That was so nice!

cherries

The young bush cherry had many many flowers, and many cherries, too. And there are still fruits ripening in the bush. I didn’t know what to expect. 😀 Love them!

cucumbers

The first ever ‘open-field’ cucumbers from our garden.

cucumbers, open field

And there’s more growing, this was yesterday. I planted only one plant, one stem, this stem in the pic. Just a delicious experiment…

cucumbers, greenhouse

Cucumbers in our greenhouse. Greenhouse cucumbers grow really well and are so delicious! We’ve already had several.

cucumber, greenhouse

Two pics that I took yesterday evening when I closed the windows and the door in the greenhouse:

cucumber, greenhouse

More cucumbers growing…

cucumber, greenhouse

I wonder if these tiny ones will still grow…

We saw a bat, the first bat here for this year, on 30th July late in the evening. It was flying, flapping in our garden and in the woods.

Some flower pics that I took in our garden yesterday:

clematis flowers

Clematis, by the oak tree.

clematis flowers
tricolor daisy

Tricolor daisy and a friend.

garden rose

Garden rose and a friend.

garden rose
red flax

Red flax and a friend. Friends everywhere in the garden in August. 🙂

lily

Lily

lily
sunflower

Sunflower

sunflower

They come in August.

Good morning today:

good morning, clarkia amoena, godetia

With clarkia amoena or godetia flowers…

clarkia amoena, godetia
clarkia amoena, godetia

And a busy friend here as well. 🙂

clarkia amoena, godetia

A little bit of rain and then sunshine again. It’s nice when it rains a bit, it has been rather dry all summer again.

I Have to go to the library today and I should wash the car…

  • Leena

“Marco!” – “Polo!”

The summer is moving on… This summer hasn’t been as hot as last summer here in Finland, but we’ve had a few fairly short hot periods this year, too. This week it was hotter than ever in many places in Europe and in a few places in Finland as well. Here where I’m living it was 32 degrees Celsius on Sunday. Yesterday it was only 23 degrees Celsius and today 16 degrees, in the daytime – last night it was around 11 degrees Celsius. That was fast.

This summer, thus far, I have been enjoying nature and gardening, naturally. 🙂 And I have been using my Instagram (owlnatureleena) a bit. I have been reading a lot. During June and July I have read 14 books and finished reading two books (I had read half of both of them earlier) and I’m about to finish reading yet another book, so this has definitely been a lot for me. And, naturally, I have a Goodreads account (leenannih) to keep track of books. 😀

Now some summer snapshots:

summer - kesä

A young hare in the forest. I love hares and rabbits. I had a rabbit when I was a child.

summer - kesä

Sheep here in our home village. They were baaing so much, they were just funny and adorable.

summer - kesä

We found some cloudberries in a forest we had never been before, about 20 kilometres from our home. The berries were so delicious. And we can’t remember finding this gold here in the southern part of Finland before!

summer - kesä

And there were quite many small blue butterflies flying in the forest, pretty magical… These two were on a rock by a small lake there.

summer - kesä
~”Did you say ‘itsy bitsy’…?”

A spider on our terrace. There were a few of these guys there one evening. They, too, are just lovely.

summer - kesä

I’ve tried to take pics of our summer flower bed. Last year we didn’t plant any seeds here, so there was only weed here a year ago. And this year we finally had the possibility to add a lot of compost to the soil thanks to the year-round composter we have.

summer - kesä
summer - kesä

The last three pics I took today:

summer - kesä
summer - kesä

The summer hasn’t ended yet…

summer - kesä

And now just one picture that I took in our greenhouse today as well:

summer - kesä
  • Leena

The colour green

Everything has started to turn green! 🙂 It has been a sunny week again. And it has been warm – around 20 degrees Celsius and even a bit above 20 degrees it has been, in the daytime. Today it’s around 15 degrees Celsius, and they say that it stays that way now. That’s also more normal for us this time of year…

Now a woodcock has started its regular flights here again: “orr, orr, orr, pist!”

The first four pictures I took today:

April

My coffee, and they are chives… down there. Chives have been growing fast now – they are perennials – were planted here a year ago. They are so delicious! And after a long winter again…..

April

Grass is growing…

April

And nettles are growing. It’s nice to sit on the ground and eat tiny, delicious nettle leaves…

April

Where’s my snow…? ;D

April

Tiny birch leaves!

April

Crocus flowers on Tuesday this week.

April

A pic from yesterday evening. I mark the spots of our ‘surprise’ crocuses so that we won’t step on them before they grow.

By the way, I’ve been posting on my Instagram (owlnatureleena) as well, so trying to have balance between my blog and my Instagram. Well, I’m not actually trying, it has just been flowing naturally, or something… 😀

And today again:

April

One of our vegetable patches. Last year we had potatoes here, this year something else… We started planting this patch yesterday, and planted onions and peas now first.

April

The first daffodil or narcissus flower blooming on the ground in our garden.

Oh, greenery…

  • Leena

Around the moon… or Easter…

Spring, spring, Easter. It has been a sunny week. And it has been warmer again – a bit over 10 degrees Celsius, and even warmer than that – around 15 degrees Celsius it has been, too. We have seen coltsfoot flowers. And we have seen flies, mosquitoes, bees and butterflies – signs of summer…

April

The Ibiza lizard, always covered in snow a bit…? 🙂 Well, in wintertime… and this was a bit over a week ago on Friday.

April

For the moon… The moon, a full moon on Saturday, at around 1.00 am. I was ~mooning around in our garden…

A picture that I took yesterday:

April

The first flowers on the ground in our garden are crocus flowers. We have those everywhere in the garden. They are lovely surprises also because we can’t remember all the spots where we have planted them. 🙂

The rest of the pictures I took today:

April

My coffee and friends…

April

Just a few pictures of crocus flowers now… And also daffodil stems and tulip stems have started to grow on the ground.

April

‘A walk-in closet’ in the corner of the terrace – that’s the short description of our first ever greenhouse, here. 🙂

  • Leena