lake Pyhäjärvi – Page 5

On the last day of July and on the first day of August…

More pics from yesterday, and some I took today. 🙂

Monkshood, extremely poisonous from roots to the tiny hoods, and we have so much of it in our garden – this is a very traditional plant in the old gardens in Finland. The man who build this house was very much a garden man, we’ve heard, so, no wonder – the fact can be seen in our garden today…

Some sort of marigold, very small marigold.

We can’t remember what this flower is… I’ve tried to google it, but no luck with that. EDIT: This flower is clarkia or godetia, silkkikukka in Finnish. Thanks for the answer, A! 🙂

More pics of my cornflowers. Many charming colours they have…

The first cosmos flower this summer, opened today, missing one petal. I had cosmos flowers last summer, too. These are growing from seeds, of course, and I like them a lot. 🙂

Butterfly flower, schizanthus, poor man’s orchid again…

And strawflowers again. Here it can be seen that our tall strawflowers and the shorter butterfly flowers as well as tiny marigolds are tight neighbours. 😀

Yesterday evening by the lake Pyhäjärvi, after some Nordic walking and eating blueberries again. It was so nice to sit on a bench – the air was perfect, not at all warm, not at all cold. The sun was shining, but wasn’t warming, and the wind was blowing wonderfully. 🙂 And the sound of waves, just lovely…

A campfire in our garden last night. It can be said that this was my birthday campfire – it was not only the last day of July yesterday, but also my birthday (and by the way, the birthday of Harry Potter —> WTF? -Oh yes, says a Harry Potter fan (that’s me) here, aaand, it was also the birthday of J.K. Rowling herself. 😀 ) And… how old am I…? I’m actually a bit younger than Harry Potter… ;D Just a bit…

-Leena

Blueberry gold, the next peony poppy, the very last peony flower

We’ve been doing quite a lot of Nordic walking, but I don’t always take pics of it… On Thursday I took a pic – I tried to demonstrate what we’ve been doing quite a lot lately; Nordic walking and during that activity picking and eating blueberries, too (isn’t that a healthy and pleasant combination 😉 ) in the forest where one of our favourite walking trails goes.

The starting and ending point of the trail is by the lake Pyhäjärvi, I took this pic after our walk – trying to get some of my blueberry fingers, too, in the pic. 😀 This previous blog post about Nordic walking was from the same forest, our raven forest near our home. We just love it! – There’s always a raven or many ravens croaking. Once we heard, and saw, many many ravens. We tried to count them; there was at least 15 if not over 20 ravens dashing, flying and croaking. Amazing it was. Ravens are both funny and noble birds. 🙂

A muffin again yesterday evening… We’re lucky enough to have a lot of wild blueberries in our back garden, too. Yesterday evening we made some blueberry muffins. Muffins of gluten free flour; whole grain oat flour. Oat is the best! 🙂 So delicious and healthy. And traditionally Finnish!

Two pics of the next peony poppy flower today. This, too, is one of my ‘wild poppies’. This was hit with rain – yesterday, heavily…

And the very last peony flower – just had to take pics today… Yesterday I was hoping that this would survive the rain and grow bigger…

…so that I could cut it for drying today. And that was what I already did, because I thought the flower is big enough to cut, to save, now. The other peonies that I cut for drying earlier, are still doing (drying) just fine. 🙂

-Leena

A tar kiln, a muffin, flowers… miscellaneous yesterday and today

It all starts with a couple of pics of peony flowers. 🙂 (Peonies earlier here and here.)

Yesterday evening and a summer tradition in the village of Sydänmaa in the municipality of Säkylä, here in Satakunta region: a tar kiln – the real making of tar in a traditional method. The tradition of making tar has its roots in the 1600s in Säkylä. This annual four day (& night) event has been created by skillful local volunteers for 20 years. Yesterday the tar kiln was set on fire, I took these pics right after the blaze started.

Such a nice event and nice memories again! And the fire from the big tar kiln is so hot, I already started sweating as I was taking these pics. 😀

And from the tar kiln we came back home to make some muffins. These are made of gluten free flour; a mix of buckwheat, potato flakes, ground linseed and psyllium. And dark chocolate and banana. We have made different kinds of good gluten free muffins before, this was again something different. 🙂

And again flowers in our garden. This is some sort of phacelia, I don’t know how to say it better in English. In Finnish this is called kellohunajakukka. Lovely flowers and so charming the colour blue! Fairy-tale like. The seeds of these flowers were, by the way, planted by a man. 🙂

Maiden pink. I planted the seeds. 🙂 It’s said that this is one of the most red wild flowers in Finland, if not the reddest. Actually it looks very striking with the colour partly being screaming neon red. Maybe I try to take more pics of this, too, later… This flower can be planted or wild in Finland, but it is, unfortunately, near threatened in the wild.

And today we stopped by the lake Pyhäjärvi…

-Leena

Mountain cornflowers, petunia and their friends

Yesterday’s flower pics.

Centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet. These, too, are flowers that we have on many different spots in our garden, thank you, the previous owners of this house! I like these. 🙂

The tiny yellow flowers on the background are meadow buttercups, very wild in our garden… 🙂

More petunia pics. Now the lovely colour combination can be seen a bit better…

In the same pot with the petunia is another flower, too. It was there when we got this, and I don’t know what this flower is, haven’t found the answer. I call it the white crown flower…

…or the white flower crown…

EDIT: The answer came to me in a garden store, I saw these flowers there with a name tag. 🙂 This is verbena, rautayrtti in Finnish.

Red campion or red catchfly. A bit wild in our garden as well. And a bit everywhere, for example around the rapids.

On Friday by the lake Pyhäjärvi. It was raining a bit as I took this pic.

-Leena

Early summer in full swing

So now the first blog post here in Owlnature when it’s already officially summer. 🙂 The summer has advanced very quickly in nature and in garden this year. I feel that it’s all been much quicker than a year ago… I mean, the apple flowers for example – it was like a *imagine some sound of magic here* and they were all gone, just as quickly as they came…

First a pic from yesterday… I was sitting on a swing and almost didn’t take a pic at all, but some… magic made me grab my camera, and I’m glad I did! – It was a nice moment to sit on a tire swing by our lake Pyhäjärvi here in Satakunta region.

A moment by the lake Köyliönjärvi over a week ago.

The rest of the pics of this post are from last week.

Globeflowers in our garden. The previous owners of this house have planted these in different spots in the garden. Thanks! One of my favourite perennials.

About the weather lately… last week was hot, but then it became cold – well, you have to have the decent balance of weather here in Finland. 🙂 Yesterday was very nice and today, too, the sun is shining warmly, but the wind is blowing like crazy.

The rest of the pics of this post are pics of lilacs. The first two pics are taken of the lilac bush by the big Norway maple beside our driveway. The lilac flowers, too, are something that seem to like come and go a bit too quickly this summer… but luckily there’s still some time to enjoy the lovely scent of the flowers.

The man who build this house has planted lilacs in three different spots in the garden, and these are only the common lilacs – there are also two bushes of different types of lilacs in our garden, I think they are called park lilacs or Hungarian lilacs and it’s so nice that they bloom a bit later, after the common lilac flowers are already gone…

I somehow always find it a bit difficult to take pics of the lilac flowers, I’m never totally satisfied with my lilac pics. But I encourage and advise everyone, including myself, to take it easy and not to stress about something like the pics, and taking pics, too much. I promote enjoyment and living in the moment, without camera, too! Even when you have a website or a blog! 😀 The right people will enjoy and laugh with you in this life anyway…

Another lilac bush beside the apple trees in the garden.

OK, and now I don’t know what to say anymore… 🙂

Our third lilac bush is beside the woods and a bit under the bush somehow is one of our composts, too. And there are also white lilac flowers, so there are actually two bushes in one. Our other lilac bushes have only violet flowers.

So, still some time to enjoy…

-Leena

Rainwater, birch leaves, sauna earthing…

It was time to go to sauna again yesterday evening. And it was the first time that we had fresh birch twigs in sauna this spring. And I had some rainwater, too…

I was lucky enough to get the last rainwater that fell from the sky yesterday before the sun started to show up. 🙂 I love having some fresh rainwater in sauna, I actually should have it there just a little more often. Skin and hair likes it. And you feel so much closer to nature when you use water from the sky. More reviving, calming, relaxing… so delightful. It’s the feeling, too! 🙂 And rainwater saves you money. And water, for the world as well.

Oh, the scent of the fresh birch leaves in sauna! And the feeling, as with the rainwater. And the fresh leaves, too, are good for your skin. I love taking a real bath: rubbing some leaves against my skin, having some leaves on my face, burying my face into the leaves, smelling them… hitting myself with the twigs a bit – that’s what we Finns always do… And it’s all heavenly, healthy, also good for your blood circulation. If there’s some insect poop there in the leaves, despite rinsing them, it doesn’t matter, I mean, because you’re a witch anyway! 😉

I also had some more earthing (getting some good energy from the ground), walking from the sauna barefoot on the cold grass. And one of our two cats, the black with white markings, came to goof around, too. 🙂

The place where we got our birch twigs yesterday. An abandoned railway near our home.

And we stopped by the lake Pyhäjärvi on a rainy day, last Sunday. Under an alder tree and its leaves, catkins and cones.

-Leena

Narcissus flowers, small grape hyacinth, Norway Maple in flower…

One positively overwhelmed nature and garden blogger here again, hi! 🙂

Yesterday we stopped by the lake Pyhäjärvi…

And yesterday the first narcissus or daffodil flowers opened. The narcissus blooming with pure yellow flowers is lovely, but these different shades are so welcomed… The previous owners of this house have planted these next to the woods.