nature – Page 12 – Owlnature

At the cabin in Kuusamo I

I travelled to our (my parents’) cabin last week. The cabin is located in Kuusamo, in Koillismaa region in northern Finland. It is, naturally, one of my favourite places on earth. It took 12 hours and 10 minutes to travel there by car through the western and middle parts of Finland, and 11 hours to travel back home through the eastern and middle parts of Finland. – It’s always a long journey. But truly worth the travel! 🙂

I have pictures for two blog posts. I took all the pictures in this blog post at our cabin, in the woods, by the lake.

The stars were still on the ground there in the north! – Chickweed wintergreen flower or arctic starflower flower. These flowered already a month ago in our home woods here in the south. It was so nice to see these flowers again, for the second time this year! 🙂

And lilacs were also flowering there! – It was very nice indeed to travel there in the town and to look out of the car window, and admire the bushes for the second time this summer…

The nights naturally were lighter up there in the north as well. Today, for example, the length of the day is 17 hours and 2 minutes here where I’m living and in Kuusamo it is 18 hours and 33 minutes.

Northern Finland. – The land of reindeer, too! Reindeer is a regular visitor in our cabin woods as well. Or actually, the animals live there and I’m the one visiting our cabin. ;D This guy came back many times during the daytime there.

Heeere we go!

See you!

The days were warm up there during my visit, around 20 degrees Celsius and a bit above.

Black-throated diver or arctic loon was calling there on the lake. The voice is just haunting: “Kwee-kow, kwee-kow, kwee-kow…!” – very far-carrying and wonderful! And, like, moving… it makes you feel that you are somewhere special. The voice of the clear lakeland. 🙂

Some of the tall and old trees in the cabin woods… And the scent of labrador tea or wild rosemary was very intense and lovely…

There’s also a creek flowing. In our woods, like here in the picture above, the flowing of the creek is very slow, but the sound of the fast flowing of the creek can actually be heard, and it can be heard really well, in our cabin yard. Two years ago I went and searched the source of the sound with my boyfriend, and we managed to find it – some parts of it – the woods and the land there were really bushy. 🙂

Beard lichen or beard moss in the trees means that the air is clean! We, too, have a lot of it everywhere in the cabin woods.

A treasure – a cloudberry, still unripe – too bad. 🙂 The gold in the forests – cloudberries – are valuable delicacies. We would have some ripening in our cabin woods right now… buuut I’m here at home now…

The second blog post about my visit to Kuusamo coming a bit later.

-Leena

Pictures yesterday and today

More peony flowers…

Follow the red petals! :

It was the peony flower that is the first peony flower who is dropping her petals this summer.

And we grow spinach from seeds in our garden. I made spinach soup. It’s delicious! 🙂 – Spinach, milk, some cream, a bit of butter, a bit of oat flour, a bit of salt.

Other herbs are growing from seeds with the basil in our garden, in the shelter of the house wall. There’s summer savory and rosemary, and then there’s some fourth herb – I can’t remember what it is… I must think about that a bit now… 🙂

We’ve now noticed that our grafted cherry tree has started to grow a branch on its own! High up there.

And a bit more roses in our rose garden… Rosa splendens in the pictures… the name of the rose is valamonruusu in Finnish.

And peony flowers again, because…

Bury your face in this – flower therapy. 🙂

By the lake Köyliönjärvi yesterday evening.

Love for the countryside. In the same place by the lake, where I left our car for the visit.

-Leena

More flowers, one new tree, a hedgehog…

July flowers… German iris is now flowering for the first time in our garden! We brought our German iris from Eastern Finland with us two years ago, my boyfriend’s mother gave it to us.

I read somewhere that when German iris is taken to a new spot it will flower again on the second year that it is on the new spot. And this indeed is exactly what happened to our German iris – it didn’t flower last year, it only had the green leaves. But now… and the colour of the flowers was a surprise to me – I remembered that they would be white… 🙂

Daylily, very short blooming, such a lovely scent… We’ve had many many daylilies flowering now in July, in the place where we put some of the leftovers in our garden… I’m not sure but I think that daylilies may be the ones that were growing already in the beginning of April there, at least these have been the only big flowers growing there this summer.

A bit of rose garden in the pictures above and below.

Rosa splendens, valamonruusu is the name of this rose in Finnish. The scent of roses…

And a cherry tree. We’ve had this new tree in our garden already since the beginning of June. A nice, fairly tall pole is this tree.

This tree is grafted and it should be self-pollinating. And it naturally hasn’t bloomed this year. Now just waiting… 🙂

Siberian iris flowering now as well. These came with us and the German iris from Eastern Finland two years ago, too, but these were flowering already a year ago. And they bloomed already in June last year – this year everything is a little late.

Purple-flowering raspberry blooming again, too.

This very busy little friend was like rolling there inside this tiny flower…

My words are failing me now… the first peony flowers are here! More pictures coming… luxurious days in the garden now… 😉

The first peony poppy flowers are blooming, but not in our garden, not yet. – We’ve managed to plant peony poppy seeds just outside our front yard and our driveway as well. 🙂

Basil growing from seeds in our garden, in the shelter of the house wall.

We’ve had yet another late night visitor in our garden, now a hedgehog. Hedgehogs in Finland are European hedgehogs. We gave the little friend a tiny bit of cat food. The hedgehog searches for food constantly sniffing the ground and the sniffing is very loud. An adorable creature. It likes worms very much.

By the lake Pyhäjärvi last night, 23.15 PM. It was a rainy day yesterday. I was a night driver and this was a lovely spot to stop by for a while. It was very foggy, one couldn’t see the opposite shore, the air felt very warm, it was easy to breathe, it was silent with only the light sound of the small waves… I need to be a night driver more often! 🙂

-Leena

More summer, bats again, the longest day of the year 2017…

So today is the longest day of the year 2017. Here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.52 AM, and the sun sets at 23.13 PM – the length of the day is 19 hours 20 minutes.

The bats have now been here for the fourth time. Or, we have seen them here four times now, in the woods next to our garden and flying close above our heads in the garden. Nice and delightful! 🙂 They were here on Sunday again. They always come just before twelve o’clock at night. On that night we also saw a whole rainbow here, although it hadn’t even rained. It was the first whole rainbow that we’ve seen from our garden.

The black woodpeckers have also been frequent visitors in the woods next to our garden. One really notices when they come – they have the loud and long flight call “klee-yee” when they enter the woods.

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village on Saturday. I was standing on a dock as I took this pic.

Lilac and the big Norway maple beside our driveway once more.

White lilac flowers in the garden as well. We have loads of purple or lilac lilac flowers in big bushes, but only a few white in a small bush. I must say that the purple truly is my favourite lilac anyway… But these white flowers are charming, too, and it wouldn’t be the same without these adding up to it in our garden.

A few more of red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden.

We found this lovely spot by the river Pyhäjoki in the municipality of Säkylä on Sunday.

Welcome to the countryside! 🙂 With this pic, too, and on Sunday as well. By the river Eurajoki in the municipality of Eura.

Oregano and sage. These two green friends are a bit different in the way that we, who usually grow herbs and everything from seeds, have bought them fully-grown – at half the price at the local grocery store. These are grown in Finland, which we naturally really appreciate. And these aren’t the usual herb pots that you can buy at the grocery stores in wintertime, these are for summer gardening outside… hmm, just to be specific, not that it should make much of a difference…(?) 🙂 But yeah, these for the garden actually are bigger, sturdier… And we have re-potted these, for better growth.

Grow some lettuce, lettuce wants to grow for you! 🙂

By our strawberry field today. There are surprisingly many strawberry flowers and strawberries growing already.

The first fully opened centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet flower in the garden today.

And our park lilacs or Hungarian lilacs have started to open their flowers now as well. There seem to be many more flowers in the bushes now than a year ago.

-Leena

Bats here again, lilac flowers & other flowers, light summer nights, lovely scents all around…

We had one really rainy day, it was, like, more than 24 hours of rain here where we are living between Monday and Tuesday this week. Everything is so green and colourful out there now. And the scent of the summer is charming and fresh…

And the bats have been here again. – We have seen them here already three times now! 🙂 In the woods next to our garden and in our garden, and flying close above our heads. They were here for the third time last night. And we heard the cuckoo calling at the same time as well, the cuckoo’s been calling somewhere near here every day now, really around the clock. 😀

Lily of the Valley flowers now everywhere, in our garden as well. The scent of the flowers is one of my favourite scents in nature.

Lily of the Valley is the national flower of Finland. Lily of the Valley is called kielo in Finnish.

A week ago the lilac flowers were starting to open and the apple trees were still flowering…

Starry forest ground in the woods beside our garden after 23.45 PM a week ago. Chickweed wintergreen flowers or arctic starflower flowers. – The stars are not in the sky in Finland now, they are in forests, on the ground level, because of the light summer nights.

Today, here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.53 AM, and the sun sets at 23.11 PM, the length of the day is 19 hours 18 minutes, and the darkest hours of the day are not that dark either… the special weeks up here… 🙂

I met this very busy friend at the fly honeysuckle tree in the back of our garden…

Our fly honeysuckle looks old, we’ve thought…

Lilac flowers! My darlings! 😀 Oh, the scent in the garden now… Okay, I’d better go outside, soon…

I took these pictures on Wednesday.

On our regular walk – in the raven forest near our home. A raven feather, one of them – there are always many of them there on the ground in the summertime. And the noble and funny ravens are croaking there… 🙂

And after the walk, more lilac flowers, in the evening light:

Under the lilac flowers, in the pictures above and below.

Lilac and the big Norway maple in our driveway.

Red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden now as well.

These feet, duck feet, or what are they… Hmm, that’s tropaeolum majus or garden nasturtium or Indian cress growing. Something to admire and eat…

We’ve planted numerous seeds… flowers, food, everything. I’ll take pictures and write about everything here, when it’s the time… And if something doesn’t grow, I’ll think about it here as well. 🙂

-Leena

Summer flowers, little friends, eating brain mushrooms…

Finally we have had the rain that the garden, nature and we people needed… now we have had two rainy days, the first one last week after that blog post of mine, and today is the second rainy day. The cooler air also returned for a day or two last week – especially Friday was a ridiculously cold day… Now it’s been all summery again.

One narcissus or daffodil flower was a home for this little guy for two days. This spider really stayed here for two days, but when the cold Friday came, he was presumably off to some warmer place. 🙂

Some rockfoil flowers in our garden, not many, but they are beauties.

Our plum tree has been blooming, now the flowers have already started to disappear. Last year the tree was in bloom already on May 23rd, and there was well over a hundred flowers, but this year… I actually didn’t count them, but I think 20 flowers (or fewer?), definitely not many more than 20… so let’s see what happens… 🙂

High up…

These brainy friends… highly toxic friends… We got some brain mushrooms from Eastern Finland. Brain mushroom, gyromitra esculenta, false morel… These are real delicacies in Finland. Quite unique taste! But very dangerous, deadly, before boiling them at least two times. And most of the poison disappears during the boiling – up in the air, so one has to make sure that the house is ventilated well – we, for example, opened a door and two windows. We ate the first part of our brain mushrooms – cooked them with just cream and a bit of salt, and ate them with potatoes. Excellent food! We still have those mushrooms for two meals in the freezer. In Finnish this brain mushroom is called korvasieni – ear mushroom. 🙂

Okay, I never knew until now that we have this fairly tiny bird cherry tree in the back of our garden. I just found it. And I found it blooming! It’s in a spot where, umm… many different things grow. So, yeah, we still have that sort of spots in our garden. 😀

Good morning! Forget-me-nots in the back of our garden again, by the ditch… My favourite small flowers!

In German, Spanish and English the name of the flower means the same: Vergissmeinnicht – nomeolvides – forget-me-not. But in Finnish the name is lemmikki, literally pet or darling, and the name can also be understood: “a flower of love“. 🙂

Apple flowers now…

But who’s here?

A ladybird or ladybug is here! The first one for me this year. 🙂

The first chickweed wintergreen flower or arctic starflower flower this year, in the back of our garden…

Globeflower blooming in the front yard. We have these also in two other places in our garden, in the backyard.

One of my favourite perennials…

-Leena

Bats seen here, new garden potato field, apple tree flower buds…

It’s been pretty summery now. But still no rain here where we are living – the rain that the garden and nature need now… They say that this afternoon it will rain here… *waiting*. 🙂 It’s now light green around out there everywhere as everything is growing, and in many places some bushes and trees are loaded with white flowers, for example bird cherry trees are in flower now, lovely scent…

This was my project on Thursday and Friday evenings last week; I made a new potato field in our garden. I dug it through the lawn, so to speak, using that garden hoe in the picture. The hoe is my favourite gardening tool, it’s so useful and comfortable to use! And I also used a shovel and, naturally, my bare hands – my bare hands are my other favourite gardening tools – I never use gardening gloves, they are only in the way, a disturbance, and I want to and need to feel the earth in my hands – I’ve gone crazy in that way… 😉 It’s earthing… Body, mind, spirit…

So I dug the new potato field all by myself, one part of the field was already ready; it was our strawberry field before – luckily, because it was hard work that digging. I also had some… theoretical help… ‘someman‘ was helping me to measure the size of the field and telling me where to put the seed potatoes. And when I was taking a short break, drinking some water inside the house, someone who had just gone outside offered me some practical help – this is what I found when I came back outside and to the potato field:

“No, you should do it like this!” – ‘somemeow‘ had moved some seed potatoes that were already placed on the soil, evenly spaced… 🙂

When the potato field was ready on Friday, late in the evening, it was time to go to sauna, with the first fresh birch leaves for this spring or summer… some more earthing… I wrote about sauna earthing already last year, here.
This year the birch leaves are still tiny, because the spring was so slow, but they are so wonderfully fresh and sticky, and naturally, the scent is heavenly. I took again a real bath with the birch leaves: I rubbed the leaves against my skin, buried my face into the leaves, hit myself with the twigs… Stay closer to nature, feel closer to nature, be a bit witchy! 😉

This year we seem to have only four narcissus or daffodil flowers – leaves of this plant we have in all the spots that we have narcissus plants in the garden, but only four flowers, two in one spot and two in another spot. They, too, are late, but they are here…

We’ve heard the calls of cuckoo bird somewhere near here every day now.

On Sunday, after 23.30 PM, when we were having a campfire in our garden, we had some visitors – bats! Three bats! It was a big surprise. We’ve seen bats before, but not here in our garden and not so close. It was the first warmer night with more mosquitoes here this year. All of a sudden the bats dashed and flapped into the woods beside our garden and into our garden as well, they flew all around here; into our garden, back into the woods, back into our garden… This continued for some time. And they flew also close above our heads every time they flapped into our garden. So close, and they were so cute! 🙂 I thought that bats avoid people, but no, they don’t… It was amazing! – I’ve hoped that we would see bats here in our land, and now we now that it can happen…

The apple trees have small flower buds now. They are late as well. A year ago the flowering had already ended!

-Leena