nature – Page 19 – Owlnature

By the home rapids, a couple of peony buds & a petunia flower

I took some pics again by our home rapids, the Kauttuankoski rapids, yesterday evening when we visited it. Here is my previous blog post about the rapids.

The Kauttuankoski rapids and so many faces… In the previous blog post I was mostly on the other side of the rapids, in this post I’m on the opposite side, and a bit further, too.

Some evening light already in these pics, but the nights are so light now, too, this time of the year in Finland – in southern Finland as well, but it’s a whole different story in northern Finland these days – it’s so much lighter there at night, and in the northernmost point of the country, the sun doesn’t set at all… Magicall… 😉

The ruins of an old mill on the right.

Water flows under the ruins, too

There are some very old trees. I tried to take pics of the massive trunks, but these pics can’t exactly tell how big these lovely trees really are. And they are mossy from the other side. Like in a fairytale. 🙂

From the bridge.

The wind is still blowing like crazy, but I managed to take a pic of our petunia. I love this colour combination! (More pics of this later, hopefully.)

I tried to take pics of our mountain cornflowers, too, for this blog post, but the wind was too much. 😀

And a couple of peony buds. On our front yard in the pic above and on the back yard in the pic below.

-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

By the home river… rapids

I took some pics when we visited our home river, the river Eurajoki and its rapids, the Kauttuankoski rapids in the municipality of Eura today. The best thing is that this spectacular rapids area is our home rapids. 🙂

The Kauttuankoski rapids has so many faces. I could only capture some of them during the moments we were there…

There’s an old stone bridge.

The source of the river Eurajoki is the lake Pyhäjärvi and it ends into the Bothnian Sea.

The sound of the wide rapids is very powerful. And the air is nicely fresh rapids air there. 🙂

There are ruins of an old mill. You can actually go inside the ruins – we didn’t know that before. I have one pic from there at the end of this blog post.

There are many rocks you can climb to, I took this pic on the top of one.

And mossy stones are always so lovely… fairy-tale like. 🙂

A couple of pics I took on the bridge.

Inside the ruins of the mill, it doesn’t have any roof.

The rapids area is a nice and charming place to visit in all the four seasons…

-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

Nordic walking and a power coffee pause

Yesterday late in the evening, after the cuckoo ( 🙂 ) we went for a walk in a forest nearby. Nordic walking, with the poles. It didn’t rain, but it was cloudy and the air was fresh. The forest surrounding the trail was dense, birds were singing and a raven was croaking. Delightful. I took this pic a bit after 22 pm.

Nordic walking is power! And a nice coffee pause in the forest adds even more power to it. Pack your backpack! 🙂

-Leena

I saw a cuckoo bird!

I don’t have any pics of this, but this was such a special event that it must be mentioned here in my blog… I saw a cuckoo bird for the first time in my life. The cuckoo in Finland is the common cuckoo or European cuckoo. It flew to the woods next to our garden.

Over the past few summers (that we have lived in this house) we have heard a cuckoo bird’s wonderful voice here coming from somewhere close. I’ve been missing the voice lately – I already thought that a cuckoo bird will not come here this year at all… but it came with a show! 🙂

-Leena

Rainy day pics

But first one pic from yesterday:

I was playing a surgeon, a seed potato surgeon – you have to be very cautious when you’re taking the seed potatoes out of the net bag packing, because the shoots get so easily detached from the potatoes and then they will not give you any food… or the food will be very slow… 🙂

So yesterday we made our potato field. It was actually hard work… as it always is with garden… hard, but so nice and therapeutic. 🙂 I took this pic today, as well as the rest of the pics in this blog post.

A rainy day, fresh air and expecting it to be even greener after some rain. It hasn’t rained for days, weeks, at least for a bit more than two weeks it has been dry. Now we don’t have to use the tap water to water everything growing in the garden. Have to be grateful. 🙂

OK, I don’t know how to keep up with the rhubarb…

These, some fern, we have many, the previous owners of this house have planted them. I’m not sure, but the current man of this house may have planted some, too.

Just some of our fern…

This geometric flower plantation is a man made. 😉

-Leena