outdoor hobbies – Page 3

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

Mushrooms

I absolutely love mushrooms! And mushroom hunting. Self-picked mushrooms and self-prepared food with them are something totally different from the canned mushrooms that we meet on pizzas, for example… – No wonder many people believe that they don’t like mushrooms at all… 🙂

And probably we all know how dangerous mushrooms can be – that is a fact indeed! We, me and my boyfriend, got our first facts on mushroom hunting, and bolete mushrooms or porcini mushrooms in particular, when we were mushroom hunting for the first time, with my boyfriend’s father in Eastern Finland. After that we have used a mushroom guide book and the internet, both. 🙂

This blog post of mine is not a proper guide to these two types of mushrooms that I have in the pics below, so don’t eat mushrooms based only on knowledge you get from here! – I’m just having a bit of fun with mushrooms here in this blog post, with a little bit of information! 🙂

The first five pics I took on our front yard on Friday.

We have numerous shaggy ink caps on our front yard every year. They have their own special place there. 🙂 Shaggy ink caps are quite charming and funny mushrooms; they have many phases when it comes to their appearance.

First they are just white, short and chubby ‘trunks’. Then they grow to be tall and thin mushrooms with a proper cap, which then starts to melt away, to dissolve, to drip down, as black liquid or ‘ink’.

These mushrooms are edible when they are very young and white, that mushroom in the pic above is already too old. We have never eaten these, but they say, these are quite good edible mushrooms when they are young.

This ‘ink’ of shaggy ink caps actually was used as ink in days of old. 🙂

Ink dried up?

The rest of the pics I took on Saturday night, after a walk in the forest. – We came out of the forest with our hands full of woolly milkcaps.

Fluffy mushrooms! Cute and delightful! 🙂

Woolly milkcaps are fully edible, but they must be boiled, and they must be boiled longer than some other mushrooms. Woolly milkcaps must be boiled about 20-30 minutes. The taste of raw woolly milkcaps is strongly bitter and raw woolly milkcaps don’t agree with one’s stomach, at all. Cooking, boiling and rinsing the mushrooms removes the poison from them. The taste of woolly milkcaps after boiling them is very delicious! We cooked a creamy sauce with these.

Mushrooms always have funny and cunning names. In Finnish, for example, this woolly milkcap has two names – other one of them is karvalaukku – fur bag, literally. 🙂

-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

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

Hail, sleet, sunshine… and these growing in the garden right now

But first one pic from Thursday… we had like ‘forgotten’ all about our Nordic walking poles, but on Thursday we felt the need…

…the need for speed. 😉 In the forests here at home. Hopefully there will be some more pics and stories about my Nordic walking here in my blog later on. I mean, that I will now continue this hobby of mine…

So the weather has been a bit on the weird side lately; it’s been hailing and sleeting, but there’s been a lot of sunshine, too – even at the same instant – for example yesterday, it was hailing heavily and the sun was shining at the same time, I even ate one of the tiny snow balls yesterday, but today, is it summer yet…? No, today it’s been sleeting, again, but the sun’s been shining, too. Clearly, the summer is coming to Finland. 😉

Dandelion greens – food! (Not weed… 🙂 ) I already started the nettle tasting season. Yummies, let us eat more nettles and dandelions – the buds and flowers, too, later on, here in my blog…

A garden bunny is a happy bunny.

Just one pic of the whole narcissus plant we have in the flower pot…

In our garden there’s narcissus growing from the ground, too. Here’s some of them. They have bigger flowers and also some different colours in the flowers. The previous owners of this house have planted them. Thank you!

Rhubarb, coming through! We’re used to having a rhubarb overflow, had to cut some of them down last summer. The previous owners of this house have planted these, too. Thanks! 🙂

The peonies! Here’s some of my growing darlings. Aand, the previous owners of this house have planted these as well. And I am so thankful! 🙂 Peonies are my great favourites.

-Leena

Finding stars – with a planisphere

To begin with, this is actually not my very own planisphere or star chart. This is my Christmas present for my boyfriend who last autumn said that he would like to learn how to navigate by the stars.

Well, I would like to learn something about it, too, now that there’s a planisphere in the house. 🙂 We’re both still on the learning curve with this, but I can say this is a fun and useful hobby, and a cheap hobby, even a free hobby, once you’ve got your planisphere. I ordered this one from the Ursa Astronomical Association in Finland.

Match the date and time.

The planisphere should be held above your head so that it’s like the stars above you. And in the pic there’s the bright moon as it was yesterday at 21:22. 🙂 (The planisphere wasn’t properly positioned as I was taking the pic.) I was standing in the light of our garden lamp post, but they say that the best light to read the planisphere in, is actually red light, because the red light doesn’t interfere with your night vision.

-Leena