outdoors – Page 5

Spring waving from a distance…

…and spring is ‘throwing it right at you’ – snow, hail and shine, too! And it has been a bit colder again.

The first five pictures I took in our garden on Sunday. Sunday – funday: first the sun was shining, then some dark clouds started to appear in the sky, and then the sun was shining and it was snowing at the same time, and after that it was just cloudy and it was snowing, and then again clouds were going away and the sun was shining again, and after that again; dark clouds were appearing in the sky and the sun was shining and it started to snow at the same time… – This pattern continued all day.

And at one point it was hailing as well. The sun was still shining on the right-hand side when I took the picture above.

Spring says hello…

So there’s that…

I know what triggers you.

Solar power.

Three pictures that I took yesterday:

Coffee pic… Just to tell that the sun wasn’t exactly shining, but the scent of the coffee was wonderful, and that it was snowing yesterday, too.

And a bit later… Nordic walking in the forest. Ravens were croaking there, and it was snowing a bit.

purple coneflower & daisy, March — Echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower (bigger leaves) and daisy.

Purple coneflower and daisy growing in our kitchen…

And pictures that I took today:

Having coffee again today. ;D And the sun is shining.

My dwarf spruce was completely buried under snow, now she’s back. 🙂

I am about to finish reading this book, Sofian maailma – Sophie’s World – A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder. It’s a great book! And a great adventure. And it’s a bit heavy book – there was a week I couldn’t read it, I couldn’t hold the book in my hands, because it was too heavy for my shingles…

Leena

Marching

It’s March! – Well, that was fast… Ready for spring? – Maybe. 🙂

The first pictures in this blog post I took on Thursday. We visited The Botanic Garden of the University of Turku, in the Ruissalo island, in the city of Turku (our former home!). That was so nice. I took only a few pictures, but here’s something green anyway:

The jungle welcomes you.

And something yellow… There were lemons!

And bananas! Okay, bananas were my favourites and I already have a picture of these on my Instagram. You don’t always see bananas there.

This is what I always call a trunk with attitude. 🙂 A kapok tree. And are those… taro leaves…?

And a few pictures that I took today:

..That’s the place to sit, whenever the sun is shining.

Snow, snow… and the composter in our garden ‘exploded’, a bit.

Coffee… and yes, this is what I’m doing right now, and have been doing lately – I’ve been watching cross-country skiing again. 🙂 This time it has been, of course, the Nordic World Ski Championships in Seefeld in Tirol, Austria.

Leena

Just a short report…

…and a few pictures that I took today.

First we had more snow and then it was snowing, and then it was snowing again… We had around half a metre of snow here where I’m living. And it was cold. And then it was warmer. And then it was raining… a lot! And then snowing again a bit and the sun’s been shining lately as well, and it’s been a bit warmer again, and the days are much longer… And it’s been very slippery. So all this… Well, business as usual. We still have over 20 centimetres of snow on the ground. And I got shingles about a week ago (it’s pain in the back…) – whatever does that predict…? But it’s beginning to feel a bit like spring outside. And I’m not ready for spring yet, yikes! 😮 ( 🙂 )

This is the third stem of my amaryllis. This had four flowers. The stem grew super tall, the four flowers opened and the plant fell down. I had to cut the stem and put it into a vase.

As there is nothing more to report now, let’s have another moose video… Again in my boyfriend’s forest, or this is the field in the video, the camera is in the forest.

Leena

The national birdwatch 2019 in Finland (& pics today)

On Saturday, yesterday, I took part in the national birdwatch again, the national birdwatch 2019, Pihabongaus 2019, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. It was my fourth time now and I was standing and walking in our garden again. As usual, I had a good time and I was freezing at the end of the event even though I had warm clothes on. 🙂 But it was only -9 degrees Celsius, they said that it felt like -14 degrees, during my birdwatch hour.

So, I saw… a lot of snow and it was snowing a bit, too. Well, as always, I heard many little birds singing, singing in the trees, but I didn’t see that many birds. I recognized the voices of great tits and blue tits and crows. And I saw a magpie, a great spotted woodpecker, a few great tits and I heard and saw a flock of tree sparrows as well. The great spotted woodpecker was pecking at a pine tree and it was nice to watch it with binoculars. One great tit came to perform a solo in front of me, that was funny.

So that was what happened. 🙂

And just a few pictures that I took in our garden today:

We have around 30 centimetres of snow here where I’m living. I suspect that we have more than 30 centimetres… It’s been snowing like every day now – sometimes more, sometimes just a little bit. And they say that it will still be snowing.

The sky is blue!

…and at night the snow is still blue, too. 😉 This was bad after 1.30 am today.

Leena

Some more outdoor hobbies

The first picture I took on Sunday:

Archery! Getting to know archery, learning archery, actually shooting an arrow from a bow… I’ve wanted to do this for many years, we both have, my boyfriend and I, but we started this only just before Christmas. It looks easy, but when I had the bow in my hands for the first time, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand, which way to hold it… That was funny.

Now we just shoot arrows in our garden, without a target stand, but we’re thinking of building a target stand to my boyfriend’s field for example. We have a lot to learn, but it’s so nice to learn and to finally do something that one has been admiring for a long time. Yay! 🙂

We had the super blood wolf moon – superverisusikuu in Finnish, early in the morning on Monday, yesterday. I set my alarm clock for 6.25. When I woke up first I looked out of the window with my still sleepy eyes and saw a shiny edge of the moon and thought to myself “good, not cloudy…”, then I went outside and my eyes were still a bit blurry, but I could see that the moon was already turning red. I looked through binoculars and suddenly my eyes were wide open: “this is really happening!” – No clouds this time. I even had time to make coffee and then enjoy my coffee watching the total lunar eclipse. My coffee was hot, but I was freezing a bit at the end of the event, because it was around -20 degrees Celsius.

Morning coffee today…

It was cold last night, well under -20 degrees Celsius. Now, in the afternoon, it’s -10 degrees Celsius and it’s snowing.

Leena

And then there was more…

…snow. It has been snowing again. Right now we have 25 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living.

First pictures that I took yesterday.

It snowed quite a lot in the evening on Wednesday and at night between Wednesday and yesterday. And then the sun was shining yesterday, before it started snowing a bit again.

Do not leave even footprints…? 🙂

Step into… This is the time for cross-country skiing!

Coffee yesterday, and the book is a fairy tale about Lapland, Sampo Lappalainen by Zachris Topelius (1818-1898). Topelius wrote the fairy tale in 1860. The drawings in this book, from the year 1983, are by Hannu Lukkarinen.

And pictures that I took today:

Just morning coffee…

It’s been snowing today as well. And they say that this wintry weather will continue now – snow, cold weather, sunshine, snowing…

And the sun’s been shining, too, today… And after that it already snowed a bit again…

I started to clear snow from our terrace yesterday and continued today…

Leena

Strange how familiar – more about January

It was sunny and it was windy on Friday, and a lot of snow fell from the wintry trees that we had… We had some sunshine yesterday, too, but today, now it’s already snowing a bit, and they say that it will continue to snow. – Now that is what I really like! Right now, because it’s January! 🙂

Late in the afternoon on Friday.

The next four pictures I took already on Saturday a week ago:

Never before have we seen so many deer tracks in our yard. – We have seen deer tracks often in our garden this winter. The animals are night-time wanderers, but we saw a ‘herd’ of three deer once, early in the morning, and a couple of deer in the daytime.

On Saturday a week ago there were many deer tracks in our yard, first I thought there had been two deer, but then I kept finding new tracks, and it looked like there had been at least three deer. Well, that was our strawberry patch in the pic above – that was the first time that deer had actually been doing something in our garden – digging and eating and it looked like one had been lying down there. Deer oh deer…

Some prints and tracks that I found:

deer hoof print, cat paw print in snow — A **deer hoof print** and a **cat paw print**.

A deer hoof print and a cat paw print side by side. – A nice coincidence. 🙂 Deer hoof prints that we see here are usually quite small…

…but then I found these tracks – the hoof prints looked a lot bigger… “What was that? – The devil has been in our backyard?”, I thought to myself. ;D

Now pictures that I took yesterday:

Amaryllis. Always majestic… And the scent is lovely and delicate!

My amaryllis had three flowers in the first stem, this is now the second stem, and it has four flowers, the flower in the picture is the first one that’s fully opened. Just marvellous.

Now just one pic of our new house plant, staghorn fern or elkhorn fern. Hopefully it won’t dry out… An interesting plant!

I went for a walk barefoot from the sauna again on Friday night, twice. I had only a towel around me and the snow and the chilly wind felt very nice. Comfortable enough – meaning one can do it without hesitation…

Our cats’ mother, the mother cat, came to live with us – that’s something new and nice as well. We travelled to Central Finland to get her on Monday this week. We had seen the mother cat only once before, very briefly, almost four and a half years ago and we didn’t remember how she actually looked like, so that was an interesting surprise for us, too, when we saw her on Monday. 🙂

Leena