outdoors – Page 9

Waxwings in the garden, pictures from the lake…

The weather’s been warmer for some days now, around 0 degrees Celsius, and it’s been snowing and sleeting and snowing again… Buuut they say that it will get colder, again…

We can’t remember when the last time that we had a garden campfire was, but on Thursday we finally had one (just an Instagram picture [owlnatureleena] to that 🙂 ), and on Sunday we had a garden campfire again. The first time that we saw a flock of waxwings in our garden was on Thursday when we had the campfire, and I saw the waxwings again on Friday.

The pictures in this blog post… this happened on the weekend:

A fine birch tree… – I took just a few pictures by the lake Pyhäjärvi, here in our home village.

Behind birch trees.

And hiding behind alder trees…

In the car, on the frozen lake. The infinity – the lake Pyhäjärvi is about 30 kilometres long and this is the north end of the lake.

So what happened then – an ice road…? Yes, we didn’t know this, but when I was taking the pictures by the lake there I noticed that there really is an ice road, an ice track, a very curvy track for cars, too. And because we, me and my boyfriend, are a couple of crazy persons who are about to get a new car, we decided to take our 22-year-old VW Golf for a little ride later that day.

I took these pics when my boyfriend was driving, but before this… I was driving, and because it was a very curvy track and it was slippery and I was driving too fast and… okay, I drove our Golf straight into a snowbank there on the lake and we got stuck in the snow so badly that we needed help to get us out of the snow. – First I actually tried to dig our car out of the snow, with my hands, but it was an impossible piece of work, and fortunately we got some help – our car had to be pulled out of the snow. Oh, an adventure… 🙂

-Leena

March on

It’s March already – incredible! But the winter weather continues, it’s been even bitterly cold lately, as it has been the case in many other parts of Europe as well. Here in Finland the temperatures have been below -10 degrees Celsius and for some days the temperatures were between -15 and -20 degrees Celsius, and even colder than that. Naturally, it’s been colder during the nighttime because the sun is already warming during the daytime. I mean, the sun’s been shining like crazy! 😀 – So many sunny days lately, it’s been like constant sunshine… And as I am still counting; here, where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for 13 weeks now.

I took this picture yesterday, just to show how high the sun already is in the sky here. This was at around 14.10 pm. On the shortest day of the year the sun at its highest point was just above that hill. The increasing daylight truly has made me do all kinds of things, as I already said in the previous blog post, effective. 🙂

My morning coffee today, at around 9.10 am. It was -12 degrees Celsius – only -12… 😀

And crepes with our own apple jam. I used oat flour and a mixture of oat and potato flours. Potato flour is good – it gives the oat flour crepes structure so that they are easy to flip.

Did someone say winter sports? – Winter sports is still on. And I love it! This weekend it’s the Lahti Ski Festival here in Finland, it’s part of the World Cup thing. Now there’s Nordic Combined on, with the ski jumping part. Okay, most of us Finns love to watch cross-country skiing and ski jumping, and luckily that’s just what the Lahti Ski Games are about. 🙂

-Leena

Winter… and winter sports fans

First about the weather again… Winter weather continues, and here, where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for over 10 weeks now! Lately we had a couple of warmer days with the temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius, but now it’s been colder again – around -5 degrees and -10 degrees Celsius and even colder. And it’s been snowing and the sun’s been shining, too…

And today it was -20 degrees Celsius just before 8 am when I took these first two pictures in this blog post:

My morning coffee… You can go outside without your mittens at -20 degrees Celsius if you have a warm winter coat and a mug of warm coffee to warm your hands, naturally. 🙂

So much light already before 8 am!

I love to watch winter sports. Now I’m addicted to the Winter Olympics… I’ve been watching the Olympic Winter Games every day now, and I start watching them in the morning, with headphones, of course… There was curling on when I took this picture this morning. Curling is one of my great favourites, another one of my great favourites is… everything done with snowboards, yay! 🙂

And I’ve been watching the Olympics surrounded by these guys:

So we’ve been very active here… Well, indeed, watching the Winter Olympics has been fun and inspiring – I’ve been doing all kinds of things while watching winter sports – I watch the Olympics for a while and then I do something and then I watch winter sports again and after a moment I do something again… This has been effective for me, perhaps with the increasing daylight, naturally… 🙂

-Leena

Winter goes on forever ;) – a proper winter this season so far

Lately… it’s been winter. And here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for nine weeks now. First it was snowing, and then it was snowing and after that it was snowing… And we’ve had a couple of heavy snowfalls, too. The temperatures were between -8 degrees Celsius and -16 degrees Celsius for several days, the sun’s been shining, too, and the stars have been bright in the sky as well. And now the temperatures have been around -5 degrees Celsius for some days again. So, we’ve had a proper winter this season so far. And I really do appreciate it! 🙂 Marvellous, sparkling winter days…

First a few pictures that I took in our garden this week.

Were they hares or cats? – Sometimes you can’t tell the difference, really. 🙂 – I think that they were cats…

And two pictures that I took today just before publishing this blog post:

It is snowing… the birds are chirping…

“Need a hug? Come here!”

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2018 in Finland & other things…

The temperatures have temporarily gone up. First we had a pretty heavy snowfall on Wednesday, we had about 10 centimetres of fresh snow on the ground in the evening that day. But after that it’s been even raining, raining like crazy for a while, but it still didn’t melt all the snow, so, here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for seven weeks now. And they say that the temperatures are going down again and that it will snow again. Today it’s already been sleeting and snowing, and heavily and very big snowflakes, too.

My morning coffee today. I love maps… I take every opportunity to have a map to look at, any map, everywhere… 🙂

And yes, today I took again part in the national birdwatch, the national birdwatch 2018, Pihabongaus 2018, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January, it’s not a competition, just one hour of birdwatching, and anyone can participate. The idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. And even hearing the birds counts.

One of the birds’ hideouts… (I took these last two pictures in this blog post after my birdwatch hour.) So, during my hour I was standing and walking in heavy snowfall and in normal snowfall in our garden. And I heard a concert again! – The voices were many, but, again, I didn’t see that many singers. 🙂

I recognized the voices of crows, magpies, great tits and blue tits and I think I recognized the voice of a some type of sparrow and the voice of a bullfinch – I really was lucky enough to see a few bullfinches here on our bird feeder the other day! 🙂 And I heard a woodpecker knocking somewhere near (I’ve seen two great spotted woodpeckers hear earlier). There always are also some other tiny birds chirping and singing, but I still don’t recognize them…

And the birds I actually saw today: a couple of magpies, one great tit and a flock of small birds – I couldn’t see what birds they were.

So, I was enjoying myself and my hour ended just before my freezing point. 😀

My birdwatching trail…

-Leena

Winter at its peak

Wintry days continue. Lately it’s been even a bit colder. The temperatures have mostly been around -10 degrees Celsius and a bit below – I’ve seen -15 degrees Celsius at night and -14 degrees in the daytime. It’s been snowing, too, and we’ve had snow on the ground for over six weeks now. We have now over 10 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living. The fresh snow has now been that sparkling type of snow, so it’s been very nice to walk out there surrounded by all that glitter. Winter’s been at its magical peak now. 🙂

Today, here where I’m living the sun rose at 9.13 am and the sun sets at 16.13 pm – the length of the day is 7 h 0 min. Seven hours already! – On the shortest day of the year (2017), on 21st December, the day length was 5 h 29 min. 🙂

Blue sky, sunshine, peace and quiet… boooring. ;D

And birds chirping… they really were chirping loudly when I was taking these last two pictures just before publishing this blog post.

It’s already been snowing again today and it’s -10 degrees Celsius right now. It’s just winter now. 🙂

-Leena

Wintry days & oh, deer

Cloudy, cold and frost – three words to describe, in a nutshell, the days lately. So, it’s been a bit colder for some days now, the temperatures have mostly been around -5 degrees Celsius and a bit below. And we’ve had snow on the ground for five weeks now, that’s quite remarkable. 🙂

This happened on Tuesday: I looked out the kitchen window and I saw a deer on the hill. I went outside and there were two deer. Never before have we seen deer here, seen them from our garden. Near our home, yes, many times, but not here.

This is the best pic I have of the event, taken with zoom, and fast. It felt like seeing reindeer in the north. 🙂

The corn plants and… other things…

They have answers…

The cherry tree is patiently waiting for spring…

And a poppy pod… I wonder if there will be flowers here on this spot next summer…

A bit of light yesterday.

And today… My coffee, crepes, apple jam and New York… in Babar’s Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff. I made crepes yesterday, they are oat flour crepes with a bit of barley flour. And the apple jam we made of the apples of our trees in autumn. The word crepe is, by the way, lettu or lätty in Finnish. 🙂

-Leena