owlnature – Page 10

The shortest day of the year

It is happening now, the shortest day of the year is here. – It starts to get lighter again tomorrow! – As in we have more light again tomorrow! 🙂 Today, here where I’m living the sun rose at 9.44 am and the sun sets at 15.13 pm – the length of the day is 5 h 29 min.

It has been a bit warmer again, and yesterday and at night it even rained a bit, but luckily we had so much snow that it has not all melted yet. – We still have about eight centimetres of snow on the ground. Christmas is just around the corner, and they say that before Christmas we’ll have some light and sunshine, and that it will even snow a bit. So, this year we ought to have at least some snow out there at Christmas, whoa!

Now today’s pics…

First there was almost like some light in the sky… and almost like some blue sky…

Drip, drip…

Almost like some light…

Light, more light…

Still foggy, but lighter, brighter…

As low as it gets… the sun! – Sunshine on the darkest day of the year! There was mist flowing around me in the sunshine. This day was just mistical – light and foggy, misty, magical… Who’s afraid of the dark? 😉

-Leena

Over 20 centimetres of snow & sunshine

This is what happened today: we had temperatures below zero degrees Celsius, sunshine, over 20 centimetres of snow (and still have it) and I took the carpets outside and hoovered the house. – Never stop believing in fairy tales. 😉

Now I just publish these three pictures that I took today while cleaning up the house…..

That shameless sun…

Low…

An efficient day. 🙂

-Leena

Snow, garden birds, swans calling in the darkness, the shortness of the day…

It started to snow here where I’m living late in the evening on Saturday, and on Sunday we had many separate snowfalls. It was a surprise, a very pleasant one, because the snow that we had on Independence Day had already melted away earlier. But it wasn’t that cold – around 0 degrees Celsius and -1 degrees Celsius at the lowest. Yesterday, on Monday, we had eight centimetres of snow and it was a bit colder. Today it has been as cold as yesterday and we have pretty heavy snowfall, as promised. 🙂 It has been snowing all day.

The first four pictures I took yesterday.

A snow cat it was.

One of our rose bushes still had some leaves yesterday. The sun was shining low…

About the length of the day… or about the shortness… Today, here where I’m living, the sun rose at 9.35 AM and the sun sets at 15.14 PM – the length of the day is 5 h 39 min. It starts to get lighter again on Friday next week. 🙂

Now we have two feeding spots for wild birds in our garden. This is the new one. We’ve had great tits, blue tits, sparrows, a couple of blackbirds and a great spotted woodpecker.

I’ve heard swans calling many times lately – I’ve been standing in our garden, in the darkness, and I’ve heard the sounds of swans – they’ve been flying somewhere near and some swans have been honking by/on the lake, I think.

It’s the glögi season again! My glögi last night in the pic above. I’ve already drunk some litres of it this season. It’s delicious and nicely warming.

What is glögi? – I wrote this a year ago: Glögi is a traditional, hot and spiced drink. It’s mainly a Christmas (and pre-Christmas) drink in Finland. It can be translated as mulled wine. However, not all the glögi drinks are like wine – alcoholic drinks – some are, but, actually, we drink a lot of juice glögi in Finland, so… glögi is… glögi in Finland. As a non-alcoholic drink it’s some fruit or berry juice, hot and spiced. This one that I’m having is grape, blackcurrant and blueberry juice, spiced with cinnamon, bitter orange peel, cloves, cardamom and ginger – all the traditional Christmas or winter spices. Glögi can be bought ready-made – that’s probably why the juice glögi is so popular.

The rest of the pictures I took today.

Just love, lovely. A wish for Christmas.

This is some wintry December now, but we do have these changing weather conditions here in the southern part of Finland, so, let’s just enjoy this, for now, for a while… 🙂

At the moment we have almost 20 centimetres of snow on the ground, it definitely is the snow record for this season here where I’m living. And last winter, no, no, we didn’t have this much snow, no… So, “go, go… go outside!”, I must say to myself today. Still more snow coming down all the time now.

-Leena

Finland 100 years old tomorrow, a few December pictures…

Tomorrow, on the 6th of December, is the Independence Day and our Finland, our Suomi is 100 years old. Congratulations Finland and thank you! – Onnea Suomi ja kiitos! 🙂

The December full moon, the supermoon on Sunday. Not a perfect picture, but kind of fascinating. The moon was so bright, magical. It lit up our garden. It was so nice that the sky wasn’t all clouds.

The second part of November was a bit more grey, rainy, dark… the fifth season… But we had a bit of sunshine as well. And some snow, too, for the second time this season, but the snow, of course, melted away again after two days.

Sunshine, viola and her pearls, frozen water droplets, in the garden yesterday. This is a strong plant! It still has several flowers like this one in the picture. Never before have we had fresh flowers in the garden in December…

Today again, some snow on viola… It started to snow a bit last night and it has snowed a bit today, they say that it will snow some more tonight and they say that tomorrow we should have some sunshine again, too, but after that… water again, as one might guess… But the most important thing is that we have snow now. 🙂

Hawthorn berries.

And our strawberry patch.

-Leena

Growing tomatoes this year & some bird related things

The story about growing tomatoes this year… It is a short story, very short… so short, that I already wrote it on my Instagram (owlnatureleena) a while ago.

My precious… The summer this year was not very good for growing tomatoes outside in the garden here in Finland. But some tomatoes did grow! We can still, in November, eat tomatoes that have grown in our garden. So… it’s not that bad after all. 🙂

We had only few bigger tomatoes, but many smaller ones. And again, they had to be taken inside the house for ripening. They were ripening on a plate in the kitchen, for weeks. Home-grown tomatoes always taste so incredibly sweet! They are just perfect.

And some bird related things… I found something that is over 20 years old, something that I missed – something that I thought I had lost forever…

My pendant, my bird! 🙂 I did not believe that this still was somewhere, somewhere safe… but yes, I found this at my childhood home, (where else!). A bronze pendant necklace called Tintti, made in Finland by Kalevala Jewelry. The stone is hand-painted ceramic.

Okay, I found these; my Tintti with its original box and another bronze pendant necklace by Kalevala Jewelry as well. Another bird! A bird called Tampereen seudun lintu, as old as my Tintti, but I didn’t remember that I even had it.

So, I had these in my childhood. I am so happy to have found them! My treasures… I think that these, too, will be in my pictures every once in a while. 🙂 I love jewelry and it can be seen in my blog…

And something I made over the weekend… I was knitting a bit, testing this rainbow yarn that I have. 🙂 At this point in time, another owl. My design – my problems – more fun in the end. I think he needs some fur around his beak…

-Leena

Observing November

It’s November – the fifth season has started. 😉 Now just some observations I made in our garden yesterday and today.

Under our biggest pine tree.

A dandelion and November secrets…

It’s time to start feeding wild birds.

A November apple… Now the apple tree, too, has lost almost all of its leaves.

Hawthorn berries. We have two hawthorn hedges, this is the one that we haven’t cut – and the one that has a lot of berries…

November came for the red oak. But the tree still hangs on to its leaves…

Someone from the couch: “Here’s some observation of November for you…

…I’ll be available again on the first of May, or on the 21st of April at the earliest.”
Me: “What are you doing?”
The tiger: “I’m observing November.”

Me: “Okay. Wait… What?”

-Leena

The first snow of the season

Today, on the 26th of October, we have the first snow of the season. It started to snow last night. Fairly early here in southern Finland – already in October, usually this happens here in November.

We have to enjoy this now, today and perhaps still tomorrow. They say, and we know, that this snow will melt by the end of the week. So, now, some pictures that I took in our garden today. 🙂