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
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
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
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
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
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. 🙂
The corn plants and stuff…
Echinacea and peony covered with snow…
And leaves of the cherry tree…
I see something pink… They are clarkia amoena or godetia flowers! 🙂
Peony poppy pods…
And there are Christmas trees… :p
-Leena
The nights have been colder now, the temperature has been around zero degrees Celsius and below. Right now, in the morning, it’s -4 degrees Celsius. Now it’s the time for our red oak to have autumn colours.
Quercus rubra or red oak, we planted this tree in the middle of July this year. A very young tree, tall and slender, hopefully it grows a bit stronger. 🙂
They say (in Finland) that red oaks have the colour red in their leaves in autumn when the trees are young, but when they are older, the autumn colour is not that bright anymore. But… some have seen old and red red oaks in Finland in autumn, and some have seen even green, very green, red oaks in autumn. So, it depends…(?) 🙂 Our red oak stayed green for a long time this autumn, compared with many other trees that have already lost all or almost all of their leaves.
The apple tree in the picture is the other one that still has a lot of leaves. But the red oak is the only one that still has all of its leaves.
Fall phlox grew a bit further after August. The new parts of the plant are flowering now, the older parts were flowering already in August.
Still some cornflowers… with their faces already down.
There’s still one new clematis flower blooming, I was surprised to find it. And I was delighted by its colour… deep thoughts, the colour October…
And viola is still there…
-Leena