Satakunta – Page 7

Springy – Ice, the first butterflies, coltsfoot flowers & crocus flowers…

Warmer, warmer… The spring is near, the spring is like here! – The nights have still been a bit colder, the temperatures have been around 0 degrees Celsius in the nighttime, but in the daytime it’s beginning to feel a lot like spring! – The temperatures have been around 10 degrees Celsius and now even between 10 and 16 degrees Celsius during the day.

First two pictures that I took by the lake Pyhäjärvi here in Satakunta region on Friday.

Okay, most of Finland still has snow, the northern part of the country like tons of it – well, that’s not even a bad thing, they have lovely spring days there, too, but just for comparison – here in the southernmost part of Finland the snow has mostly melted. But for example our lake Pyhäjärvi still has a lot of snow and ice and on it, an ice cover, but there already are some ice-free spots somewhere as well.

We saw the first butterfly for this year for us on Friday as well. Not here at home, but in our neighbouring municipality Säkylä. It was a peacock butterfly.

Tiny insects have already been dancing in the evening sun everywhere here, too.

Yesterday we found a new walking track for us, and it’s not even far from our home. 😮 🙂 We took the shortest route now first, just to see the place, the forest. The forest was mostly spruce trees, but there were also some pine trees and other trees as well.

Parts of the track were still covered with snow and ice…

…so it was a bit slippery with these old ‘bad ice skates’ of mine. But it was warm there, I had too many hoodies on me…

Ants, too, were already busy in the forest.

And we saw another peacock butterfly there. A charming, silent forest it was. Glad to have found it! It’s been there all this time, but we’ve noticed it only now. 🙂

And we saw the first coltsfoot flowers for this year for us, too. There were several coltsfoot flowers by the car park there.

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

The smell of the earth that is free of the snow now is lovely.

Swans have been flying and honking here, and we hear loud voices of water fowls every evening again, from the lake I think.

We planted many crocus bulbs in our garden last autumn. And I wasn’t prepared for flowers yesterday… 😀 But yes, we already found two yellow crocus flowers!

One in the front yard and the other in the backyard.

-Leena

Always just around the corner

Still on its way, but truly approaching now – spring! The snow and ice are melting now, finally! Lately we’ve had everything, it all, something like; first we had like one warmer day, then cold weather again, and after that not that cold weather, and then a bit warmer weather, and after that the weather was even a bit colder… than then when… it was cold, and after that, it was a bit warmer again, and so on. So, we’re just waiting for it… waiting for spring, it’s drawing near; bouncing, disappearing again, springing… The usual stuff.

I took the pictures in this blog post in our garden today.

Good to see some moss! 🙂

We’ve had many sunny days and it’s been wonderful to sit on the garden bench in the sunshine, so warm. But some days it’s been snowing and sleeting, too. And finally this week; it’s been really raining, even heavily for a while, a couple of times, so the snow’s been melting faster now, but it’s not yet all gone. Here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for 18 weeks now. I suppose I can stop counting now… Maybe. Yes, what a winter it’s been! And now it’s April! – We haven’t quite felt it yet, but it is here.

They say that the weather was colder than usual and we had more snow than usual in March, and that spring is about two weeks late here in Finland this year, but they also say that things are getting faster, right about now…

Good to see the ground! And dry old grass…

Birds have been singing ever so beautifully. And on March 28th I finally heard the enchanting sound of spring for the first time this year – I heard the blackbird sing! 🙂

Right now, at 13.30 pm, it’s 10 degrees Celsius outside.

-Leena

Spring is coming [eventually]

It’s been colder again, after Tuesday. The sunny days are back, and the temperatures have been between -3 and -6 degrees Celsius during the daytime and between -10 and -15 during the nighttime. But they say that it will get warmer again… soon. It snowed quite a lot on Tuesday, especially in the evening. I took the first three pictures in this blog post in our garden on Wednesday.

Well…

My refreshment in the car, on Wednesday was this, too. Pineapple, banana, coconut – my favourites, and one of my favourite flavour combinations.

I’ve been browsing through this gardening catalogue lately. For flowers, vegetables, et cetera…

Oh, spring…

My morning coffee today, a bit after 9 am, it was -11 degrees Celsius.

They say that the sun already is as powerful now as it is in September here in Finland. So, that’s not bad, not bad at all. 🙂

-Leena

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