talvi – Page 4 – Owlnature

Independence Day

Today, on 6th December, is the Independence Day in Finland. – Our Suomi is 101 years old! 🙂

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in my home village today in the afternoon.

After the snowfall we already had… water, again, but after that it has been snowing again, just a little bit. – Business as usual.

Two pictures that I took in our garden today.

The next four pictures I took in my boyfriend’s land in the region of Etelä-Pohjanmaa – South Ostrobothnia, about 180 kilometres north from our home, on Monday this week.

Ice on the pond in the forest.

And a bit less than an hour later… Darkness falls early this time of year. But it’s actually pretty nice. – It’s beautiful. And nice for a bit adventurous soul. 😉

And it was me who drove all the way back home, it was dark and it was snowing. Well, it’s me who needs the practice, and I love it.

There’s stream flowing, in a ditch, near the pond. The lovely sound in the forest!

What to eat around the campfire? For example Karelian pies and pesto sauce. Karelian pasties or Karelian pies are traditional pasties in Finland – rye flour and rice porridge. The pesto sauce is Italian, with basil. A delicious combo… out there in the cold! And coffee…

-Leena

By the lake

It has been snowing a bit more since yesterday. I went for a walk by the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village today, and took some pictures. We must enjoy this weather now. 🙂

Ice and snow… and the sun was shining brightly!

Just ‘hiding behind stuff’… 😀

And I took two pictures in our garden as well:

Afternoon sun.

-Leena

Pictures yesterday & today

The first two pictures I took in our garden yesterday.

In the November sunshine…

The Finnish autumn came for the bougainvillea – for my ‘mini Spain’ long ago…

The next five pictures I took in our garden today.

It has been snowing a bit, just a little bit.

A common poppy pod.

So this is ‘the second snow’ for this season…

Leaves of a rose bush.

It’s -3 degrees Celsius right now, at around 14.15 pm.

And these last two pictures I took today as well. I’ve been watching cross-country skiing again. The Cross Country World Cup has began in Ruka, Kuusamo, here in Finland this weekend.

And I’ve been watching this competition and making this blog post at the same time – combining two hobbies. 🙂

-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