Autumn? And pears, grapes, flowers…

So it’s officially autumn in Finland. I can’t believe I just wrote that.

I was travelling in Eastern Finland with my boyfriend for two weeks, and I will have some pics from there here in my blog a bit later. I have most of the pics on my phone (and there are for example pics of our plums on my phone, too) and I have to find a way to get all the pics to my computer (I have no idea what I’m doing… ;D ) But I did post a few pictures on my Instagram (owlnatureleena). We even saw a tiny bit of Russia. 😀 – Where the country begins, so to speak.

hill Kipari, lake Keyritty, Rautavaara, Northern Savonia, Finland

So now only one pic from the trip. This was on a hill Kipari in the municipality of Rautavaara, in the region of Northern SavoniaPohjois-Savo. The name of the lake is Keyritty. We stayed in Rautavaara. Such a lovely place.

pears

The first ever pears from our garden! I didn’t have time to take pics of our small pear tree when it had all the pears, but I took a pic of the pears on a plate – all the pears had fallen down from the tree during our trip, they were ripe, and I just picked them from the ground. They were delicious! I made jam.

grapes

This year we have grapes, too! I took all these pictures of our grapes yesterday. We had a very little amount of grapes two years ago, but now we have quite a lot, well, relatively lot. They, too, taste so sweet…

grapes
grapes
grapes
grapes
grape vine

The grape vine itself.

The rest of the pictures I took today:

I’m still very much immersed in my reading hobby. Now I’m even reading how to get organized, so this is getting pretty serious. ;p

sunflowers

We have a small patch of lovely little sunflowers. They are grown from our last winter’s bird seeds.

sunflowers
purple coneflower

And echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower charm…

purple coneflower

This is my “I’m about to finish this blog post” coffee in our greenhouse, with some tomatoes. 🙂

Hmm, in general, I feel like I have tons of things to do now, but it’s just nice, I guess… 😀

summer flower bed in September

The summer flower bed…

summer flowers in September
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“Marco!” – “Polo!”

The summer is moving on… This summer hasn’t been as hot as last summer here in Finland, but we’ve had a few fairly short hot periods this year, too. This week it was hotter than ever in many places in Europe and in a few places in Finland as well. Here where I’m living it was 32 degrees Celsius on Sunday. Yesterday it was only 23 degrees Celsius and today 16 degrees, in the daytime – last night it was around 11 degrees Celsius. That was fast.

This summer, thus far, I have been enjoying nature and gardening, naturally. 🙂 And I have been using my Instagram (owlnatureleena) a bit. I have been reading a lot. During June and July I have read 14 books and finished reading two books (I had read half of both of them earlier) and I’m about to finish reading yet another book, so this has definitely been a lot for me. And, naturally, I have a Goodreads account (leenannih) to keep track of books. 😀

Now some summer snapshots:

summer - kesä

A young hare in the forest. I love hares and rabbits. I had a rabbit when I was a child.

summer - kesä

Sheep here in our home village. They were baaing so much, they were just funny and adorable.

summer - kesä

We found some cloudberries in a forest we had never been before, about 20 kilometres from our home. The berries were so delicious. And we can’t remember finding this gold here in the southern part of Finland before!

summer - kesä

And there were quite many small blue butterflies flying in the forest, pretty magical… These two were on a rock by a small lake there.

summer - kesä
~”Did you say ‘itsy bitsy’…?”

A spider on our terrace. There were a few of these guys there one evening. They, too, are just lovely.

summer - kesä

I’ve tried to take pics of our summer flower bed. Last year we didn’t plant any seeds here, so there was only weed here a year ago. And this year we finally had the possibility to add a lot of compost to the soil thanks to the year-round composter we have.

summer - kesä
summer - kesä

The last three pics I took today:

summer - kesä
summer - kesä

The summer hasn’t ended yet…

summer - kesä

And now just one picture that I took in our greenhouse today as well:

summer - kesä
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Maytime

Everything is growing, everything is green, and there are flowers, too, everywhere! Well, we already had a cold period again, it was a short one, but it was hailing and snowing. Nothing stayed on the ground though, it was just snowing and hailing and the sun was shining as well, at the same time, too, again. – Business as usual.

And now we’ve had warm days again – around 15 degrees Celsius and around 20 degrees Celsius it has been, yesterday it was a bit above 20 degrees Celsius and today it’s already 23 degrees Celsius. Feels like summer for us! 🙂

May
~”Taller than the trees”

A pic today. There suddenly was a random tulip bulb in my hands last autumn, and I planted it here thinking that it might be nice to have a single tulip blooming beside my dwarf spruce. Well, it is! And the tulip is taller than my tree. 🙂

May
~Hiding… someone’s always hiding…? 😀

A ladybug or ladybird was hiding in our pear tree yesterday, I saw her (?) again today, in the pear tree, she had come out from her hiding place…

May

A dandelion in our garden, it is like… two dandelions in one – a broad stem and two different flowers, hmm…

May

We went for a walk by the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village yesterday.

May

In the woods there… This doesn’t look bad in pictures, but it looks more impressive in nature, the tree really is bigger in nature, and I always am strangely awed by this big tree that has come down…

May
May
May

Another big tree, a very old birch tree

May
May

We already have the smaller greenhouse in the corner of our terrace. We will have another greenhouse in our garden, a bigger one. This is what we have there now; the ground (foundation not quite ready yet) for the greenhouse and marigold flowers (as a symbol of hope ;D ) – we still have to build, assemble the greenhouse as well…

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April – Spring!

Okay. 🙂

I have heard the blackbird sing in our garden and swans have been flying and calling – wonderful signs of spring… We have had windy and cold sunny days, and a bit warmer and sunny days, a few warm (around 10 degrees Celsius) sunny days, but naturally some grey (or… brown – no snow on the ground anymore) days, too. But yesterday it was first sleeting and then it was snowing…

A few snapshots:

April

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in Satakunta region on Tuesday, a week ago.

April

I took this pic in the region of Etelä-PohjanmaaSouth Ostrobothnia, about 180 kilometres north from our home, on Saturday. (It was a bit over 10 degrees Celsius outside, yay!) My boyfriend had the chance to buy another forest there – the distance between his first forest and this second forest is about 40 kilometres. And this was the first time we went to see this new place.

April

There was still ice and snow on the forest road. We already had summer tyres, but luckily there were no bigger surprises…

April
~Melting clear…

We found the forest and there was still some snow in the forest as well.

April

I found beard lichen next to the forest. I love it! Beard lichen – the air is clean. 🙂

And we visited my boyfriends first forest, too, the place from where I have for example the moose videos here in my blog:

April
~Paths crossed…? – Me and a moose.

There, too, was still snow and it was even impossible to drive the road to our usual spot. (We kinda thought that there wouldn’t be snow anymore… ;p ) There were moose tracks in snow and water was flowing pretty loudly in the ditch and into the pond.

So we had a very nice road trip, charming country roads and all…

The rest of the pictures I took today:

April

My morning coffee~

So we didn’t have snow anymore… But now:

April
April

Already almost 10 centimetres of snow on the ground. But they say that it will be a bit warmer and that the sun will be shining again as well, after Wednesday.

April
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Wintry pictures

It has been snowing quite a lot again. We have now 18 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living. Snowy, soft…

First pictures that I took in our yard yesterday.

January

Norway maple.

January

The cherry tree. Hopefully it survives the winter. Our first cherry tree did not survive last winter, it was its first winter… but the tree was different and it was in a different place in our garden…

January

Snowy garden…

January
January
January

Backyard trees.

January

Winter… like in Moominvalley. 😉

Silent, magical…

January
January
January
January

Backyard pine trees.

January

We took a walk by the lake Pyhäjärvi near our home yesterday, just before it was getting dark. – The pine tree trunks didn’t have snow on them there in the woods, but they looked wintry, too – they were like light purple. That looked nice. 🙂

January
lake Pyhäjärvi, January

At the end of a cape, which is also a ridge, about half a mile long amidst the lake ( – oh dear, I don’t know how to explain this any better than this in English… 🙂 )

January

And today, in our garden again…

January
dwarf spruce, January
Dwarf spruce, blue winter lights.
January
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Christmas, lights, flowers…

Now just pictures from Sunday, Tuesday and yesterday.

December
December

They were giving away these ‘bushes’, autumn plants with different colours, at a store, and I chose these three. The Ibiza lizard is covered in snow a bit.

December

From where I watch television and eat and drink coffee…

ice lantern

We made two ice lanterns for Christmas. I named this one a ‘Red-letter day’…

December

I was taking a picture of the sun yesterday. It’s was down there hiding behind the trees…

December

“Well, move!”, I said to myself. “It’s up to you, you know…” ;D

poinsettia

This year I have a pink poinsettia, not a red one. – It was a plan… 😉 I was waiting for some ‘direct sunlight’ to get the poinsettia look natural in a picture… the colours.

hyacinth

Well, hashtag nofilterneededHyacinth. This year one of my hyacinths is a bit different, too. – It’s dark pink, not light pink.

hyacinth
I love blue Christmas lights! ;)

I planted this dwarf spruce in the autumn. And I already have a picture of it on my Instagram without and with these Christmas or winter lights. Here it is in the dark, with the blue Christmas lights. – Blue winter lights, my dream…

And here’s another video from our trail camera, or animal camera that we had in my boyfriend’s forest. Night-time wanderers, moose! :

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Christmas time

Many things to do… I had some interesting new working experiences – it had something to do with getting some traditional Finnish Christmas food into stores, and now it’s Christmas time… Hmm, we’re cleaning our home now, and so on…

Christmas time

My morning coffee today. So, the house is a bit of a mess. That cloth… back there in the picture, for example, is a curtain from our living room. The curtain has fallen down because its handle got loose. And our couch ‘fell down’, too, so we’re basically sitting on the floor now. And we must clean the tables and take the carpets outside and hoover the house, and… But hey, it’s the shortest day of the year today! 🙂

The next three pictures I took in our garden today:

December
From the terrace
December echinacea purpurea and peony
Echinacea purpurea or purple coneflower and peony
December

We’ve had snow on the ground for many days now. And it’s snowing right now as well, and it’s -8 degrees Celsius, so we’ll have a white Christmas this year, too!

And here’s a video from our trail camera or game camera – I just call it an animal camera. We had the animal camera in my boyfriend’s land in the region of Etelä-PohjanmaaSouth Ostrobothnia. We brought the camera home for the winter. And here at home it was possible to get the videos to computer. We got some interesting and delightful videos. There were night-time wanderers… I’ll have a few videos here in my blog, too, so here’s the first one, a hare. 🙂 :

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