If not cooler, then hotter…

…or the other way round. So the first half of the last day of April was snowy, here is my blog post about it. But the sky did start to clear up and the snow started to melt. In the evening we visited the Kauttuankoski rapids:

on the last day of April

I ate my ice cream down there somewhere (=the spot where I was can’t actually be seen in this pic), but by the rapids I was first, and then I came up here. And from here, from the bridge, I took this pic… no snow, not anymore.

on the first day of May

And the first day of May, the second day of the Finnish Vappu celebration, the May Day itself, was lovely, sunny and warm. I enjoyed sitting here, on the ground, between our vegetable garden and the woods. 🙂

The next four pictures I took by the lake Pyhäjärvi on Saturday. Oh, the colour blue…

lake Pyhäjärvi

Friday and Saturday were sunny and warm days, too. On Friday I saw the first butterfly of this spring for me this year! It was a peacock butterfly. And I heard and saw the first bees buzzing as well! On Saturday then we visited the lake Pyhäjärvi, and on our way there, we saw a deer. I was actually driving the car at that moment, the deer didn’t jump to the road – it stopped by the ditch. And it was so beautiful! 🙂

alder tree, catkins

Under an alder tree and its catkins, by the lake.

lake Pyhäjärvi

We need more days like this!

lake Pyhäjärvi

But:

Ibiza lizard and hail

The Ibiza lizard and hail in our garden yesterday. It’s been hailing and snowing on many days – last week between Tuesday and Thursday, and this week, it’s been cooler… But the sun has been shining, again, right after almost every time that it has hailed or snowed.

The rest of the pictures I took today. And yes, especially today it has hailed and snowed many times, but the sun’s been shining a bit as well. And today I saw black woodpeckers! Two of them. I hadn’t seen those birds before, in nature. Now they were in ‘our’ woods! And their calls sound so… interesting, too! 🙂

May vegetable garden

In our vegetable garden. Some frost protection fabric now. We moved some of our strawberry plants here, too.

May narcissus, daffodil

I thought that there wouldn’t be any narcissus or daffodil plants in our garden this spring, but on Friday I found them, on two spots in the garden, here’s one of them. They had started to grow there again, like, overnight! Literally… I mean, I had been watching those spots! 😀

May leopard's bane, doronicum

Leopard’s bane or doronicum. It already has some flower buds, too!

And some green grass has grown everywhere now as well, during May. – The spring has been slow this year, but now it seems that everything has started to grow a bit better, despite the occasional hailing and snowing. And indeed, I already started eating some nettles! 🙂

-Leena

Snow & Vappu – the last day of April in Finland

It’s the last day of April and we are celebrating Vappu here in Finland. Vappu, May Day, First of May, May 1st… the main thing is to celebrate spring!

An evening in April

I wrote about Vappu already a year ago, here. 🙂 And this is just one example how the Vappu weather, actually the whole spring weather can vary here – the spring has been slow this year, as I wrote already in my previous blog post – we’ve been, like, at a standstill a bit, already for some time now. It truly can be seen in the garden and in nature…

I took the picture above and the next two pictures at around 21.30 PM yesterday. It was snowing again, and we had a garden campfire, too.

an evening in April

Despite the weather a robin bird was chirping beautifully, but only for a while – on previous nights it has been singing much longer. And a woodcock was on its regular flight as well: “orr, orr, orr, pist!” 🙂

a garden campfire

The garden campfire… but what about the traditional homemade Vappu delicacies this year – I wrote about them last year, here. We do have sima fermenting, but those munkkis I bought at a grocery store, with a bit of discount. And, by the way, we have no balloons this year.

the last day of April

The picture above and the next five pictures I took this morning.

the last day of April

the last day of April

Christmas trees… 😮

the last day of April

the last day of April

What is that? – That’s the sky clearing up a bit.

the last day of April

And it should be clearing up… :p This in the picture above is the first part of our vegetable garden – there ought to be growing for example some early carrots, early peas and garlic in the summer…

It has been snowing again as I’ve been writing this blog post, but the sun has tried to shine as well, and it is 2 degrees Celsius at the moment…

Leena

Campfires and delicacies

So, the campfire people, too, were celebrating vappu on Saturday…

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In our garden late in the evening. We had a campfire also on Sunday night. I love it how every campfire is different and the fire itself is constantly changing. Staring at fire is one of the most relaxing things I know… and the warmth at cooling night-time is nice, too.

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And the food… Just a pic of campfire marshmallows I had.

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Some more delicacies… this is the second chili pepper that we have eaten now, this was yesterday night just before dinner – I was so hungry that I wasn’t able to take a better pic… just needed to have my potatoes… 🙂

Our chili peppers are a bit burning, but delicious. Eating just half the pepper is enough, which is quite good – one pepper for two people… and our chilies are not even that hot types of chili peppers. But they burn nicely. 🙂

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And… today I took pics of the real traditional homemade vappu delicacies; this is munkki – like a doughnut ball, simply a ball (mine is a kind of a ball 🙂 ) of wheat flour spiced with ground cardamom and deep-fried in oil and then rolled in sugar. A sin. 😉

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And here’s some traditional homemade sima. Sima is a Finnish slightly fermented lemon drink, sweet and sparkling. There’s water, white sugar, brown sugar, the flesh of a lemon, the rind of a lemon, a very tiny piece of yeast and raisins.
To be honest, our sima is still kind of fermenting, but this already tastes like the real deal. And sima is a fresh and good drink for the whole summer as well. And it’s not supposed to be an alcoholic beverage, sima is suitable for children, too. 🙂

-Leena

Celebrating spring

This weekend is something like the sun kind of in the coffee glass…

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It’s Vappu in Finland. 🙂 – Vappu, May Day, First of May, May 1st…

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The main thing with the Vappu celebration for many people, including myself, is celebrating spring. But how we celebrate tends to vary. We here at our home we’re just at home taking it easy. Maybe going for a car ride as well. And having some traditional homemade Vappu delicacies – a couple of pics here in my blog later on, hopefully. 🙂

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A narcissus flower is kind of in the coffee glass, too. 😀

This year the weather is quite OK as well…

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Some more violas…

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There can’t be too much of the colour yellow in spring. 🙂

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This was yesterday evening when we stopped by the lake Pyhäjärvi.

-Leena