owlnature – Page 14

It is coming! – Spring is almost here…

It’s March… quite nice, almost incredible! Lately we’ve had snow and sunshine, grey days, temperatures below freezing and wet snow… everything. And we just may have been hit by the biggest snowfall for this winter earlier this week as well – here in southern Finland we sometimes have this too-much-snow-too-late-it-should-have-been-at-Christmas -thing… But yes, this week’s snow, too, has already been melting. No one’s stopping spring! 🙂

The first 13 pictures I took today, the last two are from last night.

Moss magic at the summer flower bed…

Backyard pine trees.

A clover flower…

A strawflower flower… power. 😉

An annual mallow flower…

…and another…

…a few more…

Perhaps I should plant annual mallow seeds, too, in many places in the garden this spring – then there would be some lace all around the garden in wintertime, how nice would that be? 😀

Double sun… 😉

An Egyptian friend…

At the potato field…

Even though the days may be warm, the nights can be a bit cold:

“I adjusted the thermostat so that it will be a bit warmer in here… is that okay…?”

“Purr… nice! I’m telling you…”
Our radiator tiger. 🙂

-Leena

Sauna & snow

Just a brief thought on the traditional combination of sauna and snow. It’s nice to take some snow with you when you are taking a sauna bath. I did it yesterday evening, for example. And as with the birch leaves in summertime, I like rubbing it, the snow, against my skin and my face, too, taking a bath with it. It’s cool and very nice indeed! Relaxing and healthy! Sauna earthing… And, naturally, it’s nice to walk from the sauna barefoot, on the snow outside, cool down a bit, and then go back to the warmth of the sauna again – just lovely! Good for your blood circulation. 😉

Of course you can roll naked in the snow. It, too, actually feels nice, but it takes some courage to start doing it. I haven’t done it this winter. Okay, perhaps I should now challenge myself to do it, there might still be time to do it this week… I dare myself to… (?) 😀

As to “there might still be time”; it is happening again, out there… the snow is melting a bit again… But at least spring is just around the corner, soon. 🙂

-Leena

Snowy, snowy – a wintry month…

It’s already March next week! But, there’s still some time to enjoy snow and… ahem, some winter pics. 🙂

The first five pics I took yesterday.

It’s been a nice winter week. First we had one night of raining… WATER, but it didn’t melt all the snow, and after that night it started to snow, and now it’s been snowing with the temperatures being moderate and nice winter temperatures; between 0 and about -10 degrees Celsius, and some days the sun has been shining delightfully as well. And the sun is warming a bit, loving us…

But no, we haven’t had, like, heaps of snow this winter – we’ve just had freaking cold weather at times. So, in these pics here now is to be seen our snow record for this winter… Yeah well, it’s been snowing a bit today as well, but… you get the picture, I believe. 🙂

Okay, still some time to take winter coffee pics…

The sturdy clarkia or godetia flowers, too, still standing. I’ll plant clarkia seeds this spring as well, but this time, in many places in the garden.

Blue sky, love…

The next two pics I took on the day before yesterday.

One of those snowfalls it was. And this was at 17:45 PM – a huge increase in the number of daylight hours: on the 16th of December I wrote that the sunset was at 15:12 PM here where I’m living, and the length of the day was 5 hours 31 minutes. Today the sun sets at 17:47 PM and the length of the day is 10 hours 5 minutes – twice the energy already! 🙂

And the rest of the pics are again from yesterday.

Taller than the trees…? 😉

At the strawflowers again…

And this pic I took through a car window as we were travelling to Turku. This was at about 16:30 PM – not long ago it was completely dark at that hour! 🙂

-Leena

Whiteout, grey on

Today: snow and fog, thick fog. With the temperature around 0 degrees Celsius. I took these pics by the lake Pyhäjärvi here in Satakunta region.

A curious white wall there was…

On the ice.

One saw that one didn’t see…

The shoreline disappeared…

They disappeared…

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2017 in Finland – Pihabongaus 2017

I took part in the national birdwatch 2017, Pihabongaus 2017, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January. It’s not a competition and anyone can do it – the idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. We are just identifying birds, counting them and enjoying ourselves. It takes one hour. And it doesn’t matter if one doesn’t see any birds or if one only hears them – that’s interesting, too. Only hearing the birds is delightful – that’s my experience. 🙂 Last winter 18 000 people took part in the event, it’s interesting to hear how many people this winter.

Okay, I was enjoying myself and I was freezing! 😀 The sun was shining but the wind was cold. I was thinking about my cardigan before I went outside, but I didn’t take it with me. But my toes were soon freezing too, and I had woollen socks…

Yes, but, my actual results… I heard a concert! 😀 Birds were singing all around me as they always do in and around our garden, but I didn’t see the singers. I recognized the voices of magpies, great tits and blue tits. There were also some other tiny birds singing, but I didn’t recognize them. But yes, I actually saw a couple of ravens! They flew above me, croaking as they went. 🙂

We have this feeding spot for birds, hanging from a garden lamp post. We’ve seen many great tits and blue tits there, but not today…
And it’s occasionally been so warm lately that the snow’s been melting fast…

“So, you count the birds once a year? Cool! I do it every day.”

And this happened yesterday. The pine trees were steaming. It always looks rather interesting. 🙂 Yeah, with the temperatures going up and down constantly lately it’s good to let some steam off…

-Leena

Waiting for spring…

…aren’t we all…? In my opinion, all the four seasons are amazing and phenomenal. I’m equally excited about them all! That’s how I feel. 🙂 They all come and go… Beautiful, different… power…!

The first four pics I took today.

We’ve had delightful sunny days! But at one point it was a bit too warm… here in the southern part of Finland it was warmer than in many parts in Spain – in wintertime, in the middle of the night! 😮 But we’ve had snow all the time now.

Some days water is dripping… some days birds are singing – spring really is drawing near!

Dreaming of expanding our growing field again…

Okay, it was on January 2nd that I started planning it all… spring… garden… I didn’t do it on purpose on that day, so it was a bit funny to notice what I already was thinking about.

And the strawflowers are still there! Standing, and with their petals. They are so tough. I’ll plant strawflower seeds everywhere in our garden this year! 😀

An ice lantern again, a week ago was this. We’ve had four or five ice lanterns this winter, clear or pink as this, too, again was.

Ice light… And by now the daylight has increased wonderfully! 🙂

-Leena

It’s been winter

When it’s freezing cold, the sun is shining. When the temperature goes up, there will be clouds. It’s -3 degrees Celsius today, and was already yesterday, when I took these pics.

By the frozen lake Pyhäjärvi…

On the ice, there was a cool breeze…

Don’t you worry… it’s only winter here now, like… in Moominvalley…? 🙂

This tiger of ours likes to warm himself up beside a warm radiator in our living room. He sleeps there beside the radiator, or looks out of the window warming up his front paws. His sister doesn’t do that.

“I’ll just have my ass on it… If anyone tries to turn down the thermostat, I’ll have the time to have my say…”

Making magic, when it’s freezing cold – an ice lantern! – Below freezing temperatures, a bucket and water. And, for example, some beetroot water (from a beetroot jar), too, if you wish to have a pink ice lantern, like this one in our garden now. 🙂

-Leena