Summer, everything is in bloom, bats, cuckoo, I do not know why I cannot post pictures on my Instagram…

May

On Monday a week ago, May 25th. I went outside, there was a pretty gentle breeze, it was fairly quiet, only birds were singing, butterflies were flying here and there around me… It was nothing new, but something felt strange, wonderful… Everything was so green around me, grass and leaves had grown fast. It was warm, it was 21 degrees Celsius – the first time that it was 20 degrees Celsius or more this year. – It was the first day of summer!

May

And my first parrot tulip had opened. This is the first time that I have parrot tulips in the garden.

It was, again, around 15 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week, but over the weekend it was again around 20 degrees Celsius in the daytime. On Monday this week, June 1st, it was already 24 degrees Celsius. And around 21 degrees Celsius in the daytime it has now been yesterday and today. But at night the coldest temperature was again a bit over 5 degrees Celsius here.

May

All the parrot tulips opened.

We have seen the first bats for this year here. On Saturday a week ago and last Saturday as well. – Saturday may be the best day of the week. 🙂 It may be just one bat that we have seen, though, because we have seen only one at a time. Anyway, lovely creatures!

May

Okay so I cannot post pictures on my Instagram, and I do not know why. I have already tried to do everything… I have been restarting, checking, uninstalling, reinstalling… trust it, use it, prove it, groove it like Spice Girls… I even changed my username just for the heck of it, and changed it back again, just because I could do it… But I cannot change my profile picture or post pictures. I can like other people´s pictures and use Instagram in every other way, but my own pictures are doomed…

There has of course never been anything shady about my Instagram or about my actions, the last time that I posted something on my Instagram was on December, but come on, that cannot be the reason! 😮 Can it? And my boyfriend has tried everything and more, and he is a professional software person. I don´t know what I´m gonna do… I can always follow other people and like their pictures, but if I do those things and I am not posting anything, then I´m just weird, a stalker, a creeper… And I still want to post pictures on my Instagram! Perkele.

May

Grumbling followed by gorgeous flowers…

May
May

This is a pic from my phone, the pic that I was kinda trying to post on my Instagram.

May

Hyacinths, a lovely scent…

May

The pear tree is in bloom. It´s not as flowery as it was a year ago, but there are flowers, on four spots, as seen on the pic below. And the tree has grown!

June
May

In the back of our garden, I think that this is peony tulip. 🙂 It has a wonderful scent.

May
May

Forget me not, forget-me-nots… In the back of the garden, and near them…

May

…our small bird cherry tree is flowering, too.

I had already waited for it… “Cuck-koo!” – Cuckoo bird came back and started calling cuckoo on Sunday evening, and after that it has done it both in the daytime and evenings.

June

Tulips by my dwarf spruce

June

My spruce is growing every year! 🙂

June
June

Parrot tulip break ~

June
June

I love parrot tulips, they just get better as they get older…

June
June
June

Random 🙂 Viola

June

The apple tree is in bloom. As marvellous as ever…

June
June
June

Our plum tree already bloomed. – Whoa! We´re just hoping that it had the time to get pollinated… Yesterday when I took this picture there was only a few flowers left to be seen.

June

Lily of the Valley flowers are here! Love the scent, love them.

June

Lily of the Valley is the national flower of Finland.

June

The first lilac flowers have begun to open.

Also our cherry bush and cherry tree are in bloom, hopefully I still have time to take pictures of cherry flowers tomorrow… I have been sitting at this desk for too long today and I have already seen too many pics today as well, phew…

June

Peonies have grown! I should like clean this spot up a bit…

Leena

May

Snow, thunder, hail May

May

But first… A bit over a week ago on Saturday. This was the first time that I have seen a great spotted woodpecker on a bird feeder here. They have usually been only in the woods, in the pine trees and in the big maple tree beside our driveway. The greenhouse is about to fly, because my only ´concern´was the bird as I took this pic with zoom, in our living room, through the Venetian blinds. 🙂

May

And then… May snow. On Monday morning a week ago in the pic above. Well, it´s not unusual that it snows in May in the southern part of Finland, but it´s not very very common either – it does not happen every year. And the snow had already melted a lot when I took the pic, because I could not get out fast enough. 😀

The next four pictures I took on Friday morning:

May

The second snow for May, it had already melted a bit when I took these pics. Well, for example two years ago, on this day, it was around 28 degrees Celsius… 😀

May

Already small blackcurrant leaves! They are the biggest bush/tree leaves in our garden now.

May

Glory of the snow flowers…

May

Hyacinth flowers are emerging.

On Sunday, yesterday:

May

In the afternoon yesterday it was not warm, but cold, and it was thundering! It was the first time that I heard thunder in cold weather (4 degrees Celsius). And then it started to hail some bigger hailstones, well I know they can be a Lot bigger, but the very big hailstones do not usually never happen in our relatively pretty gentle Finland (and we just keep on complaining here :p ), so these were the biggest hailstones that I have ever seen, the pictures actually do not quite do justice to them, and when the hailing first started there was an interesting polka dot pattern for a while in the garden. By the way, this far we have planted onion, carrot and parsnip in this patch in the pic, but there´s still a lot of free space there.

May

In the afternoon we saw two black woodpeckers in the woods. They were loud. We heard them somewhere near already earlier last week.

May

Summer flower bed, I have cleared it of everything and left these that may have grown from last year´s seeds, we don´t know what they are, just want to see what comes out of them. My boyfriend took this pic with his phone without my knowing when I was scattering summer flower seeds.

May

It is here! The grass mowing season, we started it in our garden yesterday. Our lawnmower is a bit broken, a cord there is broken after the winter now (I don´t know how to explain this) and the machine does not pull, like move itself and drag us along, so we have to push it, and it´s too heavy for it, and pushing a lawnmower is a bit hard work in a yard like ours anyway.

So the sun was already shining a bit again in the afternoon and in the evening yesterday. And a bit later in the evening it was raining, sleeting and hailing (in that order) again and the sun was shining at the same time, too, for some time, but I was not interested anymore, and I went to sauna.

Pictures I took today:

May

Peonies! They, too, started to emerge earlier than usual this year… These are the tallest stems now.

The sun is shining again today.

May

Praestans shogun tulip flower, the first tulip flower that has opened.

May
May

A sight for sore eyes – there are flower buds emerging in the pear tree!

May

Our biggest Norway maple tree in bloom.

May

We visited the town of Rauma today, I just took these snaps when travelling in the car.

May

Leena

May

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. 🙂 :

  • Leena

The first snow of the season

Today, on the 26th of October, we have the first snow of the season. It started to snow last night. Fairly early here in southern Finland – already in October, usually this happens here in November.

We have to enjoy this now, today and perhaps still tomorrow. They say, and we know, that this snow will melt by the end of the week. So, now, some pictures that I took in our garden today. 🙂

first snow, October, corn plants

The corn plants and stuff…

first snow, October, echinacea, peony

Echinacea and peony covered with snow…

first snow, October, cherry tree leaves

And leaves of the cherry tree

first snow, October, clarkia amoena

I see something pink… They are clarkia amoena or godetia flowers! 🙂

first snow, October, clarkia amoena

first snow, October, peony poppy pod

Peony poppy pods…

first snow, October, peony poppy pod

first snow, October

first snow, October

And there are Christmas trees… :p

first snow October

-Leena

The last peony flowers, schizanthus & cornflower, bike ride 20 km…

The weather’s been warm lately and it’s been sunny, too, but it’s been really pouring down with rain occasionally, but sometimes the sun’s been trying to shine at the same time as well. Beautiful. 🙂

Now the last peony flowers. This, indeed, has been a bit different summer – we’ve had peony flowers still in August!

peony

peony

I missed some of the flowering of my peonies while I was in Kuusamo, but happily, there’s still been these beauties after my trip, too. 🙂

peony

peony

peony

peony

The very last ones on Thursday.

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid

Schizanthus, butterfly flower or poor man’s orchid has been flowering lately in our garden as well. They are grown from seeds. One of my favourite summer flowers.

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid & daisy

Daisies, too.

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid & daisy

schizanthus, butterfly flower, poor man's orchid

We have a lot of schizanthus growing this summer, they have been hit by the rain a bit…

lake Pyhäjärvi

On Thursday we took a 20 km bike ride along the lake Pyhäjärvi shoreline. It was nice. I took a picture as I was sitting by the lake for a while. 🙂

cornflower

Cornflower blooming now as well, grown from seeds. Yet another favourite of mine… And hit by the rain a bit…

cornflower

cornflower

-Leena

Pictures yesterday and today

More peony flowers…

peony

Follow the red petals! :

Follow the red petals!

Follow the red petals!

Follow the red petals!

peony

It was the peony flower that is the first peony flower who is dropping her petals this summer.

spinach

And we grow spinach from seeds in our garden. I made spinach soup. It’s delicious! 🙂 – Spinach, milk, some cream, a bit of butter, a bit of oat flour, a bit of salt.

herbs

Other herbs are growing from seeds with the basil in our garden, in the shelter of the house wall. There’s summer savory and rosemary, and then there’s some fourth herb – I can’t remember what it is… I must think about that a bit now… 🙂

cherry tree

We’ve now noticed that our grafted cherry tree has started to grow a branch on its own! High up there.

garden rose valamonruusu

And a bit more roses in our rose garden… Rosa splendens in the pictures… the name of the rose is valamonruusu in Finnish.

garden rose valamonruusu

garden rose valamonruusu

And peony flowers again, because…

Bury your face in this - flower therapy

Bury your face in this – flower therapy. 🙂

peony

lake Köyliönjärvi

By the lake Köyliönjärvi yesterday evening.

countryside love

Love for the countryside. In the same place by the lake, where I left our car for the visit.

-Leena

Peony flowers

Today only peony flowers… Peonies started blooming already in June last year and I cut the very last peony for drying on 16th July then. But this year eeeverything’s a little late, and now, on 16th July, the first bounty of peony flowers here in Owlnature. And not all the peony buds have opened yet…

peony

peony

peony

It’s just wonderful, for example, to take morning coffee with me outside and go and enjoy the charming scent of the superabundant flowers… that’s always one of the best moments in summertime right there! 🙂

peony

Luxuriant…

peony

Backyard peonies these dark red ones, the others are in the front yard.

peony

peony

peony

peony

peony

Lush…

peony

peony

-Leena