More summer, bats again, the longest day of the year 2017…

So today is the longest day of the year 2017. Here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.52 AM, and the sun sets at 23.13 PM – the length of the day is 19 hours 20 minutes.

The bats have now been here for the fourth time. Or, we have seen them here four times now, in the woods next to our garden and flying close above our heads in the garden. Nice and delightful! 🙂 They were here on Sunday again. They always come just before twelve o’clock at night. On that night we also saw a whole rainbow here, although it hadn’t even rained. It was the first whole rainbow that we’ve seen from our garden.

The black woodpeckers have also been frequent visitors in the woods next to our garden. One really notices when they come – they have the loud and long flight call “klee-yee” when they enter the woods.

lake Pyhäjärvi

By the lake Pyhäjärvi here in our home village on Saturday. I was standing on a dock as I took this pic.

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Lilac and the big Norway maple beside our driveway once more.

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White lilac flowers in the garden as well. We have loads of purple or lilac lilac flowers in big bushes, but only a few white in a small bush. I must say that the purple truly is my favourite lilac anyway… But these white flowers are charming, too, and it wouldn’t be the same without these adding up to it in our garden.

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red campion, red catchfly

A few more of red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden.

river Pyhäjoki

We found this lovely spot by the river Pyhäjoki in the municipality of Säkylä on Sunday.

river Eurajoki

Welcome to the countryside! 🙂 With this pic, too, and on Sunday as well. By the river Eurajoki in the municipality of Eura.

oregano & sage

Oregano and sage. These two green friends are a bit different in the way that we, who usually grow herbs and everything from seeds, have bought them fully-grown – at half the price at the local grocery store. These are grown in Finland, which we naturally really appreciate. And these aren’t the usual herb pots that you can buy at the grocery stores in wintertime, these are for summer gardening outside… hmm, just to be specific, not that it should make much of a difference…(?) 🙂 But yeah, these for the garden actually are bigger, sturdier… And we have re-potted these, for better growth.

lettuce

Grow some lettuce, lettuce wants to grow for you! 🙂

strawberry

By our strawberry field today. There are surprisingly many strawberry flowers and strawberries growing already.

mountain cornflower, perennial cornflower

The first fully opened centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet flower in the garden today.

park lilac, Hungarian lilac

And our park lilacs or Hungarian lilacs have started to open their flowers now as well. There seem to be many more flowers in the bushes now than a year ago.

-Leena

Bats here again, lilac flowers & other flowers, light summer nights, lovely scents all around…

We had one really rainy day, it was, like, more than 24 hours of rain here where we are living between Monday and Tuesday this week. Everything is so green and colourful out there now. And the scent of the summer is charming and fresh…

And the bats have been here again. – We have seen them here already three times now! 🙂 In the woods next to our garden and in our garden, and flying close above our heads. They were here for the third time last night. And we heard the cuckoo calling at the same time as well, the cuckoo’s been calling somewhere near here every day now, really around the clock. 😀

Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley flowers now everywhere, in our garden as well. The scent of the flowers is one of my favourite scents in nature.

Lily of the Valley

Lily of the Valley is the national flower of Finland. Lily of the Valley is called kielo in Finnish.

lilac & apple flowers

A week ago the lilac flowers were starting to open and the apple trees were still flowering…

starry forest ground

Starry forest ground in the woods beside our garden after 23.45 PM a week ago. Chickweed wintergreen flowers or arctic starflower flowers. – The stars are not in the sky in Finland now, they are in forests, on the ground level, because of the light summer nights.

Today, here where I’m living, the sun rose at 3.53 AM, and the sun sets at 23.11 PM, the length of the day is 19 hours 18 minutes, and the darkest hours of the day are not that dark either… the special weeks up here… 🙂

fly honeysuckle & friend

I met this very busy friend at the fly honeysuckle tree in the back of our garden…

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Our fly honeysuckle looks old, we’ve thought…

lilac

Lilac flowers! My darlings! 😀 Oh, the scent in the garden now… Okay, I’d better go outside, soon…

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I took these pictures on Wednesday.

raven feather

On our regular walk – in the raven forest near our home. A raven feather, one of them – there are always many of them there on the ground in the summertime. And the noble and funny ravens are croaking there… 🙂

And after the walk, more lilac flowers, in the evening light:

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Under the lilac flowers, in the pictures above and below.

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Lilac and the big Norway maple in our driveway.

red campion, red catchfly

Red campion or red catchfly flowers in the garden now as well.

garden nasturtium, Indian cress

These feet, duck feet, or what are they… Hmm, that’s tropaeolum majus or garden nasturtium or Indian cress growing. Something to admire and eat…

We’ve planted numerous seeds… flowers, food, everything. I’ll take pictures and write about everything here, when it’s the time… And if something doesn’t grow, I’ll think about it here as well. 🙂

-Leena

Mountain cornflowers, petunia and their friends

Yesterday’s flower pics.

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Centaurea montana or mountain cornflower or perennial cornflower or mountain bluet. These, too, are flowers that we have on many different spots in our garden, thank you, the previous owners of this house! I like these. 🙂

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The tiny yellow flowers on the background are meadow buttercups, very wild in our garden… 🙂

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More petunia pics. Now the lovely colour combination can be seen a bit better…

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In the same pot with the petunia is another flower, too. It was there when we got this, and I don’t know what this flower is, haven’t found the answer. I call it the white crown flower

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…or the white flower crown

EDIT: The answer came to me in a garden store, I saw these flowers there with a name tag. 🙂 This is verbena, rautayrtti in Finnish.

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Red campion or red catchfly. A bit wild in our garden as well. And a bit everywhere, for example around the rapids.

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On Friday by the lake Pyhäjärvi. It was raining a bit as I took this pic.

-Leena