October, October, October

I was eagerly waiting for October already at the beginning of September this autumn. – I was just so ready for everything autumnal; for colourful leaves, and… no leaves at all, dark evenings, campfires, cold nights, (campfires), the cool, crisp air on a sunny autumn day, raking, steaming hot coffee, tea, hot chocolate, glögi… outside in the crisp air, gloves, scarves and knit hats or pipos as we call knit hats in Finnish, I love the Finnish word pipo – it’s just perfect for the item. 🙂 And I was ready to start creating our dream home, here, in our home. – About this project more later, and some pics, too, when anything is ready… ;D

october

October 1st. I tried to make a flower crown with the natural spring and summer flowers that still were blooming in our garden, there were not that many of them anymore… 🙂 After taking this pic 12 swans flew over me, honking as they went.

Norway Maple

October 2nd, pic above and pic below. A foggy morning. In the pic above our big Norway Maple.

October

This was at around 10 AM and after a moment it started to clear up… and all of a sudden the sun was shining in the clear blue sky!

rubber boots

Oh my… Oh, my new rubber boots! And the old ones, too! 😀 I took this pic as I was wearing my new rubber boots for the first time on Thursday last week. I just finally had to buy new rubber boots as my old ones had been leaking, both of them, already for over a year, now they are almost completely cracked – I’ve been storing them with care, but I’ve been wearing them A LOT here in countryside, even in sunny weather, because they are so comfortable. 🙂

The next eight pics are from Friday last week.

Norway Maple

Our Norway Maple in sunshine.

October

sunflower

Whatever happened to our sunflowers? Well, our biggest sunflower for this year is in the pic above… and I love it! 😀 And the tiny spider was feeling the same way! Okay, this year we know that the pre-growing of sunflowers has to be started earlier. 🙂

unknown flower

And these… I still don’t remember what these flowers are called. They are summer flowers grown from seed in summer. Very tough flowers – they are still there in our garden today – cosmos flowers already got frostbitten, badly. EDIT: This flower is clarkia or godetia, silkkikukka in Finnish. Thanks for the answer, A! 🙂

marigold, calendula

Pot marigolds or calendulas are sturdy autumn flowers as well. Still there.

October

In our backyard, a smaller Norway Maple and its friends: three pine trees, a rowan and two junipers.

Kauttuankoski

On a bridge above the Kauttuankoski rapids, going for a walk, at around 7 PM, it was about to get dark soon.

October

The bridge down there, in the pic above. The lamp posts were already lit. And the lovely scent of dry leaves around everywhere…

October

In our front yard today. Who’s raking? – Me! When the time is right. 😉

strawflower

And the strawflowers are still standing there with their rustling petals today!

-Leena

Summery September

Still all summery, warm. I’m actually already ready for everything autumnal, but… it will happen soon enough… again… 🙂 So now some flower power! Again! 😀 I took these pics yesterday and today. Some of the flowers are old friends – flowers that have been in my blog already in summer, but here’s also some new flowers, a bit late blooming, and I took pics of them only just today – flowers with a bit more autumnal colours…

strawflower & marigold

First the strawflowers and tiny marigolds. The tall strawflowers are very sturdy flowers! I wouldn’t have believed they are still standing. 🙂 And the rustling petals have been very tough, too!

marigold

Marigold, gold…

marigold

A runaway marigold growing wildly beside our porch. With a birch tree. 🙂

cosmos

A bit of cosmos

cosmos

Evening light…

summer flower

Above some late blooming flower of summer flower seed mix, I presume. Autumnal colour…

And the rest of the flowers today are bigger marigolds, pot marigolds or calendulas, grown from seed in summer.

marigold, calendula

marigold, calendula

marigold, calendula

Late blooming autumnal beauties…

marigold, calendula

marigold, calendula

lake Pyhäjärvi

And yesterday by the lake Pyhäjärvi. Eating ice cream and taking pics at once… 🙂

lake Pyhäjärvi

A summery, calm lake…

-Leena

On the last day of July and on the first day of August…

More pics from yesterday, and some I took today. 🙂

monkshood

Monkshood, extremely poisonous from roots to the tiny hoods, and we have so much of it in our garden – this is a very traditional plant in the old gardens in Finland. The man who build this house was very much a garden man, we’ve heard, so, no wonder – the fact can be seen in our garden today…

monkshood

marigold

Some sort of marigold, very small marigold.

DSC04750

We can’t remember what this flower is… I’ve tried to google it, but no luck with that. EDIT: This flower is clarkia or godetia, silkkikukka in Finnish. Thanks for the answer, A! 🙂

cornflower

More pics of my cornflowers. Many charming colours they have…

cornflower

cornflower

cosmos

The first cosmos flower this summer, opened today, missing one petal. I had cosmos flowers last summer, too. These are growing from seeds, of course, and I like them a lot. 🙂

butterfly flower

Butterfly flower, schizanthus, poor man’s orchid again…

strawflower

And strawflowers again. Here it can be seen that our tall strawflowers and the shorter butterfly flowers as well as tiny marigolds are tight neighbours. 😀

strawflower

Pyhäjärvi

Yesterday evening by the lake Pyhäjärvi, after some Nordic walking and eating blueberries again. It was so nice to sit on a bench – the air was perfect, not at all warm, not at all cold. The sun was shining, but wasn’t warming, and the wind was blowing wonderfully. 🙂 And the sound of waves, just lovely…

campfire

A campfire in our garden last night. It can be said that this was my birthday campfire – it was not only the last day of July yesterday, but also my birthday (and by the way, the birthday of Harry Potter —> WTF? -Oh yes, says a Harry Potter fan (that’s me) here, aaand, it was also the birthday of J.K. Rowling herself. 😀 ) And… how old am I…? I’m actually a bit younger than Harry Potter… ;D Just a bit…

-Leena

Flowers in the morning

A nice and sunny morning today was. And so much inspiration while having my morning coffee. I’m not sure if I should warn somebody of… something… but here comes 18 pics of which 17 are flower pics. So, here’s some FLOWER POWER. 🙂

I took today’s pics before and after 9 AM, a few pics are from Friday and Saturday. First peony poppies this morning:

poppy

The first peony poppy grown from the seeds that I planted this summer. Five pics of it here… 🙂

poppy

It has grown tall.

poppy

poppy

Marvelous, colourful peony poppies…

poppy

poppy

And my ‘wild’ poppies, two more of them.

poppy

annual mallow

Annual mallow grown from seed. The first opened mallow flower this summer, I planted them last summer, too. Mallows are lovely. Other names for this annual mallow: rose mallow, royal mallow, regal mallow.

strawflower

A Strawflower bud opening on Friday.

strawflower

More strawflowers on Saturday.

strawflower

Nicely rustling flowers, when you touch them. 🙂

strawflower

Strawflowers this morning:

strawflower

DSC04622

I took this pic while I was taking a break from taking pics of flowers this morning. 🙂 I was sitting on a bench, eating a banana and redcurrants freshly picked from the bush. Having some more coffee.

And more flowers this morning:

cornflower

And I planted cornflower seeds, too, this summer. The first flowers are emerging from buds.

cornflower

butterfly flower

Butterfly flower, Schizanthus. Or poor man’s orchid. 🙂 Grown from seed. A tiny and an exotic looking flower.

red flax

A choker… And the flower is called red flax. It’s grown from seed in the geometric flower plantation made by a man. 🙂

-Leena