Bad winter, baaad…

No permanent snow cover here in the southernmost part of Finland this winter – I guess it´s safe to say this now, at this point in time. Umm… so we already had ´the seventh snow´, ´the eighth snow´and ´the ninth snow´for this season here where I´m living. (At least these we´ve had, I may have forgotten ´one more snow´, but I can´t even count these anymore.) So a bit snow for a few days, a few centimetres of snow for two or three days, and so on… As it has been this winter. And then, again, fricking warm weather, temperatures above zero degrees Celsius, Rain… I am so fed up with this. And hey yes, it started to snow on Wednesday this week and now we have `the tenth snow´for this winter. A few centimetres of snow we Had. – It lasted until today, it´s Sunday today, and the snow is already melting.

February

The amount of snow in centimetres in Finland yesterday. Oh, the northern part of the country and Lapland

The next four pics I took here in our home village on Friday evening when we were coming back from grocery store 🙂 :

February

By the lake Pyhäjärvi. Lit by our car, hmm… Some ice… an ice cover and snow on the lake for that time…

February

On the same spot, looking up… The moon was bright again!

February

Travelling in the woods… A bumpy road.

February

Ended up in an ice rink…

February

Yesterday, my morning coffee, snowman in the middle of the oak trees…

February

This was a week ago. We have not seen this before! The leaf buds have already begun to open in the bush, in late January!

February

And our small common hazel shrub has already begun to open its leaf buds….. This Picture I took yesterday.

February

Oh yes… This was on Wednesday late in the evening. This was my third time on skis this winter. Well, it took me a while, but I finally learned :-p that, this winter, whenever there´s enough snow, I gotta go cross-country skiing, immediately, in our yard. Just go!

Eukalyptusvihta

Whoa! A eucalyptus sauna whisk, we had this for the first time last week. Usually we have Finnish birch sauna whisks, but now we wanted to try this eucalyptus (from Ukraine) whisk, because we found it for half the price in a local grocery store. And we loved it! The whisk was thick, the leaves were wonderfully long and they didn´t fall off. It was very good to hit yourself with it. And the scent when you split the leaves a bit and crush them in your hands is lovely. A nice and a rather exotic experience. 🙂

January

In these pictures… I believe this was our ´seventh´snow, in January this was. Well, this winter it does not matter what day it was or is now…

January

The last three pics I took today:

I started watching cross-country skiing again… Either watching cross-country skiing or dreaming of doing it…? :p

February

Green edibles growing in the kitchen.

  • Leena

New Year, new something´´:)

It´s next decade! 😮 🙂

Okay so the very tiny amount of snow we had melted. It was ´the fifth snow´for this season here where I´m living. So now, again, no snow…

December

So it´s what´s on television, Viaplay, Netflix, etc. that counts. 😉 This was on Sunday, my morning coffee… And I watched my favourite Christmas movie once again. A Christmas Carol, based on my favourite Christmas book, by Charles Dickens.

Snaps from yesterday, the last day of the year, New Year´s Eve it was:

December

Here in our home village, travelling back from grocery store…

December
December

By a December´s rose again… And the sun was shining, again! And the sky was clear and starry at night. It was wonderful. 🙂

December

Just a few of the many lovely lights outside around here last night…

December

The rest of the pictures I took today, on the first day of the year 2020, on New Year´s Day:

January

Well, it was a bit cold at night…

January

The sun was shining a bit today as well…

January

I started watching the New Year´s Concert of The Vienna Philharmonic. I love the tradition, and the intermission programme, too.

January

Green edibles growing in the kitchen. They are growing pretty fast. 🙂

January

By the Christmas tree…

January

Outside:

January
January
  • Leena

Christmas lights~

Black Christmasmusta joulu. – No snow here in the southernmost part of Finland. Until yesterday – a tiny amount of snow here where I´m living. Very tiny. So it has been this “it´s what´s inside that counts” thing at Christmas this year. Yeah, well, we already did have our ´fourth snow´, too, for this season, here where I´m living, after the third one melted, a bit more snow for some days there was again, but it all melted just before Christmas…

Now some pictures:

Christmas tree

These first two pictures I took on Monday. We have our first ever Christmas tree in this house. Love the atmosphere and the scent!

~Christmas tree and Christmas food, chocolate, coffee, glögi and watching television, Netflix, Finnish Yle Areena, etc. and enjoying the outdoors a bit and reading, thinking… Mostly. Between Christmas and New Year as well.

cones in Christmas tree

And the tree even has cones! It´s black spruce.

Christmas Day walk

I´m not usually on the track, but when it´s Christmas Day, I am. There is a bit longer uphill part there on the track, not a steep one, but you can really feel that you go uphill, and I was just thinking “What the hell am I doing here Now?” But at the end of the track, it all started to feel just nice. 🙂

Two more on Christmas Day,, at night:

white Christmas... lights

White Christmas… lights, on the lilac bush in our front yard.

Outside our living room.

And the snow then finally:

Snow! :)

Yesterday morning. A pleasant surprise and this really makes a big difference! Our ´fifth snow´ for this season is this…

December

In the daytime, still no natural light yesterday.

December
December

Coffee pic yesterday.

hyacinth

Hyacinth, the scent…

hyacinth
December

Yesterday evening, here in our home village.

Pictures today:

December

Coffee pic by the rose bush Rosa Splendens, Valamonruusu.

It´s a colder day today, it´s -5 degrees Celsius, but they say that it feels like -11 degrees Celsius, now, around 11 am.

December

There was some natural light coming my way! 😀

December
December

Sunshine!

December

The days are already getting longer. The length of the day today, here where I´m living, is 5 h 32 min.

  • Leena

The national birdwatch 2019 in Finland (& pics today)

On Saturday, yesterday, I took part in the national birdwatch again, the national birdwatch 2019, Pihabongaus 2019, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. It was my fourth time now and I was standing and walking in our garden again. As usual, I had a good time and I was freezing at the end of the event even though I had warm clothes on. 🙂 But it was only -9 degrees Celsius, they said that it felt like -14 degrees, during my birdwatch hour.

So, I saw… a lot of snow and it was snowing a bit, too. Well, as always, I heard many little birds singing, singing in the trees, but I didn’t see that many birds. I recognized the voices of great tits and blue tits and crows. And I saw a magpie, a great spotted woodpecker, a few great tits and I heard and saw a flock of tree sparrows as well. The great spotted woodpecker was pecking at a pine tree and it was nice to watch it with binoculars. One great tit came to perform a solo in front of me, that was funny.

So that was what happened. 🙂

And just a few pictures that I took in our garden today:

January

We have around 30 centimetres of snow here where I’m living. I suspect that we have more than 30 centimetres… It’s been snowing like every day now – sometimes more, sometimes just a little bit. And they say that it will still be snowing.

January

The sky is blue!

January

…and at night the snow is still blue, too. 😉 This was bad after 1.30 am today.

  • Leena

Holidays, holidays…

…continue, here at home. Now pictures from Thursday and today. Just relaxing…

December

I love the novel, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens! I read it, in English, for the first time 16 or 17 years ago. I’ve watched the film by Disney from the year 2009 many many times – I love the film as well. But I watched the film from the year 1984 for the first time on Thursday, and, well, I loved that, too. Spirit!

I’ve watched some other films, too, during these holidays, some of them are traditional Christmas films, for example; Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, The Snowman (1982), Krampus (2015), The Christmas Chronicles (2018 Netflix), Hocus Pocus (1993) [- was it Christmas or Halloween we just had…? 🙂 ]. And I’ve also watched some nature programmes and Finnish comedy Uuno Turhapuro on tv, for example. 🙂

December

Harry Potter. – First the book, then the film. 🙂 My next film is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which will be one of my New Year’s films, (I finished reading the book a bit over a week ago), and the next book is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (haven’t started it yet). I’m reading Harry Potter in Finnish now first, because the translation by Jaana Kapari is extraordinary!

December

This, too, is from where I watch television… The plant, the tree in the pic is weeping fig or ficus tree.

December

Some sunshine again today, but after Christmas it’s been warmer especially in the daytime. It hasn’t been raining, but the snow has been melting a bit and it’s been a bit… blurry out there.

summer collection
December

Water was dripping from a bigger tree on me and on my camera as I took pics of my dwarf spruce and the winter lights…

December
  • Leena

Christmas, lights, flowers…

Now just pictures from Sunday, Tuesday and yesterday.

December
December

They were giving away these ‘bushes’, autumn plants with different colours, at a store, and I chose these three. The Ibiza lizard is covered in snow a bit.

December

From where I watch television and eat and drink coffee…

ice lantern

We made two ice lanterns for Christmas. I named this one a ‘Red-letter day’…

December

I was taking a picture of the sun yesterday. It’s was down there hiding behind the trees…

December

“Well, move!”, I said to myself. “It’s up to you, you know…” ;D

poinsettia

This year I have a pink poinsettia, not a red one. – It was a plan… 😉 I was waiting for some ‘direct sunlight’ to get the poinsettia look natural in a picture… the colours.

hyacinth

Well, hashtag nofilterneededHyacinth. This year one of my hyacinths is a bit different, too. – It’s dark pink, not light pink.

hyacinth
I love blue Christmas lights! ;)

I planted this dwarf spruce in the autumn. And I already have a picture of it on my Instagram without and with these Christmas or winter lights. Here it is in the dark, with the blue Christmas lights. – Blue winter lights, my dream…

And here’s another video from our trail camera, or animal camera that we had in my boyfriend’s forest. Night-time wanderers, moose! :

  • Leena

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