winter tradition – Page 2

March on

It’s March already – incredible! But the winter weather continues, it’s been even bitterly cold lately, as it has been the case in many other parts of Europe as well. Here in Finland the temperatures have been below -10 degrees Celsius and for some days the temperatures were between -15 and -20 degrees Celsius, and even colder than that. Naturally, it’s been colder during the nighttime because the sun is already warming during the daytime. I mean, the sun’s been shining like crazy! 😀 – So many sunny days lately, it’s been like constant sunshine… And as I am still counting; here, where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for 13 weeks now.

I took this picture yesterday, just to show how high the sun already is in the sky here. This was at around 14.10 pm. On the shortest day of the year the sun at its highest point was just above that hill. The increasing daylight truly has made me do all kinds of things, as I already said in the previous blog post, effective. 🙂

My morning coffee today, at around 9.10 am. It was -12 degrees Celsius – only -12… 😀

And crepes with our own apple jam. I used oat flour and a mixture of oat and potato flours. Potato flour is good – it gives the oat flour crepes structure so that they are easy to flip.

Did someone say winter sports? – Winter sports is still on. And I love it! This weekend it’s the Lahti Ski Festival here in Finland, it’s part of the World Cup thing. Now there’s Nordic Combined on, with the ski jumping part. Okay, most of us Finns love to watch cross-country skiing and ski jumping, and luckily that’s just what the Lahti Ski Games are about. 🙂

-Leena

Winter… and winter sports fans

First about the weather again… Winter weather continues, and here, where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for over 10 weeks now! Lately we had a couple of warmer days with the temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius, but now it’s been colder again – around -5 degrees and -10 degrees Celsius and even colder. And it’s been snowing and the sun’s been shining, too…

And today it was -20 degrees Celsius just before 8 am when I took these first two pictures in this blog post:

My morning coffee… You can go outside without your mittens at -20 degrees Celsius if you have a warm winter coat and a mug of warm coffee to warm your hands, naturally. 🙂

So much light already before 8 am!

I love to watch winter sports. Now I’m addicted to the Winter Olympics… I’ve been watching the Olympic Winter Games every day now, and I start watching them in the morning, with headphones, of course… There was curling on when I took this picture this morning. Curling is one of my great favourites, another one of my great favourites is… everything done with snowboards, yay! 🙂

And I’ve been watching the Olympics surrounded by these guys:

So we’ve been very active here… Well, indeed, watching the Winter Olympics has been fun and inspiring – I’ve been doing all kinds of things while watching winter sports – I watch the Olympics for a while and then I do something and then I watch winter sports again and after a moment I do something again… This has been effective for me, perhaps with the increasing daylight, naturally… 🙂

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2018 in Finland & other things…

The temperatures have temporarily gone up. First we had a pretty heavy snowfall on Wednesday, we had about 10 centimetres of fresh snow on the ground in the evening that day. But after that it’s been even raining, raining like crazy for a while, but it still didn’t melt all the snow, so, here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for seven weeks now. And they say that the temperatures are going down again and that it will snow again. Today it’s already been sleeting and snowing, and heavily and very big snowflakes, too.

My morning coffee today. I love maps… I take every opportunity to have a map to look at, any map, everywhere… 🙂

And yes, today I took again part in the national birdwatch, the national birdwatch 2018, Pihabongaus 2018, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January, it’s not a competition, just one hour of birdwatching, and anyone can participate. The idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. And even hearing the birds counts.

One of the birds’ hideouts… (I took these last two pictures in this blog post after my birdwatch hour.) So, during my hour I was standing and walking in heavy snowfall and in normal snowfall in our garden. And I heard a concert again! – The voices were many, but, again, I didn’t see that many singers. 🙂

I recognized the voices of crows, magpies, great tits and blue tits and I think I recognized the voice of a some type of sparrow and the voice of a bullfinch – I really was lucky enough to see a few bullfinches here on our bird feeder the other day! 🙂 And I heard a woodpecker knocking somewhere near (I’ve seen two great spotted woodpeckers hear earlier). There always are also some other tiny birds chirping and singing, but I still don’t recognize them…

And the birds I actually saw today: a couple of magpies, one great tit and a flock of small birds – I couldn’t see what birds they were.

So, I was enjoying myself and my hour ended just before my freezing point. 😀

My birdwatching trail…

-Leena

Amaryllis & schlumbergera

It was a bit warmer again out there for a few days and water was dripping, and especially yesterday it rained a bit, but for many hours, but it still didn’t melt the snow we’ve had on the ground for four weeks (that’s a month!) now. And then it sleeted late in the evening. Today the weather’s a bit colder again and they say that it ought to stay that way now and that it ought to snow again as well.

So, now it’s been the perfect time for flowers inside the house! 🙂

My amaryllis is flowering now. Biiig flowers… First it had two flowers.

The jungle here… and, oh, a black panther there, up there in the picture… The black with white markings, a funny type of black panther. 🙂

The colours of this amaryllis are lighter than the colours of my previous amaryllis. I didn’t know what colour my amaryllis would be, or I knew that it has two colours, and I assumed they would be red and white, but the actual hue was a surprise. It turned out to be charming, sweet.

Schlumbergera or Christmas cactus flowering, too. This plant moved here with my amaryllis after Christmas, my boyfriend decided to buy this plant. I like schlumbergera, too, very much, and I love the name – I think that it sounds beautiful. 🙂

Since yesterday my amaryllis has four flowers.

Why am I, all of a sudden, taking pictures in the corner of our living room…? Because on the usual spot we have now a plant light, a real plant light, purple light. Purple light is nice and decorative and good for the plants, but plants in pictures taken ‘under its spell’… not exactly natural, the colours they have under that light… I’ll have to think of something – I don’t like this corner that much, the way it is now, when it comes to taking pictures here…

The purple light… But look, that tiger up there looks pretty natural!

So, it’s already been snowing a bit, too, today. Here’s a couple of pictures I took just before publishing this blog post.

-Leena

The last day of the year, flowers, a book…

Today is the last day of the year 2017. The New Year is here! About the weather again; on Wednesday morning we had again a bit more fresh snow and the sun was shining in the daytime. Thursday and Friday were cloudy days and it was a bit warmer. Yesterday there was a bit more light out there, even some sunlight and it was snowing and the sun was shining by turns in the daytime. Today there was a bit of sunlight again. So, there’s been snow on the ground for three weeks now! 🙂

My hyacinths…

The scent!

As charming as ever…

I bought this amaryllis after Christmas, for half the price. This is my second ever amaryllis plant. The first amaryllis plant I had… exists no more. – The trouble with the bulb plants inside the house… (?) 😮 So, now I’m expecting this plant to just flower for me. 🙂 A bud has begun to open.

And the viola plant is still there in our garden. And it still has fresh flowers! – A few fresh flowers like this one in the pic. This must be sorcery! ;D

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I have started reading this book now, in Finnish. I am finally reading this book. – I have been interested in this book ever since I first read about it somewhere. A fascinating theme, fascinating nature. “What They Feel, How They Communicate. Discoveries from a Secret World.” – From the English book cover.

A bit of sunlight today, on the last day of the year 2017. Happy New Year! 🙂

-Leena

Christmas

Now something about Christmas and some pictures I have taken over the past few days. So, the snow is still on the ground. We’ve had snow on the ground for over two weeks now. – I haven’t stopped believing in magic. 😉 We had sunshine and temperatures below zero degrees Celsius on Sunday and yesterday, on Monday. On Sunday we also had bright stars in the sky at night, but last night, at night, it was a bit warmer again and some water was dripping, but it didn’t melt the snow, not yet. And now, in the daytime, it’s a bit colder again and we even have a tiny, a very tiny bit of fresh snow.

In our living room… from where I watch television. 🙂 Yesterday, for example, I watched two films, both of them for the first time; Beauty and the Beast from this year and The Revenant from the year 2015. Two different films, both to my liking.

So, in short, having good food (or more like feasting…), eating chocolate, watching television, going to a candlelit sauna – some of the nice Christmas traditions…

And having coffee… This was my morning coffee yesterday.

Our little drummer this Christmas has been a woodpecker who’s been drumming somewhere near in the daytime every day now.

The sky was changing fast for some minutes there yesterday, it had some interesting features… I was trying to capture at least something…

And having some more glögi… This, too, was yesterday. I was waiting for my hyacinths to open their flowers. 🙂

Happening today, some of the flowers have begun to open…

-Leena

Snow, garden birds, swans calling in the darkness, the shortness of the day…

It started to snow here where I’m living late in the evening on Saturday, and on Sunday we had many separate snowfalls. It was a surprise, a very pleasant one, because the snow that we had on Independence Day had already melted away earlier. But it wasn’t that cold – around 0 degrees Celsius and -1 degrees Celsius at the lowest. Yesterday, on Monday, we had eight centimetres of snow and it was a bit colder. Today it has been as cold as yesterday and we have pretty heavy snowfall, as promised. 🙂 It has been snowing all day.

The first four pictures I took yesterday.

A snow cat it was.

One of our rose bushes still had some leaves yesterday. The sun was shining low…

About the length of the day… or about the shortness… Today, here where I’m living, the sun rose at 9.35 AM and the sun sets at 15.14 PM – the length of the day is 5 h 39 min. It starts to get lighter again on Friday next week. 🙂

Now we have two feeding spots for wild birds in our garden. This is the new one. We’ve had great tits, blue tits, sparrows, a couple of blackbirds and a great spotted woodpecker.

I’ve heard swans calling many times lately – I’ve been standing in our garden, in the darkness, and I’ve heard the sounds of swans – they’ve been flying somewhere near and some swans have been honking by/on the lake, I think.

It’s the glögi season again! My glögi last night in the pic above. I’ve already drunk some litres of it this season. It’s delicious and nicely warming.

What is glögi? – I wrote this a year ago: Glögi is a traditional, hot and spiced drink. It’s mainly a Christmas (and pre-Christmas) drink in Finland. It can be translated as mulled wine. However, not all the glögi drinks are like wine – alcoholic drinks – some are, but, actually, we drink a lot of juice glögi in Finland, so… glögi is… glögi in Finland. As a non-alcoholic drink it’s some fruit or berry juice, hot and spiced. This one that I’m having is grape, blackcurrant and blueberry juice, spiced with cinnamon, bitter orange peel, cloves, cardamom and ginger – all the traditional Christmas or winter spices. Glögi can be bought ready-made – that’s probably why the juice glögi is so popular.

The rest of the pictures I took today.

Just love, lovely. A wish for Christmas.

This is some wintry December now, but we do have these changing weather conditions here in the southern part of Finland, so, let’s just enjoy this, for now, for a while… 🙂

At the moment we have almost 20 centimetres of snow on the ground, it definitely is the snow record for this season here where I’m living. And last winter, no, no, we didn’t have this much snow, no… So, “go, go… go outside!”, I must say to myself today. Still more snow coming down all the time now.

-Leena