And then there was more…

…snow. It has been snowing again. Right now we have 25 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living.

First pictures that I took yesterday.

January

It snowed quite a lot in the evening on Wednesday and at night between Wednesday and yesterday. And then the sun was shining yesterday, before it started snowing a bit again.

Hello!
~Hello!~ Dwarf spruce
January
January

Do not leave even footprints…? 🙂

January
January

Step into… This is the time for cross-country skiing!

January

Coffee yesterday, and the book is a fairy tale about Lapland, Sampo Lappalainen by Zachris Topelius (1818-1898). Topelius wrote the fairy tale in 1860. The drawings in this book, from the year 1983, are by Hannu Lukkarinen.

And pictures that I took today:

January

Just morning coffee…

January

It’s been snowing today as well. And they say that this wintry weather will continue now – snow, cold weather, sunshine, snowing…

January

And the sun’s been shining, too, today… And after that it already snowed a bit again…

January

I started to clear snow from our terrace yesterday and continued today…

  • Leena

Strange how familiar – more about January

It was sunny and it was windy on Friday, and a lot of snow fell from the wintry trees that we had… We had some sunshine yesterday, too, but today, now it’s already snowing a bit, and they say that it will continue to snow. – Now that is what I really like! Right now, because it’s January! 🙂

January

Late in the afternoon on Friday.

The next four pictures I took already on Saturday a week ago:

January

Never before have we seen so many deer tracks in our yard. – We have seen deer tracks often in our garden this winter. The animals are night-time wanderers, but we saw a ‘herd’ of three deer once, early in the morning, and a couple of deer in the daytime.

On Saturday a week ago there were many deer tracks in our yard, first I thought there had been two deer, but then I kept finding new tracks, and it looked like there had been at least three deer. Well, that was our strawberry patch in the pic above – that was the first time that deer had actually been doing something in our garden – digging and eating and it looked like one had been lying down there. Deer oh deer…

Some prints and tracks that I found:

deer hoof print, cat paw print in snow
A deer hoof print and a cat paw print.

A deer hoof print and a cat paw print side by side. – A nice coincidence. 🙂 Deer hoof prints that we see here are usually quite small…

deer hoof print in snow

…but then I found these tracks – the hoof prints looked a lot bigger… “What was that? – The devil has been in our backyard?”, I thought to myself. ;D

deer tracks in snow

Now pictures that I took yesterday:

amaryllis

Amaryllis. Always majestic… And the scent is lovely and delicate!

My amaryllis had three flowers in the first stem, this is now the second stem, and it has four flowers, the flower in the picture is the first one that’s fully opened. Just marvellous.

amaryllis
amaryllis
staghorn fern

Now just one pic of our new house plant, staghorn fern or elkhorn fern. Hopefully it won’t dry out… An interesting plant!

January

I went for a walk barefoot from the sauna again on Friday night, twice. I had only a towel around me and the snow and the chilly wind felt very nice. Comfortable enough – meaning one can do it without hesitation…

Our cats’ mother, the mother cat, came to live with us – that’s something new and nice as well. We travelled to Central Finland to get her on Monday this week. We had seen the mother cat only once before, very briefly, almost four and a half years ago and we didn’t remember how she actually looked like, so that was an interesting surprise for us, too, when we saw her on Monday. 🙂

  • Leena

Wintry pictures

It has been snowing quite a lot again. We have now 18 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living. Snowy, soft…

First pictures that I took in our yard yesterday.

January

Norway maple.

January

The cherry tree. Hopefully it survives the winter. Our first cherry tree did not survive last winter, it was its first winter… but the tree was different and it was in a different place in our garden…

January

Snowy garden…

January
January
January

Backyard trees.

January

Winter… like in Moominvalley. 😉

Silent, magical…

January
January
January
January

Backyard pine trees.

January

We took a walk by the lake Pyhäjärvi near our home yesterday, just before it was getting dark. – The pine tree trunks didn’t have snow on them there in the woods, but they looked wintry, too – they were like light purple. That looked nice. 🙂

January
lake Pyhäjärvi, January

At the end of a cape, which is also a ridge, about half a mile long amidst the lake ( – oh dear, I don’t know how to explain this any better than this in English… 🙂 )

January

And today, in our garden again…

January
dwarf spruce, January
Dwarf spruce, blue winter lights.
January
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Snowy

It snowed quite a lot in the evening on Tuesday and at night between Tuesday and yesterday. And it was very windy. The storm had been even record-breaking for a while at the sea. It was windy yesterday, too, but the sun was shining. Well, about the snow… must always say this, but this is quite a lot snow for us here in southern Finland – in eastern Finland and northern Finland, for example, they always have a lot more, that’s only natural. 🙂

The first pictures I took in the morning yesterday:

January

My dwarf spruce. Hopefully it survives the winter…

January

Hmm… Our car.

January

The wind made it look a bit different…

January

…but beautiful.

January
January

By the lake Pyhäjärvi near our home at noon yesterday. There was a chilly wind…

January

And in our garden in the afternoon.

January

And today:

composter, temperature
Year-round composter

It’s warm inside the composter in our garden.

It’s -11 degrees Celsius outside now at around 11.30 am. But they say that it “feels like -16 degrees Celsius”. Yes, it does feel a bit like that, but it’s not windy anymore and the sun is shining.

January
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The next chapter

It’s… next year! Hmm… 🙂

First four pictures that I took in our yard yesterday, on New Year’s Eve:

December

A deer it was… I noticed these two days ago, and took this pic yesterday, before it started snowing in the evening.

December

One of yesterday’s many lights… It was snowing and it was windy. But very nice.

December
December

A candlelit sauna and from the sauna outside to walk barefoot in snow on the terrace and in the middle of the yard. And then back to sauna, and then do it again. I love how it feels! 🙂

So I watched one more Christmas film; The Polar Express (2004). I’ve tried to watch it, on two occasions, before – some years ago for the first time and again – was it at Christmas a year ago – I can’t remember anymore, but I fell asleep, on both occasions, already in the beginning of the film. – I was interested, but I was also very tired, obviously… So now I was determined to watch the film. And what a nice adventure it was! – And I’ve been just sleeping through it before… ;D

Another film I’ve watched after Christmas is Bird Box (2018 Netflix).

And two pictures that I took today, on New Year’s Day:

January

Amaryllis. I bought it yesterday, at half price at a local grocery store. I have to find a place for it in our living room, this is not the place, just taking a… hasty picture of two things that’s been happening. – I was watching the New Year’s Concert of The Vienna Philharmonic. I love watching it every year.

It’s been sleeting and water’s been dripping again today, but they say that it will be colder in the evening again and that it will snow. And they say that then it will be cold and sunny. Hmm…

January

On the broken couch… Happy New Year!

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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