Our cherry trees managed to blossom in spite of a very cold spring. These flowers are like small work of arts, made of silk and amazingly beautiful embroidery.
Light green birches mean here so much. Dark and cold winter is behind. Warm days and white nights are here.
The Midnight Sun only shines above the Arctic Circle, but nights are white all over the country. In the northern parts of Finnish Lapland, the sun stays above the horizon for over 70 consecutive days. In a municipality of Utsjoki, the sun rose 17.5 and the next sunset is 27.7. We live in the western Finland and here the sun sets just for a while and rises again.
The cherryplum trees “Podarok of St. Petersburg” are in to blossom. In two sunny days the trees are suddenly full of small white flowers, every branch is fully covered with these flowers. At the end of August these trees have small, yellow and very sweet plums.
We planted these trees inthe spring 2012, they were about 1,20 m/ 3,5 ft high.
What a day we had, the first warm day! The sun and warm wind made a miracle under our old oak. In the afternoon it was all yellow. Yellow wood anemones had opened their buttons, and small Gagea lutea, I cound´t find an English name for it, we call it käenrieska, a cuckoo´s bread, I don´t know the reason. Just a guess, cuckoos are cuckooing at the same time these flowers are in blossom.
I have in my camera 50X optical zoom, and I took the last photo of a bird high up on the top of a spruce.
Our spring is late about three four weeks. Here is some photos taken 18.5.2016. At the same day this year, today, we have nothing, our trees and plants are just trying to awake. The temperature is warmer, today + 10°C/ 50°F. Now it should be almost summer temperatures, not like an early spring. Do we have summer this year at all?
The years 1866-1868 were terrible years here, lakes were frozen at midsummer. Then it was a warmer period and people could seed grain and potatoes. But the first snow came in August and destroyed everything. The next summer was cold and rainy. The famine was here, people had nothing to eat. They left their homes, started to walk from house to house begging. Roads were bordered with starved bodies. They were buried to graveyards together, nobody knew who they were. About 8% of the whole population died to hunger and diseases. Some villages were empty, no one survived.
If you are interested to read of these famine years in English, click the link.
Some of our followers have asked about our sauna, what is it like and what happens in our sauna. I found this great article, in English, written by Pirkko Valtakari, former executive secretary of the Finnish Sauna Society.
Here is the link http://www.sauna.fi/in-english/finnish-sauna-culture/
And if you “google” a word sauna, you will find pictures of our saunas, a cottage by a lake, a small sauna in an apartment and everything between these.
Please read it, if you have not been in a finnish sauna.
Inside this pile of leaves is a two room house. It is made so that water, rain or melting snow, can´t wet a sleeping hedgehog. The leaves keep the house safe and a little bit warmer. The house is in a quiet corner of our yard. The hedgehog, we have seen only one this spring, has made two doors. That white spot is a water bowl and in the evenings we give him/ her cat food.
Every autumn in newspapers is articles how to make a house for a hedgehog. Every year we have them less, traffic is the most dangerous enemy. These winters without snow and often changing temperatures also kill them, if they have shelter only of leaves or hay. They get wet and freeze, when the weather is cold again.
PS. It is snowing now.
We had three hedgehogs living in your yard during the summer 2013.
This Monday morning, 8.5.2017.
Last year, the same day 8.5.2016. Apple trees had buttons.
Prepairing for the winter, making firewood.
