Hello, darkness!

Nyt nautitaan kynttilänvalosta!

Osallistun näillä kuvilla MakroTex-haasteeseen (tämän viikon aiheena on PIMEYS) ja postauksen lopussa on myös kuukausikollaasini. Marraskuussa siirryttiin vihreästä syksystä valkeaan talveen... ja nyt toivotaan, että lumi tällä kerralla säilyisi ainakin jouluun asti... :)

Ihanaa joulukuuta kaikille!

Here in the north, between latitudes 60–70 °N, daylight starts to be scarce. 

I don't mind darkness at all... and I love having woodland walks in the evenings. We have again some soft and white snow and, reflecting the artificial lights and moonlight, it clearly increases the brightness. (Did you know that the fresh, dry snow reflects 80 to 90 per cent of the incoming light, whereas wet snow reflects only about a half.) Plus: If you happen to fall in the dark, you fall into the soft snow.

Lisäys: Otava sattui olemaan juuri oikeassa kohdassa, kun eilen maanantai-iltana päätin yrittää ottaa oikein pimeitä kuvia.
Jalusta, pitkä valotusaika, kameran itselaukaisin.

It's not the darkness itself nor the cold itself, but the combination of the two, that makes us Finns often ask why on earth our ancestors chose to settle in such a climate... :)

I found the image below, titled "Any Finnish year", on Pinterest. (I wasn't able to verify the original source.) It's very good, even though in a chart drawn by me, the slice that represents "summer" would be smaller and the "autumn" slice larger.

A Finnish year.

Have a lovely December!

♥!

Herzlichen Dank, S und K! ♥

It's a dark and rainy November day. All the beautiful snow has melted away. On your way to the letter box, you notice that the hares have been chomping your mountain pines and that the rain and squirrels are damaging your new, cute bird feeder.

In the letter box, there are bills and other stuff like that... but there's also a cheerfully yellow parcel. Our dear friends from Germany have already sent their Christmas greetings to us!

Thank you so much! :)

In these photos, you can see some of the tasty (and all of them organic) and pretty things there were. Chocolate coated gingerbread...

Our favourite table spreads... :)

A fun and a very fragrant idea, a Spice Advent Calendar (by an Austrian company Sonnentor):

24 herb and spice blends...

... for example a Gingerbread Spice Mix...

... and Blossom-Spice Sugar: beet sugar, sunflower petals, cornflowers, marigold, rose blossoms, vanilla, cinnamon cassia, cloves, ginger.  I hope you can see the lovely colours of the mix! :)

There's also a pretty recipe booklet. The last image of this post is from the booklet.

It's about one month until Christmas. Next Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent! :)

I wish you all a happy Advent Season and a very Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating it today. Remember that cardamom in the coffee increases the digestibility! ;)

♥!

Sparkling

And so it happened that on a warm November evening we noticed that the soft and light snow had almost disappeared and the weather was grey and dark. Fortunately, now there are the Christmas lights in front of our home to add some sparkle in our life. :)

MakroTex-haasteen aiheena tällä viikolla on KIMALLUS. Ihana aihe ja niin ajankohtainen, mutta kimalluksen kuvaaminen osoittautui yllättävän vaikeaksi.  :) Nyt on ollut niin kamalan pimeääkin. Kai jouluvalot voidaan hyväksyä?

Silmäni kyllä kimalsivat innostuksesta eilen iltapäivällä, kun huomasin melkein pihapiirissä jälkiä, joiden luulen kuuluvan ilvekselle (ensimmäinen kuva) ja ketulle. :)

Ilta oli jo hämärtymässä kuvaamisen aikaan:

My eyes were sparkling, with excitement and joy, yesterday afternoon when I noticed the tracks of (what I believe to be) a Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), above, and a red fox (Vulpes vulpes).

Thank you, as always, for your lovely comments. I'm sorry I'm again a little bit behind in visiting your blogs... but I'll always get there eventually!

-------

Edit: I must add here that Google has made me very angry today. Recently I left a comment on a blogger friend's post and wrote that now I know what something in her blog is in English. Today I happened to see the post in question and the comments translated into English by Google Translate. What do I see... that Google Translate changes my (translated) comment into something completely different, adding a note about registered trademarks (in the US) and omitting a sentence written by me! In other words, Google wants to decide whether we are allowed to combine two ordinary words to build a simple noun phrase.

Warning: If you read posts or comments translated by Google Translate, you can find there something completely else than was originally written and meant!

In the Alps

Hiking in Piedmont and the Aosta Valley (Italy).

Hello all! The weather is a little bit grey and I decided to post some sunny photos taken in the end of August. I participate with these photos in Riitta's Joy & Fun linkup, because hiking in the mountains, in the fresh air, admiring the views, is one of the biggest joys in life.

The photos are in a random order, except...

... for this one. I think it's the most beautiful one and that's why I have saved it for last. :)

♥!

November 2016

The first weeks of November were incredibly beautiful. We had some soft, light snow and the sun was still shining high. Now it has been cloudy for some days... and of course then I start receiving aurora borealis alerts.  I wonder if anyone has studied the connection between the Northern Lights and the cloudy weather in Eastern Finland? Blimey, we could be on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough! ;)

Very probably we won't see the full moon either, so I'm looking forward to seeing your photos...

Other topics: This should be a great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major).  Every year, I take photos of them foraging on this same, old telephone pole.

Great spotted woodpeckers use cracks in the wood as “vises” to hold fir cones while hammering them open.

As you know, woodpeckers don’t sing songs but the males drum loudly against pieces of wood to achieve the same effect, it is, to attract females and to proclaim their territory. Hollow trees offer good resonant qualities and we can imagine their joy, when they find a piece of metal (on a utility pole, for example)... A very fun sound very early in the morning. :)

MakroTex-haasteen aiheena on tällä viikolla MARRASKUU. Kylläpä se alkoikin ihanasti! Pehmeää, kevyttä lunta ja auringonpaistetta!

Mitäs täällä tapahtuu?

Talitiainen siellä löytää jotain syötävää alun perin närhen kaivamasta kuopasta. Tiaisia vieraili siinä jatkuvasti useiden päivien ajan. Koska kuopalle oli tungosta, otin kuokan ja kävin tekemässä pari (minun mielestäni) samanlaista kuoppaa noin metrin päähän ensimmäisestä. Tiaiset kävivät heti tarkistamassa ne ja päättivät etteivät kuopat ole kiinnostavia . :D

A bird mum hatching? :) No, for some reason these great tits find interesting a hole made by a bigger bird (an Eurasian jay) and busily peck on the ground for food. To help them, I made some more holes (removing snow and a little bit of the soil too) with a trenching hoe.  They analysed the holes and decided they weren't good. :D

Have a lovely week!