Welcome to Villa Emilia (My Woodland Garden), a photography blog with a slant towards gardening and nature. An amateur gardener and photographer, I hope to share beautiful moments with you through pictures. 🤎 From autumn 2026 onwards, Villa Emilia will be even more Christmassy than before!

Thank you for your visit.

Näytetään tekstit, joissa on tunniste first snow. Näytä kaikki tekstit
Näytetään tekstit, joissa on tunniste first snow. Näytä kaikki tekstit

31.10.2017

October ends - Hyvästit lokakuulle 2017







October was rather cloudy and not very cold in our part of the country. There weren't many sunny days, but when the sun was shining, I tried to hurry out to take photos... and of course I took loads of them. :)

Happy November!






Aika tuntuu menevän koko ajan nopeammin. Taas on yksi kuukausi lopussa, ja jouluun on enää kuukausi, kolme viikkoa ja kolme päivää. :)

Lokakuun sää oli täällä päin melko pilvinen ja leuto. Koskaan en ole siirtänyt sinisadetta ja muita sisällä talvehtivia kasveja talvisäilytykseen näin myöhään. Sinisateiden lehdet olivat vielä melko vihreät, oli sääli siirtää ne sisälle, mutta ruukku on liian painava siirrettäväksi päivittäin ulos ja sisään.

Ja tänä vuonna kävikin niin, että talvi yllätti puutarhurin! Lunta on nyt maassa yli kymmenen senttiä ja pakkasta tänä aamuna -4 astetta. Aurinko paistaa, nyt kuvaamaan!


































































































That autumn eve was stilled:
A last remains of sunset dimly burned
O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned
By the wind back upon its bearer's hand
In one long flare of crimson; as a brand, 
The woods beneath lay black.


from Robert Browning's “Sordello”, Book I.






Translated into Finnish by Aila Meriluoto:

Syysilta oli vaiti.
Himmeät päivänlaskun rippeet vain
etäisen metsän yllä - lepattain
kuin soihtu kohti kättä kantavaa
punainen pitkä juova, alla maa
kuin hiiltä palon jälkeen.






PS Happy Reformation Day to those that celebrate it today. On this day 500 years ago, Martin Luther published his 95 theses protesting against the abuse of papal indulgences. He sent his theses together with letters to the Church authorities and legend has it he nailed them to the door of Wittenberg’s Castle Church. 

Suomessa Uskonpuhdistuksen muistopäivää vietetään 22. sunnuntaina helluntaista, tänä vuonna 5. marraskuuta.



This is how it looks today... :)





Kaunista marraskuuta!




28.10.2016

October 2016: Cloudy and foggy






In the past few weeks, our weather has been cloudy (not very rainy though), often foggy and overall very grey. 

Few flowers are still blooming and  I'm growing ever more fond of ferns. As Ambra Edwards wrote in the Guardian: "There is something ancient and mysterious about ferns. The marvellous intricacies of their leaf forms are preserved eternally in fossil shards, and there is a goose-bump thrill to watching the furry crosier of a royal fern unfurl, knowing that any mildly observant dinosaur will have witnessed the same minor miracle – for this plant has been growing, essentially unchanged, for 240m years." 

Royal fern (Osmunda regalis) wouldn't survive here, unfortunately, so my local favourite is Athyrium filix-femina, common lady-fern.






Kuukausikollaasit Pieni Lintu -blogissa.

Lokakuu oli pilvinen täälläpäin Suomea. Tuntuu, ettei aurinkoa ole näkynyt viikkoihin, mutta valokuvien perusteella 10. päivä paistoi aurinko. :)  Ensilumi satoi täällä 25.10. Nyt lumi on jo kokonaan sulanut pois ja sataa vettä. - Tunnelmallista marraskuuta!






Mums and ferns:






Ferns and mums:










Knitting socks... The fisherman mentioned in the previous post is my brother... and he is very special indeed. We all thank him for this lovely blog, because the camera I use was originally is his and I have had many useful tips from him. :)

The finished socks look like this:






As to my previous post, I would also like to tell to the foreign readers of this blog that celebrating Halloween is not an old tradition in Finland, but it's becoming more popular also here. I find the origins of this feast fascinating, but notice how important the commercial interests involved are. In our family, we don't celebrate Halloween and the peppers of the previous post were carved for photographic purposes only. :) 

In Finland, All Saints' Day is celebrated on the Saturday between 31 October and 6 November. This year it falls on the 5th of November. The tradition is to light candles and to visit the graves of passed-away relatives and loved ones.





The first snow fell on the 25th. Now the snow has already disappeared and it's raining.






Another winter to survive? We can do it!

Have a happy and healthy November!







17.11.2015

Breakfast?


Hello! Tuesday is the MakroTex photo challenge day! This week's theme is breakfast.

What you see here is not (all) the truth of my breakfast...  I don't drink my coffee black, but I think in photos a black coffee looks better than a caffè latte.  Secondly, these photos were taken at noon, because it's November and it's still dark outside when we Finns have our breakfast. :)










Not very happy with my breakfast photos, I posted only three of them. To cheer myself up, I add some photos of our "autumn lights". It's not long before we can put up the winter/ Christmas ones. :)










And we already have snow!








♥ Wishing you a serene day. ♥






13.11.2015

Neutral colours and a marshmallow collage


Hello! I have had some busy days recently, but at least finally I was able to take some photos and choose five of them for 


Last night we received some wet snow and here are five photos (taken today about at noon) that show a Finnish November day in all its beautiful greyness:






















It will look like this for some time now and that may be one of the reasons why I love colours. Bright colours and pastel shades.  Another thing that I love are self-striping sock yarns and since I needed to spend a day in town recently, I went on a bit of yarn binging.




I bought several balls of wool and the colour above is one of my favourites. It's called "Marshmallow". Feeling very inspired, I decided it was time for me to buy some of these "sugar based confections" as well, for the first time in my life. :) There were fewer colours than I had expected (and they didn't fit very well to my photographic purposes), but these candies do look soft and tempting... Have you ever made them at home?





And so, here you are, my collage for this week's Mosaic Monday:






Have a lovely day!