Archive for May, 2009
Cabin
So, happy birthday to me. And happy Mothers Day in Finland! In honour of the big -oh, I’ve decided to finally do something grown-up so I will buy/build myself a cabin in the mountains. I have many reasons for not wanting to buy a house, but once the idea of a cabin was introduced it just felt so right that I have to go ahead with it. I love the mountains, I belong there – now I just need to find a piece of land to build the cabin! I’ve already looked at a couple of sites but they didn’t really click, so now I have a want ad on Blocket. I have the whole summer to find the site, and then in the winter find someone who can build the cabin. Fingers crossed!
4 commentsGreener
The trees are starting to take on a lovely bright green colour but it’s a bit hard to take the advantage of it right now because it’s been really windy today. In the morning before it got too bad I was able to get some macro work done, otherwise the day was more suitable for just walking around and checking the status of various wildflowers. I was surprised to see the hepatica still in bloom, and delighted to find common dog violets. The wood anemone are in full bloom in some places, but only budding in my favourite wood anemone spot which is somewhat shaded so the snow melts late. Even the blueberry is starting to flower in sunny places, which I found a tad optimistic… I hope we don’t get any frost nights in May like last year.
And then there’s this pair of colourful ducks in the small pond across the fire station. I saw them there last week and I was sure they were just passing, but today I saw them again. I’ll almost have to try to photograph them tomorrow, although I’m not looking forward to it – the place is very exposed. But the ID bothers me and I can only confirm it if I get them on picture. I’m no ornithologist despite the pile of bird books on the shelf!
2 commentsHappiness is
…flowers and a macro lens! I got my 40D back earlier this week and would you believe that it was repaired under warranty? I didn’t even have to pay for postage – it was written off as goodwill. Good will indeed – I’m one happy Canon customer right now! So with the shutter button fully functioning again, what could be better than taking the camera out to the flowers?
The daphne is blooming at its best and the scent is as sweet as ever. There’s something significant about seeing the daphne in bloom… it somehow feels that it opens the flower season, even if we have other flowers in bloom before it. 
Like the coltsfoot for example, I found a few of them in the forest so I was able to get down close and personal with them, something I normally don’t do because grouching down in a roadside ditch is a bit too exhibitionist for me. Even if I’m known to have done that, too.
I can’t tell you how happy I was about photographing flowers again. And this is just the beginning!
In the evening I took the Tricker and did some riding around to check out old favourite places that I hadn’t seen since last year. 
There’s this one lake which I think is nice… but somehow, all these years, I’ve missed a small tarn on the other side of the road. And now that I was there, I found that this little tarn actually has more potential that its big brother across the road. So that’s one place I’ll be visiting again!
Most of the lakes are already completely free of ice, but I found one shoreline with a little bit ice left. It was so lovely to sit there… listening to the sound of the slushy ice (yes, it does make a sound when the waves move it) and enjoying the warmth of the evening sun.
Now that’s a nice way to kick off May.
4 commentsWeather – April 2009
A sunny and warm April. We started with a snow cover of a whopping 71 cm but as the temperatures got over zero every day, the snow was gone by the 24th. Or not all gone, but all that’s left are random patches and piles that can’t be called “snow cover” even with the best of intentions. What makes this April rather unusual is that there weren’t any winter backflashes – ever so little new snow that was gone almost as soon as it fell, so it didn’t register in my snow meter. Last year we had 23 cm new snow in April. Well, we’re just as likely to get that much snow in May…
One very positive thing is that we were spared from the flooding I was sure would happen. There was a spell with really cold nights which slowed the down the snowmelt so that the water ran off before it flooded over. Now that the risk of flooding is gone, we could really use some rain. With so little precipitation, it’s really dry everywhere except right under those random patches of snow.
Temperature (High): 16 °C
Temperature (Low): -1 °C
Temperature (Average): 7 °C
Barometer (High): 1027 mbar
Barometer (Low): 1003 mbar
Barometer (Avg): 1016 mbar
Total of sunny days: 7
Rain: 10 mm
Days with rain: 4
Snow cover (High): 71 cm
Snow cover (Low): 0 cm
Snow cover (Avg): 29 cm
New snow: 0 cm
Days with snowfall: 3
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