i am about to blog about the first signs of spring because on sunday the weather was kind of nice and i spent a few hours on my garden plot, clearing out last year's debris and checking what is starting to sprout after winter. however, right now it's snowing. oh, april...

here's how things looked on sunday. not very green yet, but the trees were in the bud, which is one of my favourite spring things, that fuzzy stage, and some early bloomers like scilla and corydalis were also just about to burst. we call corydalis lark's spur, by the way, and larkspur is cockspur i think.

lady's mantle, alchemilla, is always one of the first to sprout. this is either a. mollis from a nursery originally, or the one that grows in the wild at the forest home. can't remember. most likely the latter, but i need to transplant the former, a lot of it, to my plot. it's right by the main pathway so i want to make a (very low) 'hedge' with plants that are durable and don't mind being stepped on occasionally. hyssop i've already planted last year, it grows nice and bushy when trimmed early on.

these are some of the bulbs i actually managed to plant last fall, and i'm kind of lousy with labels, so not sure what they are... thought they were scillas at first but the wide leaves threw me. we'll wait and see. star of bethlehem is a possibility.

my bad luck with snowdrops continues, they are a no-show at the plot as well. voles probably dig the bulbs. pun intended. but my horseradish survived, rhubarb is looking good, so are the various raspberry saplings and even the white echinacea might be alive. valerian is doing well, and primula veris was also already making a rosette of baby leaves. once tjis fresh winter clears, dandelion and nettle might be pickable size.

it's exciting to get to start gardening again, but spring is so late and i've had to sow very sparingly indoors so i don't get a bunch of lanky, pale seedlings. somehow it's also april, and i still haven't started tomatoes, which were a february job. oops. maybe i'll sow a few and hope for an indian summer...

on april fool's day we got a new family member. little sumu kumori moved in.

sumu means 'fog' in finnish and kumori is japanese for 'to become cloudy' and in time he will grow true to his name. sumu's colouring is russian blue husky striped, and the husky part means the blue colouring will become increasingly mixed with white with each coat change.

the idea was that savu would have a play mate and sysi could have some peace, but ironically sysi is the one bonding with the new baby and savu wants nothing to do with him, he is quite upset actually. sumu was so happy to see the big boys, but he is especially smitten with sysi, who turns out to be a big old softie and a great father figure. who knew.

so, our spring will be busy with added tiny feet pitter pattering about. don't know how much time and energy i will have for blogging after all, but rattie shenanigans are available pretty much daily on instagram @sylvitaimi, #sysimori #savumori #sumumori respectively.

plum branches from the forest home. we really need to get a 'friend' for this tree, because while it is supposed to be self pollinating, it only produces a few fruits each year despite its abundant bloom. all our other plum trees are too far away to pollinate it.

it's still very cold here, but indoors my tiny sowings are sprouting, mizuna is the first to show, waiting for basil... some of the seeds were a bit old so we shall see. soon i can move onto my 'april' box of seeds and really get things going. i always organize my seed packets into 'feb-mar', 'april' and 'may' as well as autumn sowings. april is by far the tightest packed.

the last time i visited my garden plot it was covered with water. hopefully my spring bulbs haven't drowned. last fall i planted white scilla, snowdrops and hopefully some white grape hyacinth as well. the ground froze before i could plant everything and i forgot to put some bulbs into pots in the cellar over winter and now i have for example a basket full of an allium that is growing too early because it started to sprout in the bag and i had to plant them. indoors, they don't get enough light yet and on the front steps they seemed to get a bit frost bitten.

i hope they make it because it was actually savu who chose them. when the catalog came in the mail and i was reading it, he came over and i asked him what we should get and he gnawed the picture of this cute, red allium so i ordered them. other bulbs i forgot are probably too dried and dead to sprout but i put them all in a pot anyway. next week i'll buy some live ones to go on top and put them out. maybe i'll get both white and blue grape hyacinths since finland will be 100 years old this year.

i still haven't found a simple video editing app that works on my tablet, but i can't help but share some crude footage of my furplum friends...

this snapshot is actually very telling of my everyday life: things to do, like unfinished sock knitting (on the table) and studying (japanese books in the basket), but cute rats distract me. they are supposed to be twilight creatures but as there is more and more daylight and actual sunshine, so does their energy level rise. they still take a long nap during the day, thank goodness, but bright mornings get pretty busy these days.

this is also what life with rats looks like. don't worry -- the quilted thing is actually a pee soaking pad for the vermin when they hang on my bed. they usually tinkle right next to it. this mess is my latest obsession, soba-cha, with turmeric and black pepper, after sharing with sysi and savu. they love the roasted buckwheat dregs. soba-cha is one of those flavours that really get my happy hormones going, i'm always left glowing inside after a cup. i roast the buckwheat on a cast iron skillet and that in itself is like a meditation.

another densely 'my life' photo, me browsing instagram, savu brazenly stealing the good bits (avocado) from my salad...

despite my big plans, i'm still in hibernation even though it is slowly getting to look like spring might be on its way here. still trying to sort out moving boxes. still moving boxes in, to be honest. everything is piled up in my work room, because i don't have either the physical or mental energy to sort through everything. i get a bit done and then fall down exhausted. it's frustrating because i finally have this amazing room but it's a cluttered mess after a year of moving in, when i really just want to start fresh work. but all in good time, i guess.

one thing i did do was wash the snowflakes off my kitchen windows. the next day, it snowed a lot and it seems to have been 'the new snow that slayed the old'. it's still cold and mostly lifeless, but spiders and flies have woken up, and some sunnier yards are sprouting spring bulbs. i feel like drawing flowers on the glass next. or bunnies, for easter.

yesterday i rode my bike for the first time this year, to japanese class. now there's only two lessons left, which makes me sad because i have absolutely loved going there. it's still uncertain whether there will be a follow-up course next semester or not. fingers crossed! i have learned so much in such a short time (compared to previous ten years of studying on my own) that it kind of terrifies me. it's hard to explain. i definitely want to keep on learning, though. the bathing monkeys print is by dick vincent (from etsy) and it focuses me on my journey towards living in japan one day.

i visited forest home on monday and squeezed in some pine bog time. it was all frozen and asleep. no mushrooms in the woods so i just foraged from the freezer and had a nice instant noodle soup with false morels. i also ate some rather ancient pickles. the garden is so shaded it was mostly snowy still, but daylilies were already sprouting by the side of the house, as well as nettles, which were just short of being pickable size. can not wait for wild greens!

bought back some sticks for the boys to chew on. last time i accidentally got them rowan, which is too bitter, instead of aspen, and now i think this was maple and that was not such a big hit either. basically what they like to do is peel off the bark. here's my baby beaver showing how it's done.

the photos are mostly of savu because my pics of sysi are all blurry. here's a cute one, though. chilling in a temporary nest while their cage is getting a thorough scrub. sysi is having skin issues and keeps scratching his sides raw, he was already getting better after a course of antibiotics but now it's even worse on the other side. the vet didn't find signs of pests, so i'm treating him for protein sensitivity now and putting green clay on the sore as well as giving him homeopathic arsenicum. if that doesn't work, i'll start the antibiotics again. it's a vicious circle because the healing skin also itches and so he scratches... and licks and chews. a collar isn't really an option. i tried wrapping his torso but it was a disaster, he panicked so much. he is also a big boy so he overheats easily. (he actually doesn't over-eat like you would assume from his 900 gram figure, it's that innocent cherub on the right that's the food hoarder.) sysi's right side is looking much better already so assumably it's some kind of hot spot flare that just has to run its course.

sysi has had similar issues before, when he was younger he had excema on his earlobes and that i think was because i stopped giving the dog kibble he had been having as a baby, and his body cleansed that way. he smelled horrible, they both did, when they came to me. after two weeks on a vegetarian diet they became little perfume puffs. they have actually been having only vegan food for a good while now and doing just fine. this thing with sysi may have actually come from these texturized broad bean pellets i gave them because i worried over protein. sysi won't eat them anymore so maybe he knows they made him itchy. adult male rats don't need that much protein anyway, and just because rats can eat anything doesn't mean they should. in the wild, a rat wants to survive and make lots of babies. they don't live to be old very often. for a pet, you want them to live a long and healthy life, and for that, plant-based is the way to go, especially with such a tumour prone animal.

savu agrees, he loves salad and kale, and is anxiously awaiting the first dandelion leaves!

february is finally being the way february should be: wintry, with lots of snow. it was raining a week ago, which was just inappropriate. of course today, it being the perfect winter day, i am stuck in bed with my lady parts throwing a tantrum, but what better excuse to post some pics from the past few days!

on tuesday i finally crossed one thing off my touristy to-do list, and went up in the water tower. it had been at least 15 years since my last visit. there was a free guide tour of the view, but it only costs 2 euros to go to the viewing platform anyway, and there's a cafe up there, too, so for the customers it's free.

here's an overview of my daily stomping grounds, the old town mainly. it's very flat here, as you can see, and there's always forest in the horizon, even when looking out to the sea because the archipelago has so many islands. the gulf of bothnia is sort of to the left from the olkiluoto nuclear power plant, notorious for its third unit that they've been building for a long time now and who knows when it will be done and how it will work... so, that's kind of close by.

here's a look at another direction, inland, where you can see the lake äyhö and more flatness. that pastel glow was all over the horizon in the opposite direction from the sunset and it had me mesmerized but it was so windy and cold up there, i just couldn't stay forever.

...and finally some open water in the distance, the cranes and lights of the harbour, and some of the tallest apartment buildings lit by the last rays of the sun. from here my evening continued with a damn fine bowl of gingery lentil soup, much needed after this chilly adventure.

yesterday was a blizzard. i had a long walk, thinking it would be blue skies and glimmering hanki [a word for thick blanket of snow] but it was actually better in the flurry. here, the clouds parted a little over my first school, seen from its tiny sports field. that hill used to be so long and steep...  and i used to be quite good at ice skating at this age, 6 to 9 years old. which reminds me, once again, to finally have my skates sharpened. i may not be as graceful anymore, but i still like it. one day i'll teach myself to brake and all...

so, i was there to have a look at my garden plot. it's one of these! spring is still very far away,  but soon i can start some tomatoes and chilies, and other sowings that need a head start. it's going to be so much better this year, being able to start as soon as weather allows. interesting to see what has survived this winter, it was pretty bad for a long time. the snow actually protects a lot of the plants from freezing, but we just had none.

here it is! my beloved garden squeezed into a panorama shot. i left lots of talventörröttäjä [plants that dry up and stay upright over the snow. is there a word in english for this?] which my garden neighbours probably resent but it's good for little birds to have a seed bar like this in the winter.

from the gardens, i ended up walking around the lake, too. i was a bit worried it would be too much, in the thick snow, but it was perfect. there is a little river that runs parallel to the lake on one side, leaving a narrow footpath in between. some parts had a hole in the ice for the stream to sing through. there was no one else there, and i had a bit of a moment with the wind and the snow and some curious occurrences. i'm just so glad i took that walk.

on the way home, this amused me. every sign has its purpose, eh?

bye-bye, january! there's not much to say about you.

even though a 'new' year is only imaginary, it still feels fresh and exciting. i'm not rushing into this one, still mulling over the past 12 months a little, only starting with planning ahead and playing with possibilities. heck, i haven't even baked my holiday gingerbreads, the gluten free dough has been thawing in the fridge for over a week... i need time for things and i have to stop stressing about it. i think i'm starting to get the hang of it.

so far 2017 has been soggy and dim, but fun. i am excited about having quinoa flakes again because i love porridge, and so does savu. he has never been allowed on the kitchen table but that has never stopped him from trying. and i have to love that about him, because to love a rat... well, it's like that. it's annoying but i love the spirit (just don't tell them that!) we have a 'two paws' rule. one on the table is okay, two sends a rat back on the floor. this used to be an endlessly fun game for him, cold porridge for me... needless to say, the rats have their own bowl, but my plates are always the grand prize.

i finally walked around the lake near my garden allotment. i'm hoping that set the tone for this year, doing things that i've been wanting to do. the rain that started when i was leaving the house to meet a friend turned into wet snow, so hopefully the coming days will bring winter weather at last. i splurged on a piece of fantastic vegan cake with lingonberries at a cafe, and a bottle of organic pink grapefruit soda, no regrets. i'm a little superstitious like that... the first things of a year are important.

there is a lot of work ahead, and frankly some of it terrifies me. but there's some good fun, too. i get to revisit an old passion of mine since another friend now has a darkroom, and i, as it happens, have mystery rolls of undeveloped film from more than a decade ago. all kinds of excited about seeing what (if anything) is on them. i will share the results later.

i have no resolutions to share, but my 2017 will be dedicated to clarity, both finding and manifesting it. and, should the universe and the powers that be happen to read this, i have some material wishes: i need a computer, printer, and a washing machine, please. i'm really short on funds at the moment, but i always get by. a little more income would be really great, though. the abovementioned could kind of help with that. i also hope to travel abroad this spring.