today i made some good finds at the fleamarket. a teal wraparound dress by nanso, a piece of marimekko tea towel fabric that's a reprint of the vintage 'melooni' pattern in teal, maroon and olive green, a white linen top from H&M that looks like a vintage undershirt, and some 60's homemaker magazines. it just so happens that according to the address label, they belonged to a distant relative of mine. on friday i was talking to friends about what my last name would be if my great grandfather hadn't changed his, and she is most likely the wife of one of his siblings' descendants with that name. i know for sure she was friends with granny. what a coincidence.

there was a big stack of those magazines but i only grabbed four with interesting covers because they were priced a bit greedily. i didn't even leaf through them before, but got some nice knitting patterns and recipes in there. the ads are what i like best, though.

some beautifying placenta cream...

ever so elegant sanitary pad packaging

fresh looking embroidery patterns

my fave chair by ilmari tapiovaara

...and some very pleasant typography: "they trust each other"

it also kind of horrifies me to think what was in all the meds and cosmetics advertised. there is rarely a mention of active ingredients, just extensive benefit lists. the antibacterial soap will make you not only fresh and clean but successful and popular too. painkillers 'calm the nerves' as well. and every year, the first thing to do when moving to the summer house is to poison all insects with sprays, fumes and grains... and so on and so forth.

strange days, then and now.

a new face, fresh from the cocoon. this moth thought it was a good idea to wait for its wings to fill out in the middle of the road... in the end i managed to wrangle it to safety, in a flowerpot on the stoop. a couple of hours later there were wings:

two thirty, time to go to bed. the blackbird out in the night is getting way jazzy.

i've got pink lupins in a vase and ireland in an old wooden container.
waiting for rain and other downpours.

lilac infused cream — just like cream, only better.

blanket days, bluer than blue skies

night light

this is the season of arctic starflowers and herb paris, for me they are forest star and wolf's berry. summer is moving on and the jungle out there is getting wilder and wilder by the day. i like the secret garden vibe but enough is enough. time to introduce the scythe to the hay. but first, the whetstone to the blade...

a most welcome visitor today, beautiful water snake, made me happy. she seemed curious after the initial fright, and i asked her not to mind me but eat a lot of voles and pose for pictures, and we'd be fine. i hope she'll stay around. since they are not poisonous, these snakes have traditionally been favoured and even fed fresh milk every day to keep them happy. they can become quite tame once they get to know you. i don't really know how to tell the sexes apart but this one struck me as female.

a few summers ago we had a baby with orange 'ears' living under the porch and i thought we had gotten a house snake, but i never saw it grown up. this one has white markings, making her all the more special to me. too bad i don't have any milk to offer.

suddenly it's june already. bird cherry is in bloom all around, in fragrant clouds of white. our little shrub, not so keen...

the rain started and it should be coming down all weekend. i'm pleased, but tomorrow is graduation day so the timing could have been better. luckily the party i'm attending is not a garden one, but i still don't know what to wear tomorrow. something warm probably.

apples are beginning to open their buds, cherry and plum are already flowering. looks like a good year.