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may your days be merry and bright

just

even though my longing for ireland is great, the weather needen't comfort me so... i wanted to fill the front garden with candlelight, but the skies are pouring down with rain. celebrations for the winter solstice thus hindered, i have taken to chocolate and blankets instead.

i wish happy holidays for you all! keep them toes warm!

that one autumn day when i was picking cranberries, i also braided some crowberry vines together to make a wreath. it dried more brittle than i expected, but i carefully added some baker's twine and chimes for a festive finish. this was the best photo i could conjure up, the wreath hangs in a surprisingly shady spot and daylight is scarce as it is. it's also too high up for a tripod and because it's so fragile, i didn't want to risk moving it, either.

these twilight days are a challenge to many of us northern bloggers, i've noticed, but lately i've found myself eyeing up those camera ads again... i can't remember exactly when it was i bought my trusty ixus, but it must have been eight or so years ago. i think it might be time i considered getting a new one. the pocket cameras have come a long way since. it's just so maddeningly difficult to choose! even among the ixi...

so, it's joulu next week, and i'm prone to wondering what happened to the year. and all the chocolates i bought... i need one more trip to town before the holidays.

the sea water was high today. it met me at the forest path by the swimming place. there were sudden, strong gusts already, another storm is on the way. around the boat harbour quay the water was frozen so there were no waves, but a thin layer of water on top made it look not like ice at all, just an unreal, still sea unmoved by the wind.

i don't want a stormy night, i want snow and i want it to fall slowly and softly. i only want minus degrees from now on. none of this melting all away stuff, no more, please.

the yard is ready for winter. i was super energetic for a little while and completed the last tasks. fruit trees are fenced, the wheelbarrow put to rest, the snow shovel found. so, what are you waiting for, december? bring it on.

frost painted our lower field white at night, replacing also my last garden flowers with blooms of ice. snowfall keeps getting postponed but it's just as well, i still have to find the snow shovel buried deep in the shed. as long as it stays below zero, i'm happy, though.

it's a few days and a fortnight until the winter solstice. the sun isn't climbing very high these days. above is the highest it got at noon today. it's all fiery treetops and dramatic shadows lately. and sunglasses. it may seem counterintuitive but that low glare is blinding.

in the morning i leaped out of bed and into the living room thinking there was a party of mice in the bowl of nuts i'd forgotten on the side table, but the source of noise was in fact a very embarrassed looking vole who had become my first catch in the humane traps. (so they do work after all!)

i released the vole onto our upper field and told it not to come back, ever, and to tell all the other ones to stay away, too. i'm fair that way. but there's still poison baits to use if things get out of hand.

tough luck angel

my favourite kind of x-mas ornaments are these often clumsily put together made-in-china wooden characters. you may remember one i posted earlier. this downtrodden (quite literally) angel was found on the floor of the woodshed earlier this autumn. originally it would have played the cymbals with both hands and a cord for hanging would've been attached at the top of the head. nowadays it can boast some street cred with a massive scar across the face and a wing that's a bit wobbly. i suppose most people would just bin it, but i feel even fonder of it now. my special angel.

i hope i can find friends for it, because most of my belongings are still in boxes and in storage.

gotta hand it to these crocuses, they're quite feisty. none of the buds opened up, but most of them are growing new ones and it's freezin' december! they are growing dearer and dearer to me, but for some reason my camera absolutely refuses to focus on them.

still no snow. i went to fetch the enoki mushrooms, expecting them to have grown a bit. instead i found the remains of someone's snack, blackened stems standing in place of my loot. here's what was left for me:

i took home something else, if i make anything of it, i'll show you...

just a quick farewell to november. more stormy winds forecast. snow promised for the weekend, but none has fallen yet. walked to the sea in the almost-dark. so quiet and peaceful, apart from a frantic tarp flapping in the wind on the quay. venus was bright in the horizon, without a tripod all the photos came out shaky and the zoom in my camera is notoriously awful... but it's the moment that counts so here it is, my best shot.

i was in town yesterday, the day being slightly on the freezing side and the air still. i don't often do urban shots, as you might have noticed already, but who can resist reflections of treetops? not me, anyway. i'm quite fond of all the clichés, as a matter of fact.

there is a finnish word for this kind of semi-frozen water, hyhmä. i feel like it often occurs inside my head also.

so, goodbye november! i'll send you off with hot glögi and pecan-whisky-chocolate cake. see you again in about a year!

the snow may be gone but winter is here and i can prove it. first of all, there's all kinds of ice to be found. i don't really like breaking ice, so the task of taking a hammer to the water barrel is always a bit creepy. it feels like bashing someone's skull in (not that i'd know...) but luckily my dad will come over tomorrow and he can turn it over (it's too heavy for me). i won't be watering anything in the garden anymore this year.

frosty leaves are a hint, but taking a photograph of one is a giveaway. there can be no true winter without this classic composition, but here we are now. you're welcome.

then there are the winter mushrooms. you remember these, right? enoki! also known as velvet shank or flammulina velutipes. there's tons this time. a spruce had fallen right next to my precious stump in the storm, onto my usual path, but luckily not onto the treasure itself. i only picked the biggish ones (they're all still tiny) and put them in my miso soup for breakfast.

there's pomegranates! good ones! i was making a chocolate tart with raspberries but messed the chocolate up trying to melt it in a frying pan (who knew...) so it became a cream pie instead and needed a bit of oomph from the jewel-like seeds. it's amazing. i put no sugar in the whipping cream and there's only a little in the cake, so it's surprisingly light and fresh and easy to eat loads of... (there's golden raspberries from the freezer as a filling.)

have i convinced you?

crocus speciosus + first snow

i wonder, whether after all these years of procrastination disguised (thinly) as planning or finding inspiration, i will eventually burst out with something magnificently creative, or just never do anything for all eternity. four years ago, when i started to hide out here in the pineaway, i was thinking about taking up bookbinding again. it hasn't happened. nor have i painted anything. needless to say, i haven't touched the sewing machine.

after a long while, i did bake a banana bread today, which turned out flat as they always do, and a blueberry pie. i wanted to get rid of the last crumbs of gluten hiding in the cupboard. my body doesn't tolerate grains, and it seems like no amount of rebelling against this fact is going to change it. corn seems to be problematic as well, which is adding insult to injury when corn tortillas are my go-to pizza crust substitute and pop corn my only true forté in the kitchen.

for some reason i have felt an aversion to raw nuts as well lately, so i tried to work around that by making some roasted nut and hemp seed butter with cinnamon, honey and lucuma. it's gorgeous, but also just begs to be spread on toast which, alas, i can't have...

the recipe is roughly as follows:

2 parts chopped up nuts and peeled hemp seed, lightly roasted on a dry pan
1 1/4 parts water
3/4 parts coconut oil or any mild flavoured cooking oil
a dash of lucuma powder
a pinch of salt
honey and cinnamon to taste

whirl it all up in a blender and let set a bit.
(i toyed with the idea of adding cocoa powder to half of the mix and marbling it up in a jar but maybe next time...)

i can hardly believe i finally have this sweater. it took some years from first saving a picture of it on my computer as inspiration to finding the pattern online, to eventually buying it and then finally finding the right yarn, which may not be perfect but it was what i could afford. one day i'll knit another from something utterly luxurious and so can you, it's super simple despite the appearance, only a few rows of cable twists at the yoke make up the owls. (i added an extra turn on the 'horns' to really make them stand out but i'm afraid the picture is a bit blurry to see exactly how... also, next time i will be making the hem and cuff ribbing longer and with even smaller needles. note to self...)

i didn't happen to have 32 small, pearly buttons in my stash so had to buy them and i flinched when i heard the price. it wasn't exactly pennies. and they're a little on the large side so the stares are quite intense but i don't care because i can finally cross this from my to do -list and it feels so good.

celebrating with the glimmery nail polish. it's new... and i had to buy a clear, top coat one the next day, because apparently texture is trendy these days. whoever dreamed that up must be a twisted perv. you can scrape a chalkboard all day long and i won't flinch but coarse fingernails give me the heebie jeebies. eugh.

survived the stormy night with some minor damage. a clay bell fell from its frayed line but that was bound to happen anyway. and the bell didn't even break. seven fallen spruce trees and some torn roofing. the electricity wasn't gone for too long, either, so i can't complain. it was fierce, though. the house was creaking and moaning and shaking. at times i wasn't too sure the roof would stay put.

crucibulum laeve

the next day we had glimpses of the blue sky and it was very warm. i found a decayed cone with bird's nest fungus (or bread basket as we call it). it's tempting to try and grow it in a little terrarium. i understand it only needs decaying wood and moisture, but will also dry nicely for decoration. little twigs with these nests would look lovely in wreaths and arrangements.

i have four pale ladies from one bulb now. i'm so glad i bought these (i have some doubled, pale purple ones also) because it feels so luxurious to have flowers in the garden in november! if snow doesn't suddenly fall, my autumnal crocuses might still make it, too, i see flames of blue rising from the grassy spot i planted two dozen bulbs earlier. i had given up on them altogether already, thinking the voles had been at it again. i'm still not a huge fan of crocuses (although i love saffron!) but i imagined the purple-blue flowers against orange-brown fallen leaves when buying... those have long since been raked away! now it's just wet grass.

today i seized the opportunity of a car ride back home from town and bought a million things. among them rat poison because it's that time of year... two sleepless nights wiped all mercy off me and it's bye-bye mousie time. i've had my live-catch traps out for quite some time but they've been ignored. i bought them in ireland the last time but it's not the same design as the one i used successfully back at the farmhouse. now i wish i hadn't left that one behind... the mice could not wait to rush in there!

with the pantry replenished i have no need for grocery shopping for a few weeks. i do have to go to the library next week to fetch something i ordered, and undoubtedly i will grab some chocolates on the way, but i think i might also do something i rarely have a chance to and visit the florists. i'm in a mood for indulgence but also something new. so no white carnations, as much as i do adore them...

it's a bit stormy tonight...

definitely the most fun way of dividing beets. 

top to bottom: fermented, roasted, sprouted.

today was very warm suddenly, probably the calm before the storm. i took a walk to the boat harbour and everywhere the air smelled wonderful, like decay but fresh somehow, probably lots of healthy fermenting going on under all the fallen leaves. took some more cinder conk off a birch by the sea, after realizing i can reach it by climbing the rock just behind the tree...

i'm eating chestnut crackers with chestnut paste. delicious. the company mascot is the best thing, i want leafy pants and a prickly anorak, too! and now that i think of it, i can't understand why i only bought one tube at the english food market in cork... i'll have to hunt down a jar of bonne maman somewhere. i've been having vague fantasies of a dark chocolate cake and it would be the best sweet filling.

something happened to me in ireland and nowadays i like my tea with milk. although by tea i mean an infusion of chaga, dandelion and burdock and my milk substitute of choice is vanilla flavoured soy drink. (ideally vanilla almond milk, but haven't seen such a thing yet... and apparently i am too listless to make my own.)

my 'naked lady' ie. colchicum autumnale took forever to flower and subsequently it took me about as long to get a decent photo of it. whenever the lighting was all right, the composition was all over the place and vice versa. this is a compromise, the white is a bit burned through, but i can't wait to share its beauty any longer. i paired it with an evergreen lesser periwinkle in the pot, when it blooms in may or so, the bulb will be putting out leaves. i just have to dig the pot into the ground before it freezes for winter, and hopefully it won't crack.

i've been impossibly tired and weary lately, so i keep combing youtube for self-help videos...




i think i like this a little too much, the video especially...

funnel chanterelles i picked this evening. made the brownest sauce with them by using chaga tea as the liquid. just fried it all in a pan with red onion and garlic and lots of butter first. it was good with maize spaghetti. the rest i will have to dry in the oven overnight, i still haven't fixed my dehydrator (assuming i can!)

it's not the best year for mushrooms, i must say. but there's always something.

i don't know what the brown galerinas in the middle are called, they are very stylish, though. in the top photo is conifer tuft, hypholoma capnoides and in the last one shines false chanterelle, hygrophoropsis aurantiaca. both of them are edible, but the latter is not worth the bother, it's like eating erasers basically. too bad, because they are very abundant.

i got my sewing machine back and i am brimming with ideas but the best would be to attack the stash of random fabrics and whip up a quilt or two. nothing fancy, just to get rid of the excess. of which there is plenty. starting is the hardest part, as always.

the demise of a taxidermy swan. my grandmother remembers it from her childhood, when she would visit this now abandoned house. these days it rests (uneasy) in the attic.

the night is rainy and windy, the electricity went once already, so i'll keep this post short and ...weird, i guess.

today i went on a bit of a family outing with my brother, who is visiting, and dad. we drove to nearby rihtniemi because there was a strong wind, and the cape is great for lovers of crashing waves. but first we stopped by a medieval stone stack called vihitynmaanrinki (circle of ordained land), a burial site according to local lore. i suppose they occasionally dig up the stones from the overgrowing undergrowth, otherwise the forest would have devoured the site long ago.

the wind was so strong by the sea, i had trouble balancing myself on the rocks. i also wore wellies which made everything more slippery and treacherous. but they were good for wading through the stinking bay of seaweed to get to a nice spot with ponds full of small seashells and other sea life.

being the only one with a 'proper' camera along, i felt obliged to take lots of pictures even though i really just wanted to pick the sea buckthorn fruits, which were still mostly good. i only gathered a small handful (besides all the ones i ate on the spot!) because my fingertips froze in my fingerless mitts. seems like winter might be on its way to us. there's already snow up north.

we followed the shore farther to a bird watching tower. while walking there, a man in a neoprene suit came jogging down the path, which baffled us until we saw his windsurfing gear by the tower. i thought him crazy for going out there into the rocky, trashing sea, and alone as well, but he looked very happy when we chatted with him a bit. reminded me of the irish surfers...

the view was amazing, open sea wide open before the eyes. ironically, no birds. just some gloomy dead, cut-half birch trees.

all in all a great but tiring day. lots of fresh air, cranberry pie and tea, a whiskey toddy for my sore throat (from mouse-poopy dust while clearing the storage a bit... eww!) and a gorgeous, bright full moon now high up in the sky. i bet i will wake up knowing i've been skipping about on those rocks, though...