in the woods all day, walking, picking, finding, getting lost and back on track (it helps not to think, just walk). there were swarms of swallows flying low over the cloudberry bog, chirping and clicking. i sat there in the hot and dry moss for a long time just listening to them. i tried to revisit the old log cabin, but the path had been made impassable, felled young tree carcasses strewn all over the forest floor. going around wasn't helping, i knew i would lose my way, so i returned and happened upon this great spot for blueberries next to a grassy swamp. rain trickled down for a moment, it helped with the heat.
for a little moment i really wasn't sure of my path, but then arrived just where i was aiming at, near the pine flower that had sadly been cut down. by what, i don't know, but there it lay. so no photos of the fully grown plant this year, either. i went to the lichen rocks, because it was still early, and attracted the first mooseflies, which were oddly pale and soft. from there i headed to this little old, shady spruce field that was shady no more, so many trees had been cut that it had overgrown with green in the light. no chanterelles there, but a few orange wood hedgehogs and a destroying angel (amanita virosa). lovely spiderweb, too, conveniently in a sunbeam.
from there some pine trunks shining silvery through the trees lured me outside my territory and i found a hillside with old trees and big stones that i climbed until i almost arrived at someone's yard. a bit disappointing, i thought the place would've been a deeper forest. nice find nonetheless, considering it was just a ways from my childhood haunts, and i never knew it was there.
at home, the fragrant gladioluses, long awaited, were in bloom. this is what angels must smell like, there's nothing i can even compare the scent to. i tried to grow these on my balcony when i was still living in turku but they never flowered, this is the first time. so precious.
