Life in a northern land

The garden before the snow falls,,,

It's summertime...

We had hailstones and a storm strong enough to fell trees on sunday afternoon. It came literally out of nowhere, and we were just on the edge of it, with a mini cyclone reported about 2 km from here. This seems to be a regular feature... Now where am I going to put that storm cellar?

4 weeks today.

Our son is 4 weeks today. Just to keep you up to date here's a progress report.

He's put on almost a pound a week.
He seems to be extremely strong - you have to watch his head when burping him on your shoulder, otherwise he can fling his whole body backwards.
He screams loudly when a burp is on it's way.
He hasn't worked out yet that night's are for sleeping and days for waking.
He has refused to allow a photo to be posted, as he is passing through puberty, and his facial skin seems to have erupted in a minefield of spots. (It's probably his body actually finding it's own level of hormones after 9 months of being inside mum).
He is starting to smile... :)
Daddy now sleeps in the living room, in the vain hope that he gets some sleep, and äiti (mum) and son need all the space in the bed, because he doesn't want to sleep in his own crib...
This arrangement was also supposed to help äiti lie in in the morning when the other two are awake, but as daddy has difficulty getting up, and can sleep through most things from about 6 am to 9 am, hasn't really worked.
He doesn't so much fill his nappy, as do explosively wet farts, which have been known to spread sideways like a mushroom cloud and leave the confines of the nappy at rapid speed...

Oh, and he's lovely!!!

The wisdom of a five year old

Our second daughter asked me today why we have swear words if we can't use them...

It does recall a certain incident a year or so ago, where said daughter knocked over her glass of water, turned round, and said through clenched teeth f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k, F**K! This was observed by my dear wife, who pursued me as to the origin of this quaint English phrase. I denied all responsibility, at least until the next time I did something similar, and, unbidden and completely to my surprise, guess what came out of my mouth...

Finishing off with icebergs...

To use up some of the old paving stones, and neaten up the area around our mat thumper (??? - Finnish houses have wooden/tiled floors, and mats in copius supply. These are then taken out in a weekly ritual and thumped to get rid of the dust. A yearly summer ritual - often taken after Juhannus to clear the head, is mat washing, done at the council provided site. Finland, Finland...), I decided to pave the area. All was going well until it rained like mad, ad washed away the sand underneath the half finished job.

As can be seen in the next photo the top row of stones is nowhere near level with the previous. I thought I'd be able to get away with the rustic (botched job) look and just continue anyway but....

then I found an iceberg.

This stone doesn't look like much, but was very large and probably part of the foundations of the house. Unfortunately it was also about ½cm too high to just put a paving stone over it and forget about it. So I had, after all, to rebotch the rest of the top level of stones anyway. It'll be all finished soon, when I get some more levelling sand.

St John's night

Those of you with a musical inclination will know Mussorgsky's 'Night on a bare mountain' or more correctly 'St. John's night on a bare mountain'. St John's night is actually the 23rd/24th June, but in Finland (where else) Juhannus is celebrated sometime between the 20th and 26th - this year being the 20th (saturday). It unfortunately has a dark side, with many Finn's drinking themselves to the far side of intoxication as much as possible. Since I was playing for a service on Juhannus in Vehmersalmi, I had gone into our practice rooms on the friday afternoon, coming back around 6 pm. About halfway home I came over the crest of a hill, and realised that there was something black on the road about 150 metres ahead of me. Initially I thought it was a dead cat or badger, but as I came closer I realised it was a body... I pulled up short, and as I got out the car, a security guard from the factory opposite pulled up. It turned out to be a woman in her late 50s, wearing 'tramp' smart clothing, and totally unconcious. I had no idea whether she was crossing the road (it's not a particularly populated stretch) and just passed out, or whether she had been side swiped by a car. I guess the security guard had seen a bit more of what was going on, as he picked her up bodily and dragged her to the side of the road. He then started slapping her cheek to try to get a response, at which she groaned and rolled her eyes around a bit. Basically this continued for a few more minutes, with her muttering incoherently, and waving her arms around, until the police arrived, and I was deemed surplus to requirements. So much for that - no idea what happened next, but the ambulance can't have been far behind.

Then the next day I headed to Vehmersalmi. As the crow flies, Vehmersalmi is only about 10 km from Kuopio, but as there's a great big lake in between, the only way there (without the personal yacht) is a big U shaped north - east- south drive of 50km or so. On the way back it started to rain as I left, and heading north, absolutely poured down. The wipers were on double speed,but still couldnt see much, and the road was more like a river. So much so, in fact, that I saw a frog crossing the road. No doubt he was thinking, last time I was here there wasn't a river.... Once I returned to the top leg of the U, about 5 km later, the road westwards was bone dry. Very strange. I think Vehmersalmi has its own weather system, as this was the area that had a mini cyclone a year ago.

So, strange thing happen: one additional well known fact is that there is a sharp rise in births in March, about 9 months after Juhannus....

Unexpected visitors

As I was returning from a trip in the car with our (now) middle child, we saw a helicopter flying quite low over our local shopping centre. This is nothing new, as the local air ambulance flies a beeline route south from the hospital almost directly over us. So we continued home, and as we got out of the car, realised that the helicopter was aurally very close by. The next minute it flew right over us at a height of about 80-100 metres, and then banked round to do it again. He was so low that the next time he went past, I waved at the pilot in the open cockpit and got a wave back. For the next ten minutes he continued to circle around our area, and then cleared off. He didn't get so close by the time I had my camera, but here are some shots. I have no idea what he was doing - it didn't look like an air ambulance (big, yellow) or a police helicopter (lots of gadgets and mean looking) so what the purpose was, I've no idea!

After the snow has melted...

As you know, the plan with the back garden has been to level the other half of the garden this spring, but once the snow melted, we realised that the grass on the new section would not be strong enough for another couple of months to take walking playing etc. So we shall wait til autumn to do that job. Recently though, was Mother's day, and the mother of the house decided she would like a garden swing for the present bit of Mother's day! This was quickly followed by a discussion as to where it would go....... So muggins was set to work removing the old and battered 'vegetable patch' (in reality a raised bed containing some scruffy rhubarb), and reusing most of the soil left over from the great tree project to raise the level of the ground.

This was then left to settle for a couple of weeks, and then the day before the arrival of the 3,5 kilos, we received a pallet of paving stones and a pallet with a DIY garden swing. Originally we were going to go for a 6x4 shape to complement the existing patio, but having built the swing and looked at the fit on the existing patio, it was decided to go for 5x5.

Getting started: not many tools needed for this.

I had previously carefully levelled the whole area with a long plank and an old scaffold bar, but levelling sand came into its own for the exact fit needed:

Both sides, with a built in approx. 2 cm drop towards the back of the garden to assist drainage:

And the finished article: with the level of earth brought up flush, using the earth from the old vegetable patch. It's really brought more space to that end of the garden, and we've somehow managed to find a nice sheltered and private space for it. Now let's hope it doesn't rain all summer...