Plant of the day: Gentiana punctuata

I know a place where three or four specimens grow and I won't tell anyone where it is.

Plant of the day: Aconitum firmum

Been out in the wild. Long time ago but with my lousy internet access, I post things late.
This beauty is poisonous like hell, by the way.

Productivity

I spent most of the weekend gardening. I mean, gardening in real garden, not poking into my flowerpots which make me a windowsill farmer.
The good part of the whole thing was that an idea occurred to us: We can use the rubbish for barbecuing. Which we did so we cleared one of the messier corners from a heap of various sticks and bits saved for lighting the fireplace. Yeah, and burning pine needles is nice, too, it smells nice. Maybe the smoke is full of carcinogenous crap but it makes the sausages smell nice, too. Mom produced all sorts of meat bits from various storage places so I'm full even now.
The dog helped, too. She's an expert on lying around and making people knock over. She can help with cleaning after barbecuing, just leave the juicy bits somewhere where she can reach them to bury them somewhere under the newest shrub (which she'll carefully dig out and depose on the doorstep). But she basically spent the weekend in the corner looking dead.
The cat on the other hand, discovered how to open the balcony doors with her paw. Not that I wouldn't gladly let her out but the abovementioned dog hunted several cats to death. Tähti just came to the balcony and meowed because she was afraid to run down the stairs, otherwise we would notice her only when she'd joined us in working (and eating, true).
I played with the macro lens again... so, what do you guess is this:




No, I'm not giving hints, that would be no fun.

Winter

I went hiking. The results are thus:
(1) my knee is still pissed
(2) my calves hurt like hell until today. Because my knees are shit, I cannot use them while walking downhill and I need to tiptoe. I discovered several new, unexpected muscles in my calves.
(3) the macro lens works
Primula, further unspecified, I'm lazy


Viola canina, I guess that not perfectly focused.

(4) winter still is.
I was in the same area with the Finns a year ago and there were a few bits of snow, they mostly are in this time of the year (but for the very hot spring some five years ago when the plants were two months ahead). This year, I wanted to go with friends but since I didn't hear from them, I went alone... and needed to find my way in the snow. It was odd. First, I was overtly optimist so I was wearing a tank top and sandals, no warm stuff with me. Second, it's the freaking May! We're not Lapland, there should be flowers, no darn snow. It was charming, in a way. I like the area and I could view it from another (frozen) perspective. And snow smells nice. I found out that hiking can be nice for heating up - yes, you can climb a hill in the snow, in sandals but you have to move.

The plants are from a valley around 600m lower. They would be long gone in my home area. I picked some herbs, too. I'll be back in a month or so with more plants to poke around.

May 1

Been out, hunted for plants.




Aurinia saxatilis. It grows and flourishes on the basalt rocks in the area. The whole hill was yellow of its blossoms. Admittedly, some not so pretty Euphorbia species inhabited the hill. And Rosa pendulina (guess) and some grasses I've never seen before and pretty tiny ferns and apple orchards.







Veronica prostrata, or at least I think so.













Verbascum phoeniceum

















Apple orchards (Malus)

Not a bad day it was.

Weekend spent in a useful way

On Saturday I did some gardening. My back has very sharp opinion about untrained people shoveling the soil around even now, two days later.
I was in the forest yesterday to take a few pics. The weather was lousy and I hear that winter will be back.












Daphne mezereum. It blossomed nicely a week ago, though.














Daphne mezereum. A bit of detail. The shrub, apart from being poisonous as hell, has pretty little pink blossoms and when the leaves start to sprout, the colour combo is great. Sunny day would be much nicer.




















Pulmonaria officinalis. Nice herb, along with Primula an ingredient to my Grandma's all-powerful blend against cold. And it's a nice flower, too.



















Cordyalis cava. Comes in several colours, not only pink but also white and purple. Not edible, as far as I know.

Done with that.

Today we finished all the five books for the goddamn stupid 4th graders. The boys went to get drunk but for the last one who's printing something, I'm going to eat out and then I'll be back to abuse the printer to my heart's content. And just idle here, hidden from my evernagging mother and all bad things that could encounter me.

To commemorate this event, the filling in my chipped tooth chipped. Teeth always go bad on Friday afternoon.

That's the narcissi. I took the pic more than two weeks ago and wanted to post it to demonstrate that our winter starts in March but didn't manage to. It's a pretty kitsch, though.

Booooooring

And now about something totally different.

Lonicera fragrantissima













Crocus vernus



















Leucojum vernum



















Galanthus nivalis



















Crocus vernus albiflorus (and my ink-stained hand)

gentians

We have something like a cottage in the mountains. I haven't been there for ages so I took two days off (meant to go to work on Sunday anyway but for reasons described below I did not). So, I arrived up there and went for a hike and got totally wasted. And... couldn't resist this. A travelling glove.... to remind the wearer that even things can have their experiences. or something. And in the evening I realized that no-one has sucha big paw si I ripped it whole but for some 38 stitches of the first row... but the yarn has been to that peak. It was not a long hike but it was quite tough and I haven't been anywhere for quite a time.
I'm a city girl, first and mainly of all. I put on a black top because I look thinner in it. Not that I met anyone who would notice it and when one is sweaty and panting for brath, anything may come to mind but certainly not 'good looks'. But at least I don't look like mature cheese on the pic.
Next day I wanted to do some pics of plants. There is a locality.. sort of nature's botanic garden. I'm not giving any names because it's not allowed to go there outside the marked trails.. which I did like every year. It's an avalanche area (in winter) and it's hell of a steep. I climbed the mountain first... well, walked somewhere to the top. From the other side it's just a big hill with flat top. And an alpine meadow well above the timber line, where only some grasses (Festuca sp., mainly) grow and it's lovely to walk there barefoot. [I'll add pics later.. I need to sort them out]. Another reason why i happily walked barefoot was that I produced a nice blister on the soft part of my foot and it felt better without the shoes.
Anyway, descending to the valley was fantastic, at the peak, there're just grasses, some fifty metres lower, blueberries and cranberries start to grow and nearly with every metre the environment changes. In fact, I went there to see whether i can find one of the gentians that grow there (but, basically anything grows in that place), Gentiana verna. It was too late for that one but I discovered another species up on the hill, Gentiana punctuata, which I hadn't hitherto seen. In fact I saw more of them but from distance they look quite ugly, something bleak in the grass.. I don't understand why I like gentians so much...

As I hinted, the terrain is quite steep and under the grass which looks quite even on the surface, many nasty things hide. Holes, sources of water with deep slicky mud.. or there are things that don't bother to hide, stones too hot to step on or anything too steep to step on. I'll upload the pic of my bloody leg later on - it doesn't work. Oddly enough, I didn't notice the wound for quite long. I was interested about the health of my camera because holes in the skin heal by themselves whereas a camera.. I'd have to earn for a year for another one. (And, a second chance in such a short time to see my knees:-)))
I found my way back home, I was tired like hell and I just neded up lying flat in bed. Well, I had a shower first, I was covered by mud and stuff and I'm quite civilized. Although some of the mud had nicely found its way to my skin so I just left it to fall of by itself later, especially around the wound, which showed to be a neat long deep scratch, no real hole. Notice the view into the valley behind the (fat, unshaven and dirty) leg... cool, isn't it?