Officially spring

I may have mentioned it before, but spring is official for me when the birches start turning green. Today they have :) Not all of them, depeding on their subspecies and exposure to sun and whatnot, but they have. And they are heavy with catkins too. Judging by that, we'll be having a harsh pollen year.

The forest behind our house is finally green. I have been waiting and waiting. The leaves have been inching and peeking and teasing, but today the forest was green, when we walked through with the dog.

Squirrels are dithcing their winter coats and turning brown, like the one that was running up and down th birch tree on the neighbor's yard until it stopped for a long while to sit on a branch and munch on something.

Our yard is looking nice with grass starting to grow, some scilla sibericas here and there and the crocuses, even though they are largely starting to wilt already. Last year we had one lone tulip at the edge of the yard, now it looks like we'll have a bunch!

 

Flowers and butterflies

The warm spring days <3 We went to this dog park at Pitkäkoski today, and the day before too. There's a whole lot of hepaticas blooming in the forests there, and coltsfoot too. Trees are opening their leaves, though I'm still waiting on the birches... Catkins and pussy willows are seriously flowering. Today, I saw the first butterfly of the spring too - a bright yellow one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In our little garden, the chives are growing. And the first bumble bee here on our own yard, too.

 

The Vantaa river is flowing free, has been for quite some time and througout the winter at the rapids. But there is still some icy banks left in the shady areas.

 

Catkins and pussy willows

April brought on another cold spell. No snow, at least nothing that would have stayed on the ground, but freezing winds and general coolness, especially today, when the sun mostly stayed behind a layer of thick clouds. It feels psychologically damaging, to get cold weather again, after already getting a taste of the spring warm!

Despite the cold, birds are still chirping, we are in summer time and evenings are long, catkins and pussy willows are spreading pollen into the air - and we who have pollen allergies are having a hard time.

 

Winter came back

Woke up this morning to 7cm of new snow and more coming down. We're having a new cold spell, though in March it generally does not mean colder than 0 plus or minus a couple degrees Celscius. The snow falling is heavy, giving the whole world a thick pure white coating. By far the most beautiful winter day of this winter - interrupting our nice spring... But I don't believe (which does not mean that I couldn't be wrong) that this would last for too long, as far into March as we already are.

 

 

Catkins

Walking out today - yet another beautiful sunny day, yey for spring! - I noticed the birches growing catkins already. It's barely March, but there they were, hanging from birch after birch. Today it's been the warmest day of the year so far. We're planning on getting the grill out during the weekend, maybe already tomorrow. Next week it should get colder again according to the forecasts, but I have my fingeres crossed that the meteoroligst have got it wrong!