Flowers and Flies

It's in the heat of summer and HEAT is the right word this year. That and drought. I'm yerning for some rain but it just keeps passing over the middle of Finland. Luckily at the cottage we have a 65 metre deep drill well into the granit rock so it has never yet dried up. In fact we were told that we are drinking ice age water. Well it is cold. Colder than refridgerated water anyway.

But due to frequent efforts in watering hundreds of litres every night we have managed to keep most of our flower borders ship shape. The lawn has had to be sacrificed.

Anyway it is a time for being lazy during the hot daylight hours. Sitting in the shade of our veranda mostly glaring into our garden pond and all that's going on around it. I could have called this post life around the garden pond too but of course we have lovely blooms all around the place. Not only at the back of the house.

As always I do not only enjoy the flowers but also all the insects buzzing around these blooms of joy. Photography is about as strenious as I can get during this continuing heat wave and that means loads of photos. Even then me and the dogs have to go and get frequent dips in between allthough waters that are 24-25 degrees don't much chill down.

But let's not make this into a novel. After all it is a picture blog.

Lilies











African Marigolds













Pansies






Excuse my dress code. This is all what one can wear these days.

Roses







Chrysantemums





Dahlias











Sedum

















Mixed borders and rockery












Bone chewing dogs in the evening




Posing for mom




A bit of my little town garden too




A family gathering celebrating 50 years of cottage life


My nephew - the barbeque master

Burning love





Butterflies















Dragonflies


Practically impossible to get a picture of a dragonfly in flight. Hence this one is not sharp either.


This one nearly became a victim of the pond skaters


It had strength to climbe onto the edge though and the wing looks damaged but it managed to fly away after a while.


This one kept chasing butterflies but always landed down by the pond after a small flight


Such beautiful creatures up close


Perhaps a little frightening too

Other insects




This time of year wasps are fascinated by all sorts of small holes. This one is investigating between the cobbles by the pond.


Bumble Bees are just interested in the flowers all summer long






A grass hopper had landed on the curtain


A little green thing


Another green thing had met its fate in the pond


The pond skaters are the keep clean agents, ie. the vultures of the insect world


Here a fly is about to become food but it actually managed to crawl out of the water.


An exhausted bumble bee was not so lucky


It caused a regular feeding frenzy


I found it quite fascinating (in a morbid way) to view these dramatic events

Lets end this long parade of photos with a few more of our garden beauties that I don't know the english names of






















To wrap it all up just a picture of what the drought is doing to the trees




Luckily not all trees and shrubs are shedding their leaves. Thus some little shade are provided for the dogs too.

Heat struck?

Are you feeling hot and bothered? Would you just like to sit under a cold shower all day long? I would!

My friend Judy of Lilac Gate has come up with a brilliant remedy and I decided to follow suite. It allmost works :)


Do you feel cooler now?


Winter is a time for showing off! These doggy clothes are a hobby of mine.


Posing on the sea ice


This phenomena is what is called 'snow blindness'


Golden glow


Winter sunset


Snow dogs


A late afternoon in February


Snow lace


The sailing club hibernating in winter

Well, I hope you found some releaf from the heat at the moment through these wintery shots

Wings

When the summer sun turns the sky nearly white it is nice to just sit and look up into it ...



... and dream of how it would feel like to float around high high up there

The blue of the sky where the sun is just in the opposite corner (if the sky can be divided into corners) is a gorgeous colour that one simply cannot get enough of ...







... and it is just fun to sit and do some plane spotting



even later on in the evening, when the colour has darkened substantially

Sometimes the sky clouds over but nevetheless ...



... it is nice to observe the wings up there



After a while the clouds might very well start to break up ...



... or take on a wonderful pink glow from the setting sun

Summer nights

It has been a smashing summer so far. Today we had thunder but it never amounted to much. Only some very welcome and refreshing rain and a few small rumbles.
A good summer in these latitudes is by no means any guarantee and the past three summers have been somewhat dissapointing. Not so this year. Sunshine and heat have been pampering us in an abundance but there has been just enough rain to keep most things fresh and green. Not the grass mind you. Still grass recovers quite quickly.

The winter was cold and very heavily snowy so I'm happy that the summer has lived up to its name this year.

Particularly the summer nights are enjoyable as the daytime heat is just a bit too much to bear in the middle of the day. But the velvety soft nights are just lovely.


Mom in the cottage garden - early evening


The seaside meadow and orchide field during the golden hour


A single orchide. I whish you could smell it. The scent is intoxicating in the evening.


Sunset over the Fagervik bay


A summer night at the cottage


Tree tops painted by the evening sun


Smell the roses


The shade is preferable in the daytime


My little lettuce tray


Me and my 'gang' in my town patio


Lots of watering required


Darling, darling Ljuba - best dog ever


Always the clown - Rufino


Our little wild flower meadow at the cottage


I live here


The evening of mom's 80th birthday celebration at the cottage. I arranged a smallish surprise party and she was so very taken by it. Here most guests have departed and we had a small Bar-B-Q to wrap up the evening.


The dogs also rather stay indoors in the daytime. Lucia sitting, has had some trouble as I had to have re-sterilized (the original operation was done haphazardly), and she started to have rejection symptoms to the stitches. It has been a long and troublesome healing process but now it looks like it finally has started to dry up and perhaps we can finally spend some more time at the cottage.

What would one not do for these little furry friends.

Luckily I at least have some plants to tend in town too.


Here's whishing my few, but very loyal readers a great summer week.