Hunting Holidays

The midday sun....**sigh**  I wish it would get just a bit higher in the sky!

Today is Suomen itsenäisyyspäivä, or Finland's Independence day.  Even google has a banner for it (at google.fi), which I thought was neat.  It's a national holiday and as a result, everything is closed.  like...EVERYTHING...If you didn't manage to get what you needed yesterday, you're just going to have to do without for the rest of the day.

Itsenäisyyspäivä Google

Looking at a calendar, Finland appears to have a lot of official holidays, which is true, but it's not as straightforward as that.  Not every holiday marked on the calendar is a day off, in fact most holidays work continues pretty much as usual.  These are called Flag Holidays and the only thing that really changes is that every flagpole in town flies the Finnish Flag.  That is another thing I found to be very interesting - there are only certain days that people fly the Finnish Flag. The rest of the time, the flagpoles are either bare, or hold flags of the institution (university, museum, region, hotel..etc) that owns the flagpole.  When you notice the flags, it certainly makes you stop and think about what is being recognized that day, something that is often missed on Canadian Holidays.  Another interesting fact about the flag (according to Wikipedia) is that the current flag was first used by a yacht club in Helsinki around 1861.

Finnish barn and countryside and weeds.  Thanks for the photo April!

The Finnish National Anthem is Maamme, or Our Land.  Translated, the words are about the natural beauty and splendor of the northern land of Finland.  It is a very positive, celebratory song (in my opinion) with no mention of conquoring or defending or how wonderful the peoples are or religion...just a song about joy of the natural landscape.  Ok, so that's probably enough facts for one day, but I could probably go on; moving to Finland is the first time I've really been interested in learning about history and culture.

The logyard / railyard by my house.  I thought the bunks for the logs on railway cars were pretty neat.   From here the logs go for processing at either of the mills or processing plants in town.

Last weekend I went to the city of Kuopio (actually nearby in Siilinjärvi) for another metsäterapiapäivä (forest therapy day) also know as a day of hunting.  April, Aku, and I set out for a weekend of wandering through the forest, having lunch fires, shooting guns, and watching wildlife...with the offchance that we may shoot something.  Well, we did.  Aku and I were walking paralell to each other and a hare (metsäjänis) shot out right between the two of us.  It was like a flash of white darting across the dull, brown and grey forest floor.  Well I was so busy pointing in surprise that I had hardly touched my shotgun, let alone taken the safety off, before Aku had it down.  Apparently I still have the "point and shout" reflex....not the "point and shoot" reflex.  Anyways, it all worked out well (for us, not the rabbit) and we took that one home at the end of the day.

Fuzzy Bunny...it was so soft!  They now have their winter fur on, but the snow has melted leaving them a little vulnerable to hunters and predators.  Thanks for the photo April!

Highlights of the weekend:
  - teaching April to shoot (I can't imagine learning with a 12ga.)
  - driving a car for the first time in 4 months
  - Sauna
  - homemade food
  - cutting down a christmas tree (actually 2)
  - spending a day outside with friends and actually having a successful hunt.

Practising!  Looking back on it, April is probably the fourth friend (from conservation mostly) who I have handed a firearm to for their first time shooting ever.  Notice she's still smiling...even though it's a bit of a nervous smile. 

I like to check out the weather around Finland and other places in the world on a fairly regular basis...It's just interesting.  So I was looking at the weather for Inari, the city I visited in Lapland a few moths ago. It's not that cold yet, but have a look at the weather forecast (click on the image to make it bigger):

Notice that the sunrise and sunset times...they have DATES on them.  The sun set on the 1st of December and will not rise again until the 11th of January.  How crazy is that?  I mean, I knew it happened, it's just really amazing (in my opinion) to see a sunset and sunrise that are weeks apart.  I imagine the opposite is true in the summer when there are weeks between the last sunrise and the first sunset.  

Thanks for the sweet hat Karina!  It sure kept me warm last weekend!

That's it for now...have a great week (or what's left of it)!!