Catching up! Or at least trying to keep up!

Well...my summer is rapidly drawing to a close...I cannot believe that I am approaching the one year mark soon!! Really, I feel like I am just getting to know the culture, the land, make some good friends....oh yes and the language!  Don't get me started on that rant again...hahaha.  Although, I have been wondering how the English language can adopt a word like sauna and have saunas built around the world....but there is no word for löyly or even a decent description of it!  Every Finn knows that sauna is impossible without löyly...so how is is possible that, as anglophones, we can have a sauna and not a löyly.  Löyly is defined by sanakirja.org as "steam and associated heat in sauna," or, "generated by administering water on the hot stones placed on top of a sauna."  But, anyone who has has Finnish sauna, or is familiar with Finnish culture, knows that löyly is so much more.  So...if you come to Finland, you will have a sauna (this is not a matter of choice), and you should become familiar with löyly.  Ok...that's the end of my language rant!

I have not updated this blog nearly as often as I initially planned to, and it's nothing against you or against the routine of blogging...I have just had little, if any, contact to the world outside of Finland for the entire summer!  The biggest problem is that I use a computer about 1 hour a week and blogging doesn't always make it into that valuable time!  So...what have I been doing? Counting and measuring trees...it's endless!  I have been working long days steadily since the beginning of June (including some weekends) and I think I may finish my field work on Tuesday...if everything goes according to plan!  Then...I start to live out of a suitcase for the foreseeable future. Actually, just until September, when I will be returning to Canada to go to school in Edmonton.  I can't say I'm entirely excited about that...but change is good! ...right? I know I'm going to miss it here! A lot!

Other things I have been doing....This weekend I went to a music festival in Kuopio and that was an awful lot of fun!!!  It's called Rock Cock...yes, seriously.  And everyone understands that this can mean something totally different in English.  It's not something that's lost in translation, It's totally on purpose.  The weather actually turned out to be warm and calm.  I think it was the first sunny day that did not include a massive thunderstorm.  I found myself running from marble-sized chunks of solid, clear ice falling from the sky two weeks ago...not impressed!  We also found time to pick chanterelles this weekend, which some of you may know is something that I will go well out of my way to do!  It has been pretty much steadily raining since May, which has lead to a phenomenal year for 2 things:  bugs and mushrooms! ...and maybe rubber boots too!  This summer is definitely missing sun-sweetened berries (there are more than enough sour ones!), beach days, and quality fishing.  After some very successful ice fishing last winter, I have come to realize that while Finnish ice may hold many fish, Finish water contains no fish...they must grow in the ice or something! ;-)

Anyways, now I'll add a few photos and that's it for this post!  Also...interestingly, most of the people who have viewed this blog in the past month are located in the USA...thanks! 

Patvinsuo life

So this week I'm too tired to write much of anything...so I'm just going to share these pictures, then I'm off to sleep!  Here are some photos (again) of things I find interesting and other parts of my life that you may find interesting!

Finland's only carnivorous plant

Who knew that cranberries had such beautiful flowers?  the swamps are carpeted in pink cranberry flowers these days.

swamps, swamps, swamps....originally 1/3 of Finland's land area was swamps.  Many have since been drained and converted to forest or agricultural land.  

This is why Finns wear rubber boots in the forest...look at the ground you have to cover in between the trees! It doesn't help that my work is based in the small forested sections between massive swamps

Damsel fly

Butterfly

3:00am on Ruunaa Rivers

My backyard..seriously this is what I gaze at out my window when I eat breakfast every morning.  Also, swallows have nested under the eaves of the old farm house I live in, so there are aerial acrobatics to watch as well

My personal rantasauna.  I forgot to mention in the last post that when heating a sauna, you should achieve a minimum  temperature of 60 Celsius.  The best saunas are between 75 and 85 degrees Celsius.  

The most common ditch weeds along the road as they cross swamps: orchids! And they're pretty ones too! Dactylorhiza, unfortunately I'm unsure of the species

Once again, my back yard 

Finnish BearAware:  pull pants down and moon the bear to cause it to flee

Inside of the old farmhouse kitchen area where I live.  Our raingear is drying after a particularly wet day!