Our walk today was cold, wet, windy and muddy. Pretty much a typical Canadian spring day. There was one bright spot though. My neighbour has made her garden bloom by planting wine decanter and bud vase flowers. I might just copy that idea. It’s going to be awhile before the real flowers turn out.
©voyager, all rights reserved
Clouds.
The time is a bit before sunset and the place is outside fence/wall of the Hietaniemi cemetery (I didn’t enter) in February 2018. Click for full size!
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.
From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
We had an errand in Toronto today and it’s a long drive so we stopped at this beautiful building near the airport for a walk on the way home. I popped my head in to pick up a brochure and learned that this is the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple built in 2007 with 95,000 cu. ft. of hand carved marble. There are more than 24,000 blocks fitted together puzzle style with no steel hardware or reinforcement. It’s highly ornate and more than a little imposing, but the day was sunny and warm and we had a lovely wander around. It reached a balmy 6 degrees today and actually felt like spring. Tomorrow we’re back to our usual and much more mundane stomping grounds.
©voyager, all rights reserved
Basilika.
Finnish for basil. This one grew on my window last year and was replanted once more to a bigger pot, similar to the one in the left before getting eaten with pasta and tomato sauce. The both white plastic pots are self-watering pots, the water goes down a pipe to the reservoir in the bottom.
Click for full size!
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.
From Giliell, click for full size! So beautiful.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
That white stuff you see in the foreground is snow mould, not snow, and it happens every year in these parts. It comes with the snowmelt and is a fungal infection of the soil that kills grass. It puts out spores that cause allergies and poor Jack must avoid the stuff or his eyes get goopy. That means our adventure tomorrow will be in different parts.
We have a new series, from Ice Swimmer. Many photographers do an alphabet round at least once, it’s fun and it’s a challenge on several different levels, finding a descriptive photo to correspond to each letter of the alphabet. I’ve done this several times myself, back in the day, but Ice Swimmer elevates this from the standard challenge, and is bringing us words in Finnish, Swedish, and English. Fun, and we all get to learn something!
Arbetarrörelse.
Swedish for Labour movement. The Art Nouveau style stone building is Helsingin työväentalo (Helsinki Labour Hall) which is nowadays operated commercially as a congress centre. There were both Finnish and Swedish speaking workers in Helsinki. The facade of the building was built from the stones quarried from the rock that stood at the site. The oldest part of the building was completed in 1908, nine years before the Finnish Independence. Most other labour halls in Finland were wooden buildings.
Click for full size!
© Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved.
From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Lately, I’ve been working on the floor, so this is my fault, but slobbery dogs, aaaaauuuugh. One of the doors in my studio opens onto the lav, and the door was open. I go in for around 10 seconds, and Jayne promptly stands over the painting and drools. Now he’s sleeping the sleep of the innocent (What? I didn’t do anything! Why are you yelling? Can I have a treat?)
Tulips, Nightjar has them! Oh, so pretty.
© Nightjar, all rights reserved.
From Lofty: Another x-ray pic, this time of this year’s emergent Ox Tongue Lilies. Click for full size!
© Lofty, all rights reserved.
From Voyager & Jack: It was bright and sunny today, but still only 1 degree and icy. There are hundreds of tulips in the garden behind Jack and not a single one is up. Click for full size!
© Voyager, all rights reserved.
