Hello friends!

Decided it was time to take a minute to wish you a happy new year before it suddenly became February all of a sudden. 🙂 Hopefully the arrival of 2024 has you in good spirits and ready to take on the challenges, journeys and adventures that await us all in the coming months.

Our new year celebrations were non-existent, so otherwise pretty quiet. Luckily, the neighborhood refrained from excessive fireworks as in previous year celebrations. The only noteworthiness lately has been the cold weather that descended upon the Nordics, which made international news in early January. An arctic blast cooled things down dramatically as a high pressure system hovered over us for 10 days. The deep blue skies looked even more stunning with the stark whiteness of ice crusted trees and heavy layers of snow. Reuters had a brief news article about the conditions in Lapland.

Photographers were having a field day capturing breathtakingly- (literally) beautiful pictures. While it isn’t uncommon to get one or two of these types of arctic blasts during months of winter, these periods of freezing temperatures are a deviation from our otherwise ‘normal-ish’ winter weather. Once the high pressure lifted and moved on, we enjoyed a brief thawing out with temps climbing to 0c (32F)

Now things are nearly back to typical conditions with slight ups and downs – which has resulted in snowfall increases from 45cm to 60cm as of this morning. Yesterday, the snow was really coming down – all you could see was white!

I have a seed catalog from Korpikangas Siemen-Frö already earmarked with 6 items for purchase. I’m waiting until February to place an order. Don’t want to put myself in the boat I was in last year, which had me starting seeds WAY TOO EARLY! What seeds if any are you going to start this year? I’ve found the light panels to be a real game-changer in the seed growing department 🙂

Reading great posts and catching up on articles is the way I spend every morning. I stay on top of U.S. news, which for the most part is heavily focused on politics. Finland is electing a new President soon. The current Finnish President Sauli Niinistö is ineligible for re-election, having served back-to-back six-years terms.

I’ve been following a blog from Ontario, Canada called, The Peterborough & Area Master Gardeners, which is extremely interesting. The posts are wide-ranging and very helpful, the latest talked about Gardening for Birds Through the Seasons. After further research, I was astounded to learn North America has lost 3 BILLION birds since 1970. Cornell University has completed a startling study. There’s a crisis of bird population collapse and insect habitat loss nearly everywhere. In the U.K. this is also a real problem, but their bird losses are only in the MILLIONS as compared to the USA.

“A staggering loss that suggests the very fabric of North America’s ecosystem is unraveling.”

  – Cornell Lab director John Fitzpatrick and study coauthor Peter Marra

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back

I’m off to top the bird feeders up! Please try to do your part, even if it’s just a little. 🙂 TY

Until next time ❤

Kate @ Vanha Talo Suomi