Slowing Down

Dear friends and family.  We hope that everybody is well and enjoying the spring time and approaching summer in South-Africa.  We, with a bit of a shock, suddenly entered the second phase of metamorphosis since our arrival in Helsinki.  That would be autumn.  It is only the beginning of October and already the weather here is colder than that of South-Africa's winters.  Night temperatures are now entering into the minuses and day temperatures stay mainly below 10 °C. 

Brrrrrrrrr

One morning we woke up and it was DARK!  We now have only about 11 hours of sunlight per day which feels so good and normal.  Below is a diagram indicating the lengths of day and night.

Yesterday morning Dirkie opened the balcony door, shrieked at the cold and immediately shot up the central heating.  This is what the backyard now looks like in the morning, thick with frost.  Somehow we don't quiet fathom how we’ve survived last year’s winter of temperatures going as low as -26 °C.

Suddenly we found ourselves searching around in the cupboards for cloves, coats and beanies.  Dirkie made a boo-boo and put Alex's Thinsulate gloves through the dryer after washing it.  Needless to say it shrunk to a size that could fit the hands of a five year old.  Sorry Skattie, at least I bought you new ones yesterday.

It is as if Helsinki is slowing down as winter approaches.  The summer vibe is now something of the past, fountains in the city gardens are being emptied, frost is setting in and people are preparing their boats and yachts for storage.  The sun does not rise as high above the horizon as a month ago.  Below are two early morning sunrise photos taken from the backyard and the jetty.

We also see in the early morning hours the most extraordinary cloud formations.  The following photo is an example.  Pardon the orientation of the photo.  Dirkie himself can't figure out how he managed to twist and turn to take it.

Slowing down

As we've mentioned in our previous blog, there are two types of Finns.  The summer type who is more open and happy.  And then the winter type who is more somber, slower and almost in a hibernating mode.  People drive slower, shopping and gym hours are changed and, to our disgust, the outside week-end markets are shrinking and disappearing.  Below is a photo of only a few stands remaining on Kauppatori or “Market Square” at the Port of Helsinki.

In some areas and roads winter speed limits are about to be enforced.  The speed limit for driving on the high way will one of these days be a whopping 70km/h.  The first snow is forecasted to make its appearance by the middle of October and on the 1 November the Honda will turn into a snow mobile again by getting its winter studded tires fixed.

Nature

Mother Nature is also slowing down.  The grass didn’t need mowing for weeks now (not that Dirkie’s complaining!), day light hours are getting shorter and trees are shedding its leaves.  It's almost as if nature is preparing for a long sleep.  The transformation is rather beautiful.  The different colours of autumn leaves are amazing.  Dirkie has basically given up on keeping the yard and driveway clean of all the leaves.  It is simply too much.  One lesson that Dirkie has learned is to do what other people living in our street does.  They don't clean away all their leaves, so Dirkie doesn't as well.  Below is a photo of what Dirkie like to call our Autumn Tree.  When the sun hits it at just the right time in the morning the green and yellow leaves creates opportunity for stunning photos.

The following photos are of all the leaves that fall from the trees.  The last photo is a heap of leaves that Dirkie collected in a futile effort to clean up the porch.

The following photo is of a tree which leaves are turning a lovely reddish / maroon colour.

Most of Dirkie's flower pots are also entering into hibernation mode.  Luckily the pots can stay outside with the plant bulbs still in the soil during the entire winter season.

The sea is also calming down producing a peculiar stillness, especially early in the morning when it's misty.  Look at the following interesting photo.

Do you notice the uneven patterns on the water?  Upon closer inspection Dirkie found out that it's actually fish coming up to the surface of the water, probably to feed on something that is floating around.  The locals are also not parading up and down the sea in front of the house with their leisure boats and yachts anymore.  Instead we now see smaller fisherman's boats.

Animals

Now what would a blog be without photos of all our cutie-pie animal kiddies!  One would think that the birds and the squirrels will be entering a slow-down mode as well.  But no, the squirrels are as busy and naughty as they've never been before.  The only thing that has changed is that they go to sleep earlier in the evening.

The Sparrow's and Ducks are long gone.  We saw them migrating in their typical "V" formations.  We still have a lot of small Mossie-like birds which holler for food the entire day.  We wonder how they are going to survive the harsh Finnish winter.  The following photo is one of the small birds giving Dirkie the "feed me" look.

The next photo is of the birds during feeding time.  Dirkie puts out bread and seeds for them.  There can sometimes be up to 18 of them feeding all at once.

The next photo is adorable.  It was taken just after Dirkie put out seeds for the birds.  They still knew that Dirkie was there watching them, patiently waiting for him to leave.

Our children, the squirrels, are still their adorable little selves.  We didn't see it happen, but one of them has again stolen a tea light candle from the house.  We know that it must be one of the little buggers as dirty little foot prints were found at the crime scene.  However, a few days later Dirkie found the evidence in the garden.  Here is the proof.

Although some of the wax is munched out and the pit chewed down to a stump they surprisingly didn't finish it off.  From the evidence one can see that a few bites from the aluminum cup were also taken.  We guess that they've finally noticed that peanuts tastes better than aluminum and that they don't need the wax, unless one of them felt a bit constipated and needed a light laxative.

Our children basically now eat whatever is edible and what's left gets hidden away somewhere in the garden.  The following photo is of Donsie patiently waiting (and about to fall asleep) for a mid-morning snack.

The following two photos are also of Donsie after she got hold of a piece of bread which was actually meant for the birds.  She is so small and it was adorable to watch her as she didn't really know how to handle the "gigantic" piece of food.

Eventually she ate some of the bread and then stashed the rest away in the nook of a tree branch.  And what did she do next?  She went down to the bottom of the tree to indulge in another piece of bread meant for the birds.

 

The first squirrel in the morning to come for breakfast is Kleintjie.  He usually sits on the window sill asking for food.  Just look at how he has grown in only a few weeks.

Second in line would be Skaampie, the mother of them all.  Dirkie took this photo of her the other day while she was sitting on the edge of the balcony.  The following photo is her begging gesture indicating that she wants to be fed.

The next photo is of Donsie also coming to have a look to see if Mamma-Dirkie might magically throw them a Hazel nut up the balcony. 

It's funny how Kleintjie tends to be more like Skaampie.  As you can see in the next photo she now also does the begging gesture but with a more demanding look on her face.

Donsie is a character on his own.  He runs around all over the place; from the top of the roof, to the balcony, to the trees and around the garden.  He's got only one thing on his mind and that is to hide food away.  Thus one either sees him stuffing his face with peanuts, or emptying the content of his stuffed face in some hiding spot.  The following photo shows Donsie on a digging mission.  He has three peanuts in his mouth and is looking for a place to hide it.

The next photo shows Donsie digging away in one of the flower pots and hiding the peanuts.  As she is still so young we think that she doesn't actually realise that Kleintjie just dig up all her peanuts again for a late afternoon snack.

This is Donsie looking very pleased with grimy paws and mouth after a successful mission.

Kleinjtie has also taken a liking to digging around in the garden and hiding food.  But he tends to hide the food in other parts of the garden and not in the flower pots.  This photo is of him at the bottom of the tree that goes up to the balcony.  The "grin" on his face is not actually a grin.  He looks like that as he can't close his mouth as it's, jip-jip, stuffed with peanuts.

Kleintjie’s favourite place for stashing peanuts is the row of trees that separate our yard from that of the neighbours.  In the following photo he's busy underneath one of the bushes and one can only see his bum and tail sticking out.

The last photo is also of Kleintjie as he heads up to the balcony again to go and fetch even more peanuts.

That’s it from us for now. 

Vernon, have a wonderful birthday with many blessings.  We hope that you get spoiled rotten. 

Beth, the bleached / blond / white / then pink-or-purple hair looks stunning!  Now you just need to do some work on Beatrie, *grin-grin*. 

Vincent and Zach, we miss you and your children so much and think of you all the time during the stressful end-of-the year marathon at MMP.  Thank you for looking after our Birdies while we are frozen over here. 

Anmarie and Josh, both of your new hairdos look fabulous, fit for Gautengs’s weather.  We miss you Joshua! 

Ma-Marie, we are so sorry for the passing away of Kittie.  We think of you every day. 

Ma-Fransie, we hope that you’ve settled in nicely in your new house! 

Mariana, Johan and the kiddies all the best for the Christmas preparations coming up at the church!