Thu and Fri, 30 and 31 Jul

Thursday was a long day. Leo picked me up at the station at 6:15 and we headed north, through some occasional ground fog, to Kuopio where we picked up Risto. From there, we continued north to Kajaani under sunny skies, where we headed east to Sotkamo and "Katin Taimitarha" (the Katin Nursery) operated by Pohgah Taimi Company. We arrived about 9:15 and were met by the manager, Jaana Mannermaa and her assistant Esa Kovalainen. We toured their 10 million seedling operation (they were packing spruce seedlings for summer planting), had a bit of coffee and pastry, received some nice gifts, and by 11:30 we were heading north toward Ristijärvi and "machines." Somewhere in the hinterlands between Puolanka, Hyrynsalmi, and Ristijärvi, and after discussing the fungal disease that was turning the tops of all the spruce yellow, we found our first one. This machine was for "tending" young plantations. Essentially, it's a giant weed puller. The apparatus gets placed over the target tree, and then hydrolic clamps grab the tops of the offending vegetation. When it is lifted, it pulls the "weeds" out of the ground. The original prototype just cut the weeds, but they quickly sprouted back. This is deemed a more permanent solution. Given that most of the site was aspen suckers, it was probably prudent. We then zoomed off in search of the "M Planter". We found it up a really crummy road, after having first gone up an even crummier wrong road. We had to walk about 150 meters to where the machine was working. Instead of 5 minutes, it took about 20 minutes as we had to sample the blueberries along the way. The M Planter attaches to your basic tracked excavator and has two independent tree planters that hold about 100 seedlings each. The operator makes a scalp to remove big debris, then piles some mineral soil to discourage those pesky pine weevils, and finally plants a seedling in the middle, all from the comfort of his cab. On a good 8-hour day the machine can plant about 2000 seedlings. It was already mid afternoon when we started to head back, enjoying all of the blooming fireweed along the way. We picked up a sandwich (a fried egg, two thin pieces of ham, some cucumber, and mayo on thick, dark bread) and some coffee and then headed south toward Rautavaara. Timo Korhonen had called Risto about a "seedling problem" and because we were, more or less, heading that direction, we decided to stop by. We found the Timo Korhonen Taimitarha (Timo's Nursery) near Kangaslahti. After quite a bit of time on our hands and knees looking at his alive, dying, and dead miniplug spruce, we concluded it was probably heat injury and again started for home, back through Siilinjärvi to Kuopio to Suonenjoki. I walked back into my apartment at about 21:30. A long but good day.

I thought I'd do a quick check of my email. Mistake. When Rhoda and I go to Poland the end of August, we are spending the first night in Gdansk. It happens to be a favorite summer destination for Poles, so the person organizing our trip was more than a tad anxious that we still did not have accomodations. Fortunately, she sent me a great link and I felt compelled, after looking at all the hotels with "one room remaining" and "only two rooms remaining" and was able, eventually, to book some rooms. I also had promised to call Niklaas, and I kept that promise. It was good to hear his voice. I finally flopped into bed near midnight.

Today, Friday, I finally made it to my office just in time for the 9:00 coffee break. The big news was that the biochar pellets that Karl Englund at Washington State University made for me, for some collaborative research I have planned with the Finns, had arrived yesterday. Three packages in one week. Wow. Otherwise, same o same o. Tonight I ran my exercise circuit, did a bit more pressing work, and am ready to call it an early night.

Wed, 29 Jul

I really missed Niklaas today. More than usual. When he was here in Finland, he was the "go-to" guy for making on-line reservations, especially for the train. Without him today I had to muster on by myself... I spent a bit of time tonight making hotel and train reservations for when my sister Rhoda visits the third week of August. It did help break up the usual day of grinding data and reading papers. Tomorrow Risto and Leo and I are heading north and visiting a nursery near Kajaani. The plan also includes witnessing some machines doing "tending" in plantations. Apparently they have machines that grab the plants growing around the desired pine or spruce, and then pull them the weeds out of the ground. Sounds pretty wild. There are 3 prototypes working in the country, so I guess we'll go check it out. Probably too big for the garden at home...


You know how I joke about fish and potatoes in Finland, right? Well, today we had soup for lunch. All of sudden Eevamaria looked up and said, "What, no pototoes in the soup?" This really would have been the first meal without a spud. Upon closer inspection by those assembled at the table, hidden among the larger chunks of rutabaga, were little slivers of tuber. Catastrophe averted!

Mon and Tue, 26 and 27 Jul

It's pretty ho-hum here in Suonenjoki... I'm eating blueberries and going to work. The last 2 nights I've gone up and watched them apply the black-out curtain to about 600,000 spruce seedlings. They are giving them a 12-hour day (or night) to encourage them to set buds. It only takes 2 people about 15 minutes to do the job because it's mostly automated, except for a little hand work at the very end. I was wondering aloud why we don't use it more in Moscow, but then I looked at the forecast for this week. Yikes! I'll stay here in Finland were it's a beautiful 75 F. Today was a bit more exciting; I got my first piece of mail in my official mailbox. No, it wasn't from Finland. Ted Alway sent me some Iliamna seeds from Washington to add to the germination experiment we are trying to do. I say trying because we are still working on what the best treatments to test might be. No sooner had I opened that, and they brought me a box that Deb had sent. Dang. Too bad we couldn't have spread the joy over at least 2 days! This last photo for today is of silver birch seedlings. It seems that birch seedlings come up in every crack of every sidewalk, so it seems weird that they grow it, particularly because they complain that the "mooses" are always eating it. But, it made for a nice photo with the late-in-the-day sunlight.

Sunday, 26 Jul

This morning I woke up stiff. Finnish beds, Scandinavian beds, are, well, different. They have an inch thick pad that rests on top of about 3 inches of foam. Although I don’t have any trouble sleeping, my back reminds me every morning that it’s not my bed. After a bit of yoga, which only helped a little this morning, I headed outside in search of blueberries. They weren’t hard to find. About 40 feet from my apartment was the first patch. The weather was partly cloudy and pleasant, but still, so the mosquitoes were a nuisance. In an hour, I had about 3/4 of a liter, which seemed like a decent amount. Adding what I'd already eaten, I had probably picked a liter. No sense picking more than I can eat in the next few days, as I don’t really have a good way to store them. About the time I started hand-picking, a woman and her son started harvesting in a more industrial fashion, with their official Finnish berry rake thingamabobs. These gizmos have tines on the end, a handle, and a collection area. You just swoop them through the bushes and they scrape off the berries.

In that same hour, they had picked about 20 liters. They were pretty funny, with their purple hands, purple lips, purple teeth... they had probably eaten as many as they had picked. They also confessed that they had hours of work at home cleaning all those berries. Me, on the other hand, had immediate gratification: fresh blueberries on vanilla yogurt.
After snacking, I headed into town for a few groceries. The strawberry guy was still selling strawberries, but I passed him by today, I’ve got fresh blueberries. Looks like I’ll spend most of the rest of the day cleaning up a chapter for the Patagonian nursery manual. That’s one of the monkeys I’m trying to get off my back this summer.

An update.... I've been sitting in the kitchen of my apartment becasue it has the best WiFi connection, and it's been a steady string of cars all afternoon. Car load after car load of berry pickers. The interesting thing is that they all go to about the same spot, and they all pick for about an hour, and then they all leave with happy faces. Gives you an idea of how many blueberries must be lurking out there...

Dreary Saturday, 25 Jul

I woke up to a drizzly rain that lasted nearly all day. Shot down my blueberry hunting plans. I ended up resorting to laundry (that's how dire the situation was) and computer work. I couldn't really get motivated for real science, so I did busy work on datasets and organizing my hard drive. Thrilling, eh? The drizzle died off late in the afternoon so I could get out and get some exercise. I have a little circuit I've been following that takes me around the greenhouses. There's about 40 wagtails that live in and around the greenhouses, and a few of them follow me around. I guess I'm cheap entertainment. Afterward, I hit the sauna and when I emerged, it was pouring.... one of those frog-choking, gully-filling downpours. Although it's only about 20 feet from the sauna to my apartment, I waited out the storm. Fixed myself a bit of smoked fish for dinner, and finished off my strawberry stash. Hopefully, I can find some blueberries tomorrow.