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.

Thu and Fri, 23 Jul

I’m pretty much in a rut or a groove, I guess depending on your point of view. I’m trying to salute the sun each morning with a bit of yoga, eat some fresh strawberries with that awesome Finnish vanilla yogurt, off to work, coffee, lunch, coffee, bike ride, reading, and bed. Repeat. I guess that’s why I was easily distracted Thursday. I was sitting in my office when a Eurasian Sparrowhawk flew in, chased by just about every little wagtail at the station. He hopped about a bit, long enough for me to find Risto and discuss the finer points of accipiter identification. That led to a chat about Christmas bird counts, and before we knew it, a good chunk of the afternoon had pleasantly passed.


The days, er, the nights, are getting noticeably darker. I’m realizing that the street light outside my apartment is actually starting to shine in through the window, which means it must be darker. At the nursery here the staff is moving the 2+0s out of the greenhouses to begin hardening, and some spruce are being short-day treated (sorry for the jargon, non-nursery folks…. but that essentially means that the nursery folks are fooling the seedlings into thinking that the days are shorter than they really are so that the seedlings set buds and start getting ready for winter). As is customary, they move everything with machines, which explains why they need such tall greenhouses; there has to be enough room to maneuver the equipment.

After work today I decided to ride my bike the opposite direction, away from town. I made the stupid mistake of really cruising along, only to discover that once I turned around, I was peddling into a brutal headwind…. 20 minutes out, 35 minutes back. Erg. Probably nothing that a Lapin Kulta won’t fix… Tomorrow, blueberries?

Bird of the Day: Eurasian Sparrowhawk (lifer)

Wed, 22 Jul

Yes, you guessed it. Another day in the office. So, with the same daily experience, what's left to talk about? Food? Okay. Today's lunch seemed to be consumately Finnish. We had bread. Spread butter on it with the official wooden knife. We had soup. Naturally it featured chunks of fish and chunks of potatoes in a creamy milk broth seasoned with, what else, dill. We had salad. It was a cabbage base, with cucumber, watermelon, and pumpkin. Yup, pumpkin. Kinda soft and maybe marinated somehow. We had desert. Fresh strawberries with ice cream. But I passed on the coffee. Because I didn't go to town yesterday, I had no choice but to go today.... Picked up some groceries (and more strawberries) and cruised on back home. I took a good walk through the woods, didn't get lost, found the blueberries still a bit tart, and the birds now mostly silent. With the quality of light and the look of the woods, it kinda felt like fall... weird.

Tues, 21 Jul

I spent the day in the office... it's a nice office, although it tends to get warm on sunny afternoons. Beside my laptop, I also have access to a Metla computer which gives me better Internet (faster than my laptop Wi-Fi). Unfortunately, Metla has less access to on-line journals, so I've been searching with the Metla computer and then downloading with my laptop. Juha and I spent some time this afternoon trying to finalize the biochar pellet study, and I think we have reached agreement among science, economics, and time. It looks to be a good study. About 15:00 Risto stopped by and convinced me (didn't take that much effort) that we should walk to a nearby lake and look at a pair of Red-throated Loons with chicks. The lake was probably a 10-minute hike, but the scenary makes it prone for becoming completely lost. Rolling hills covered with Scots pine with a blueberry understory all starts to look alike. We found the lake and the birds. Along the way we tried the blueberries, but they seemed a bit tart, and Risto thought they were not quite ripe. I think I'll have to start making daily forays to the forest to see how they are progressing.

Bird of the day: Red-throated Loon

Back to Work, Monday, 20 Jul

I slept until 7:30, then crawled up to the station just in time for the coffee break. It seemed everyone was glad to see me, and that I was not captive in a Russian gulag. I spent most of the day working on my biochar proposal and study plan, and hopefully tomorrow I can wrap that up. It was a cool and rainy day, but by the end of work it was trying to clear off. I rode my bike into town and got some groceries, although I'll probably need to go again tomorrow for a few more items. I can only carry so much in my bag. They were still selling local strawberries in front of the store, so I picked up a liter of them as well. They are a bit small, but melt in my mouth.

Saturday? Sunday? 18 Jul

Saturday morning Deb and Niklaas delivered me to the Pullman-Moscow International Airport about 6:00. It was a whirl-wind week in Moscow, with 4 separate meetings in 3 days, a Rendevous in the Park concert, and errands. I had about a 4 hour lay-over in Seattle. My flight to Amsterdam was uneventful and I enjoyed every minute of being in business class. I used up a lot of frequent flier miles to ensure I had a nice seat in the front of the plane. It really makes a huge difference on a 10-hour flight. My nursery friends will appreciate I had the "Botrytis Semillion" dessert wine... for my non-nursery friends, Botrytis is fungus and a real problem in our nurseries. I also flew first class from Amsterdam to Helsinki. It was a KLM flight and I was the only person occupying a seat in first class. I got really good service. The captain came out and sat down with me for a while. He looked like he was about 25 years old, but was very friendly and interested in why I was returning to Finland. My final leg to Kuopio was delayed about 40 minutes. Maria Poteri was again waiting for me at the airport, and delivered me to Suonenjoki. And, once again, she supplied me with some goodies to get by, including a nice cold beer. Bless her. I'm once again back in the guest apartments, same place I started. I went to bed at 20:00 to see if I could kill off the jet lag.

Leaving Helsinki, and Finland, 11-12 Jul

We zipped into Helsinki this morning for one more visit. The train was mostly young kids for the first few stops; not sure why. Some were dressed in a most peculiar way. It was a glorious sunny morning, so we had a breakfast pastry and coffee at an outdoor coffee stand, cruised the market, found the last few souvenirs, and spent some time listening to the street musicians. The most interesting was the pan-flute-playing, South American-looking, dressed as Southwestern USA Indians, group. More amazing is that Niklaas saw them a year ago on a corner in Seattle, and I saw them last fall in Patagonia. Small world, eh? We ate a light lunch at an outdoor café (fortunately, we picked the right place and avoided the “wrong” place) and then made our way back to the Metla guest house. We decided to spend the night at the airport Hilton, rather than get up even earlier to drag our bags to the bus stop, take the bus, deal with luggage, etc. We stopped by the airport this evening and checked-in. The great thing about European air travel is that you can check your bags the evening before. So, now we can sleep in until 5:00. Had a light dinner in the hotel and we are planning an earlier retirement. Tomorrow our first flight is at 6:45. We then leave Amsterdam at 10:00 for Seattle, arriving at 11:00… too bad it’s not really a one hour flight! We should be home in time for dinner; hopefully the luggage will be too!

I’ll post again once we are repatriated.

Update from Sea-Tac… no free Wi-Fi at the Hilton, the Helsinki airport, the Amsterdam airport, or the airplane…. but, thankfully the civilized people at Alaska Airlines have free, no-hassles Wi-Fi in the board room. We have arrived safely, as has our luggage. We are drinking our first less-bitter coffee in weeks, and ready for the last leg home.

I'll be starting up the blog again on Monday, 20 July.... Kiitos!