Pink lily/lilies.

Yay ! The pink lilies are flowering 🙂 I hope they will last for as many days as possible. I don’t know but to me it looks like the rainy, wet, damp weather is no good for the flowers. The ones that already have faded look almost rotten. I think there was more or less rain most every day in July. Thumbs up for less of it in August. Wishing you all an enjoyable August !

Campanula patula

Campanula patula, spreading bellflower, harakankello, ängsklocka

I haven’t posted anything for a while. I’m waiting for the rest of the lilies to flower 🙂 I have, of course meanwhile, taken lots of pictures of all kind of wildflowers. Here some pictures of cute spreading bellflower. It’s been pretty windy lately so it was hard to get sharp pictures. I had to delete many shots.

Red & Yellow Lilies

The red and yellow tall (about 120 cm) lilies are in bloom. The other ones, in earlier postings, are 50 cm. In a day or two the pink lily will bloom. Also a tall one. Still waiting for the day lilies, Strawberry Candy and Catherine Woodbury, to bloom within about a week 🙂

Visit at the stable

Today we visited my sister and her horse Mortti. Last fall when we were there, I had half a kilo of carrots with me. Mortti thought it was like nothing so this time I brought one kilogram. I can tell he would have loved to have more ! On the farm, where she rents stable place for Mortti, is a small, about three weeks old foal. Ooohs and aaahs ! So, so cute. Afterwards we all went for coffee and cake at the same cafeteria as last time. Wonderful day. Thank you dear sister!

Quismo’s Birthday !

Happy birthday dear Quismo ! 12 years today !Have fun with your birthday present.Almost got it ! Should I jump ?I got it, I got it ! Hurry, I’m holding on to it.Oh no, it got loose ! Go get it Quismo, get it !A little bit lower and I am catching it 🙂

Both cats love the toy. We have had several wands. Usually they don’t last for very long. I should have known Quismo would not like the catnip drops. He has never been a fan of catnip toys. Quam on the other hand love them so it was no surprise he would love the drops.

Yellow Lilies

A few shots of the yellow lilies. I wonder when the other yellows will bloom. Maybe next week.

Yesterday we made a quick visit to the Gardenia in Helsinki. There is both a tropical garden and an outdoor garden. These lilies are in the outdoor garden. I wish I had this many in my garden of each color 🙂

Orange Lily

The orange lilies also in bloom now. I wonder are you able to see the tiny ant in the picture. I’m not sure is he the one to blame for the disappeared buds or not. He looks very harmless. And it was just he, all alone. Anyway, I’m so happy for all the flowers there is. The two last pictures differ in color. They are almost red. I used a different camera, they are close ups, the angle is different and the light as well, there’s more sunlight. OK, they are what they are 🙂

Next up, tomorrow: the yellow lily

Summer’s First Lily

How I have waited for the first lilies of the summer to bloom. Finally, yesterday the red Asian Lily (Lilium Asiatic ‘Matrix’) opened. I’m so happy there has been less snails, lily bugs and stink bugs this year. Last year the insects and snails made so much damage. They ate both leaves and buds. This year I had to do something about it. I bought Ferramol slug pellets. Much less snails/slugs in my flower bed now. I still find some but take them away immediately. I guess I can’t fight them all (snails) as there are trillions in the surroundings. I also bought Bayer Garden Calypso spray for insects. I think it worked for the bugs. But, still I can see some damage on the leaves and disappeared buds. Yesterday I found out there are ants ! They love the buds ! Ufff ! I guess I need to spray no matter how much I hate to do it !

Rhubarb-Strawberry Sorbet

Last week when I was at the health center waiting for my turn, I browsed a magazine. There was a recipe for Rhubarb-strawberry sorbet that looked good and seemed easy to do. I took my pocket camera from the bag and took a picture of it. On Saturday I made the sorbet. My husband thought there was not enough of it and suggested we have either ice cream or whipped cream with it. We had it with whipped vanilla cream. We didn’t have all of it on Saturday so today we had it again, this time without any cream, which I liked better.

His version

My version (almost like smoothie) 

Instructions

Serves 6-8

 1 dl water

1 dl sugar

150 g rhubarb

200 g strawberries

2 egg whites

1. Wash rhubarb stalks and trim the stem and leaf ends; cut rhubarb into ½ inch pieces.
2. Put rhubarb, water and sugar in a saucepan; bring to a boil.
3. Decrease heat, cover, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the rhubarb is tender and cooked through.
4. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
5. Slice the strawberries and purée them with the cooked rhubarb mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth.
6. Chill the mixture thoroughly, put it in the freezer for an hour.
7. Take it out, whisk the egg whites until stiff, stir the whipped egg whites into the mixture
8. Put it in the freezer for two hours stirring it a couple of times during that time.
9. Let it stay in the freezer for at least three hours before serving.

II read online, it is almost exactly the same recipe but,  without egg whites and with a teaspoon of lemon juice. Next time I’ll leave the whites and add lemon.

Ring Rail Line

The Ring Rail Line opened on July 1st. Now you can go by train from Helsinki Central railway station to the airport. We, of course, because of curiosity took the “ring” trip yesterday. There are “P” and “I” trains, the other goes clockwise the other counterclockwise, both every 10 minutes during daytime.

Through the window we saw dark clouds ahead in the distance. When we arrived at the central station and stepped off the first rain drops dropped. We made it to the glass-covered part. Then the water poured down ! Luckily it didn’t last for more than ten minutes. Good for us. Now we could enter the train for the return trip without getting wet.