Sunday, May 23, 2010

We went hiking with the kids!

This country is not perfect, but there's something here that I really like! It's the clean nature, and we have plenty of it! MashaAllah!



My children share my interest in nature. That's why my daughter Nadia and I take the kids out in the woods as often as we can. This is the first year even my little grandson Ali is old enough to walk a bit more far by himself.


Today we took them to a place we call a troll mountain. There's an old light house (lol it was used for airplanes, not ships. The sea is not near enough :P ). There used to be an airport near here, since 1936, and that's why the light house was built.


The airport was the most northern airport of the world. When the new airport was built in Turku on 1955, the light house wasn't needed and it also hasn't been taken care of ever since.


The light house is not in a good condition, and some youth have painted some art on it and used it as a party spot, but otherwise the place is lovely.


There's a large open area, so the kids can go around alone a bit and it's easy to watch them. The children were playing and exploring the place finding some interesting things. And we don't have dangerous wild animals here so Nadia and I got a chance to relax a bit while the kids were having fun!!


We had a nice picnic and had a very good time and the whole day was wonderful! (some little boys were showing some character at some points though :P ) MashaAllah!


There is a lot of blueberry plants blooming. Later in the summer we have to go back with buckets :P inshaAllah. I love blueberry pie and blueberry muffins! And blueberry milk! It needs just fresh blueberries, milk and a little sugar, eaten from a cup with a spoon.


There's a lot of lingonberry plants too, but those don't bloom yet. They have the berries in the end of summer or autumn. I'm not so exited about them, but my mom makes the best porridge of them mashaAllah! And I'm soooooooo not a porridge eater!


I guess everyone knows what this (under pic) is. Wild strawberry! There will be plenty of those too! InshaAllah! I looooove wild strawberries! When I was little we used to pick them up and string them to a long piece of hay. InshaAllah I will teach that to my kids this summer!


Of course a little something had to happen, like every time we go somewhere :D . This time I thing it was my fault. The juice bottle wasn't closed good.. And of course I had some extra shirts for the kids in the same bag :D . Bad me.. So I hung the shirts to the tree to get dry in case they're needed. Alhamdulilah it was so hot they were'nt.


We also found this kind of little flowers. I used to see plenty of them when I was a kid, but I feel like they're disappearing, I haven't seen any for years! They say it's still very common, so maybe I just have been in wrong kind of areas. We call it a forest star. I found two english names for it from wikipedia: chickweed wintergreen or Arctic starflower.


The view from up there was great! Green everywhere! And Finland is like this all the way, 'The Land Of Green Gold' mashaAllah!


We could see until my mothers home, which is over 10 km far from that place. It doesn't show so much in the pic because it's small, but you can grow it a little by clicking on it. Nader the attitude dude wanted to go to my mothers place by walk because it looked like it's so near :P . He is crazy sometimes :D .


Most of the trees high up there are pines, so there's also a lot of ants building houses. This is just a little one, but on the way there we saw some big ones too. Alhamdulilah the kids are used to the ants by now: in the beginning of the summer they often fear them first, and don't want to sit on the ground for picnic because of them :D .


Just before we left my daughter Nadia saw something cute and funny. Two ants were trying to carry a piece of salad that dropped from our sandwiches. They couldn't decide which way to go and ended up walking here and there and after a while in a circle. Lol it was kinda interesting :P like a little movie. Poor ants.


There's something else I also love in this country! That is the summer nights when we don't get darkness! It's not yet the time when the darkness doesn't exist at all, but we're getting there soon inshaAllah! The sun set at 10.23 pm today, but it takes a long time after that to get dark, like two hours. I took this picture from my garden at 11 pm today and it was still like daylight mashaAllah!



Alhamdulilah for days like this! Alhamdulilah for everything!


5 comments:

  1. As Salaam Alaikum, MashaAllah I love your new layout. My 9yo daughter and I enjoyed going on the virtual field trip with you, LOL! It is very beautiful, MashaAllah. She was surprised to see the blueberry and strawberry plants growing wild in the forest. She was also amazed how it won't get dark during the summer. Now she (and I) want to go and visit you all there, hehehe!
    (((hugs)))

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  2. masha'a'Allah sis! what lovely pictures! as always!

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  4. mishmish, come in the end of june or beginning of july. that time finland is full of blueberries and the nights don't get dark. it messes up the praying times quite well hehe.. :D

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  5. Lovely and entertaining story (and pictures) like always! I could read your blog on and on...story after story... :) so even if I don't comment, know that I still read it and enjoy it! :P

    *Idea* Your blog is like a book...about your life. LOL :P

    Anyway, LOL @
    1) Nader wanting to walk to your mom's house... :D
    2) The ants...poor tiny things...I wonder if they felt the piece of salad to be heavy LOL

    OMG @ it not getting dark!!!!! I want to live in Finland! I very much prefer day over night :) But, I think it would REALLY make me not want to go to sleep...lol...like, "Let's go out...it's still light out." Haha :P

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Even if I love talking to myself, it would be lovely to hear what you have to say! :P