Sunday, December 7, 2008

To winter


Water on rocks, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I'm not sure whether you can actually say "to winter" in English, referring to birds and other species spending the winter either here up north or somewhere much warmer.

We haven't had really cold weather so far, but instead a lot of rain (and one snowstorm). Flocks of birds go around, and the last rose and rowan berries get eaten. Wild hares are showing white fur, and they are easy to spot in the black and brown forest.

I don't expect miracles, but the sun showing up once in a while would be nice. On Saturday we had such an occasion, but not today. Best would be to get a reasonable amount of snow, a few degrees below freezing temperature, and a lot of sunshine. That would really brighten the mood. But as it is, we have to cope with an abundance of water, and shades of brown in the forests. Well, with the colder weather these last two days, at least the water level is decreasing a bit.

2 comments:

Markus Spring said...

I think two things deserve to be mentioned here in the context of internet and freedom (but maybe a bit off-topic to photography): funet.fi played a major role in the development of a nowadays indispensible internet factor, the development of linux. And the freedom we enjoy now in this and many related topics is inextricably connected with the idea of creating not to keep but to give. The Creative Commons, being discussed in their applicability to photography as they are, form a well needed counter-balance to the capitalism-embossed traditional economical values. And we all, creative people and consumers, enjoy this freedom.

Juha Haataja said...

A good reminder! Thanks to ftp.funet.fi, Finland was in early 1990s a net exporter of internet traffic, Linux distributions being one of the big factors there.

And thanks to knowledge transfer done by the Funet project, Finland got a fast start with internet also in other ways. In those days Iceland and Finland were on top in internet connectivity, and it was joked that in Finland the reindeer have their own internet addresses.

Slightly off-topic but related to photography, Strobist initiated a heated exchange of opinions with the posting Four Reasons to Consider Working for Free: "Why? Because I think it is one of the fastest ways to make yourself a better photographer, whether you are a pro or an amateur."